Potions of Azerland

In Potions of Azerland from Warped Reality and Lucky Duck, the 1-4 players are collecting ingredients and using them to brew potions. There's a market of 'visitors' (customers) looking to take specific potions off your hands, and selling to them will earn you victory points and an immediate bonus or additional set collection scoring opportunities. On the other hand, you might choose to consume your own potions... That won't earn you points but it will give you more powerful abilities for the rest of the game, particularly when you have upgraded your skills with the three potion types.

Tho' the 'drink or sell' decision is always an interesting one, that isn't the core mechanic at the heart of Grayden Baker's design in Potions of Azerland. The actions each round are foraging (rolling custom six-sided dice to collect the ingredients shown), studying (moving up the skills tracks on your board), buying cards from the market display, brewing potions or fulfilling customers' orders; and the strength of the actions (ie: how many dice you roll or how many potions you can brew) is determined by players' own choice of turn order. Before each round, players program their actions by simultaneously and secretly allocating their 1-5 markers to each action. If you go for 1st player for foraging, you'll get to roll more dice than other players so will collect more ingredients, but you won't be going first on any of the other actions...

Among other things, you can collect apprentices. They are worth points at the end of the game but during play you can always trade in an apprentice to gain an additional dice, advance further on a skills track or brew an additional potion.

The action selection/programming/blind bidding element is very much the standout feature of Potions of Azerland. It's central to the player interaction in the game as players try to suss out what actions others will be seeking to prioritise: if you think other players aren't going to prioritise studying this round, you might be able to end up with first position for that action (and therefore farthest advancement on the skills tracks) with just a 3. There's a mechanic to resolve ties when two or more players choose the same turn order number for an action. Cards in the market and customer displays aren't replaced until the end of a round, so going last in those actions could mean you end up with nothing... During the programming stage, you can choose not to allocate one or more number markers; you won't get to take those actions but you'll get one or two coins instead, depending on the number you didn't use.

Potions of Azerland is easy to learn and it's attractively presented with art by Andrew Bosley. The potion-brewing theme will obviously appeal to those raised on Harry Potter but the game's turn order mechanics will fascinate players who aren't otherwise captivated by the theme. There's a solitaire option, with it's own discrete rules, and the game is playable with just two but, for us, it shines with three or four players, where it's at its interactive best.

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