Animalchemists

Tinkering away with flasks and potions at their cauldrons, five mammalian mages compete to become the ultimate alchemist. They scour the forest for basic components like honey, mushrooms and bones, grind these up into such concoctions as poison and incense, then mix these mystical elixirs to conjure fantastical magic. Whether these spells terraform the land around them to form new ingredients, strike fear into their competitors with terrifying illusions, or even stop the flow of time itself, all’s fair when it comes to the ancient art of Animalchemy.

For 2-5 players, Animalchemists is a card-drafting, market-management, spell-casting game with a simple rule set but surprising strategic depth, especially for its pocket size and low card count. Earning nearly three times more than its initial Kickstarter goal, let’s open this glimmering grimoire and see what lies within.

Scouring The Spellbook

The aim of the game is to gather combinations of ingredients to make potions, then use combinations of those to create powerful spells; the game ends immediately when someone crafts the Time Stop spell. Every card is also worth a certain number of points (ingredients are 1, potions are 3, and spells are 5, 10 or 15), which are added up after time is stopped. The player with the most points wins!

To set up, players will select or be randomly assigned one of five positively precious playable characters: Fennec Fox, Red Panda, Honey Badger, Pangolin, or Sloth. The only asymmetry between this band is their special abilities, which we’ll cover in a moment. Next, shuffle the ingredients deck and lay out five cards, then put the remainder face down to form a draw pile. Then, stack the four copies of the five types of potion and place these in a row. There is no draw deck for potions, as they are one-time-use! Finally, do the same as you did for ingredients with the spell deck, but place the Time Stop spell on the bottom. Now, let’s get mixing!

On a player’s turn, they may take one of three actions: draw two ingredient cards to your hidden hand, either from the visible row and/or blind from the draw deck; use any ingredients you have to craft potions, placing them in front of you; or use a combination of potions and ingredients to craft a spell on the spell row, with the most valuable ones costing two potions.

In addition to the above three actions, players may cast any spells they have learned and/or use their afore-mentioned once-per-game character ability: flipping their character card, players may take all copies of a single ingredient, unique to each creature, from the ingredients row. This powerful wildcard move is best utilised when there are as many copies of your corresponding component as possible in the row, and will likely dictate your strategy a little as you favour concoctions that require your personal ingredient.

Turning Tin Into Gold

Animalchemists features a number of push and pull elements as players keep track of not only their own bag of tricks, but also their opponents’. How many mushrooms have I seen Sloth pick up? Are they trying to make incense or essence? There’s a little memory puzzle to be found in trying to suss out which path they’re trying to take, as no spells or potions require exactly the same combination of ingredients. Consequently, there’s enough potions to make every spell in the game, affording you ample time to adapt your strategy if that pesky Pangolin harnesses the power of Invisibility before you.

You can even view the gameplay as a little narrative in and of itself, from lowly apprentice to sorcerer supreme. As you all scrabble about looking for seeds and herbs at the start of the game, it doesn’t feel like you can do much except draw blind to fight lady luck, so it does feel a little decided by chance; you’re inexperienced and working with what you know. But as the game progresses, the options quickly open up. A majority of the spells influence the ingredients row, manipulating nature to give you the raw materials you need. You’re constantly making your alchemy table more efficient until the endgame culminates in a mad, magical dash for points before anyone can cast the Time Stop.

Botched Brew

My only issues with Animalchemists lie in the overall reaction, rather than the base elements. With strong, colourful artwork by Anastas Ermolina, and a good variety of options (will you focus on hindering other players, or bettering your own understanding of the mystic arts?), a solid gameplay core is certainly there. But, in practice, each match can feel a little repetitive if you play the game often, and low player counts can feel less like throwing hexes at one another and more like slowly studying sorcery. Playing with different people won’t necessarily bring new strategies to the game, either, as these are entirely dictated by the set list of spells available, and I’d like to have seen more unique character abilities. However, younger audiences will appreciate the spot-varnished shine of the cards and the magical mischief of upsetting their opponents’ cauldrons. It’s a pocket-sized affair, so I wasn’t expecting the secret to eternal youth!

Universal Elixir

It’s worth mentioning that other Kickstarter projects of a similar size or smaller, like Circle the Wagons (with over three thousand combinations of three objectives from just eighteen cards!) or the upcoming Waking Shards, manage to squeeze exponentially more gameplay variety into far fewer cards. Animalchemists, though, is certainly family-friendly, and has the versatility to be played casually or allow you to analyse your next move for minutes at a time; your limited actions mean plenty of risk-reward decision-making.

For the first foray into games of this type, or as a game night warm-up before cracking open a larger endeavour, I can’t recommend Animalchemists enough. With unique borders for each ingredient, painterly card backs, and character designs that wouldn’t feel out of place in an animated movie, the simpler elements of the gameplay are offset by the fact that the care put into the game is clearer than a crystal ball.