Alchemists Gameplay Runthrough 

Welcome to the hobby! Rahdo is one of the reason I got so into the hobby in the first place. Keep Watching his videos and you are definitely going to more and more games your going to want to play until your house is full of them!

Robert Masson I disagree. One shouldn't not buy the game just because of that.. Analog is still there

***** nope, alchemists came out 6 months before xcom. Also, they both lose to Scotland Yard Master which has an AWESOME app integration with augmented reality (it's cooler than alchemists and xcom combined, IMO). It came out a year earlier than either of these but is unfortunately only available in German :( ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-OU76HWjcE-c.html

Jan Van Hoef wow! i wish it was short... for me and Jen I imagine it'll probably run about 2 hours on average (maybe 90 minutes if we play it a lot and get really good)

Second playthrough of the apprentice variant took us 90 minutes. And this was including setup and cleanup. My definition of short may differ. Each week at game night we try and play one new game with 4. Including rules explanation this takes 2-3 hours every time. Although I like it a lot. Dungeon Petz is still my favourite CGE game.

The thing that makes me wonder about that is once you use the same ingredient 3 or 4 times you should have a pretty good idea of what it is...by the 6th time it is almost impossible to not be 100% sure of what the item is. Also other experiments can teach you things about ingredients not in them. So if she used the same ingredient 9 times it would be impossible to not know the exact properties of that one.

+Hugo Brito interesting... you might want to ask that question on BGG, because i think you might be right, that you can't debunk to prove yourself 'righter' and you have to live iwth the fewer points. but i could be wrong, it's a complex game! :)

+NytStrykr you can't. 2nd plyear has to choose a diff time

oh thanks, also the player whose goes first alternates per round?

+NytStrykr iirc it's a bit more complicated than that. i did demo it in the runthrough :)

thinking of buying this game. Will definitely re-watch this. Thanks a lot for all your effort man.

Riccardo Pinna boardgamegeek has the answers! boardgamegeek.com/wiki/page/thing:161970:moreinfo :)

forget it... I just watched the final thoughts... (where you talk about it) :)

Mr. Terraria you don't need the app. you can use the website instead alchemists.czechgames.com/ or if you like, one person can replicate the function of the app, but they can't play

Thanks, also would you recommend Dungeon Lords, because it looks amazing!

Mr. Terraria well i've done a runthrough for that already so you can watch the final thoughts here: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-wvivxNR2iZk.html

Again thank you, it's just I've just started getting into proper board games! So far I am in possession of and have played Risk, Pandemic (Also a Z-Man game like Dungeon Lords), Dead of Winter and the Arkham Horror, and I want to expand and play a lot more!

Mr. Terraria I'm definitely getting Dungeon Lords, it looks amazing! I'll tell you how it goes when I play my first few games with my friends and family!

Brian Blackwell actually the box is very clear that you need to download the app. in fact, it's brilliant - there's a QR code on the box that encourages you to download the app there in the store, while you're looking at the box. once it's downloaded, it gives you stuff on the box to scan to start playing the game before you've even bought it. really smart stuff! :)

***** Smart for sure. That's a nice touch to help you make your decision.

I don't have a smartphone and I plan never to have one....and I'm a computer programmer.

nanorider426 Why draw the line at smart phones? It seems rather arbitrary, considering you have no objection to a computer on your desk but oppose having one in your pocket.

I apologize in advance. Rant incoming: rant/ I oppose having a phone that can be hacked and having the net everywhere I go (facebook and the like). I like to walk in the forest or in my neighbourhood without having my phone on me. Everywhere I go people sit (or walk) staring into a smartphone instead of looking where they go or talk to each other. Every other day I see a person walking or cycling and staring into a smartphone without looking at the traffic. Once in a while I see people like those have near fatal accidents because of their smartphones. Over half of my country has a smartphone but recently some people are turning away from them because they get stressed being always online (mostly young people). They get no sleep, or very little sleep, because they are on the social media 24/7. I like having a mobil (a cell); a camera - a real camera; and a pc or a laptop. I dislike having them in one item. A smartphone can't do it like those other items; it can only do it halfway. I don't care what other people want. If they like it they can have it, I will have nothing of it. Some people (NOT everybody) are controlled by their smartphone; looking up emails or facebook or other things while they are talking with you. It can be SO irritating! I don't want to be like those persons. I like to be a person that can focus my attention on you! The one I'm talking to. /rant *sigh* I really needed to get that off my chest. So smartphones are not for me, but if other people like them it's fine by me - if they control the smartphones and doesn't let the smartphones control them. :)

faq.rahdo.com #1 tells all :)

Jonathan Delrosario sorry, it's a 3p minimum game, so won't work for me and jen

***** But don't you use Tula when you demonstrate 3p games?

Darth Araknus yup, but i don't seek out 3p games in the first place because they're very difficult for me to get played in the first place, as there's just me and my wife (the beagles aren't very good opponents IRL) :)

***** I think Tula might be hurt by that comment :D. By the way, Thanks for rekindling my love for board games after I forgot about them during my childhood since we couldn't afford them.

Thanos_Lcf it wasn't a review, it was a runthrough :)

Fair enough,I still think it needed a bt of structure! Which is odd considering your other vid are great! I'm not trying to be a smartass,just giving some feedback!

Munteanu Catalin i think this game (and Scotland Yard Master from last year, and XCOM and Yoho next year) prove otherwise :)

Fighting change isn't going to stop it. Why don't you try it. It would be kinda neat to put some old smartphones in wifi mode without a carrier and uninstalling everything BUT these game apps. IE. They would just be game table smartphones. No twitter, no facebook, no browsers.

You can't be more right. Nothing annoys me more when "one guy" haven't even noticed that it is his turn, because he is checking his phone for some reason. I have to use my phone and computer for almost everything these days, and this one night a week I just want to forget about it, and throw some dice, draw some cards, move some tokens. The more fiddly game the better! Finally I got something real to do with friends and family, use our imagination. I'd rather do the Arkham Horror level bookkeeping, than have an app to do it for me, that makes me more involved and immersed somehow, bu that is just me.

Brian Blackwell "why not just make the whole game an app and be done with it?" they do that already, it's called a videogame! :) no one is talking about videogames here, but boardgames, with real tactile components, and real people sitting around a table, sharing the experience together. nothing in alchemists digital gets in the way of that. "Is there anything left on this planet that doesn't require you to have your face in that goddam phone? They should be piled in a bucket by the front door on game night. First you're looking at it for gaming purposes, then when it's not your turn you're sneaking a peek at whether anyone's bidding on your eBay auction, or if Rahdo uploaded any new videos, or a million other things." like i said in the video, if you're genuinely concerned about that, put the phone in airplane mode when the game starts. problem solved, mischief managed :) "To each his own, of course, but I see board games as an escape from electronic devices, and never the two shall meet at my table." You will be missing out on some absolutely awesome entertainment then, but I suppose a lot of people refuse to watch TV or movies too, for the same reasons. "Books are all I need!" type stuff :)

Wojciech Król i guess my question is, what's the difference between looking up a result on a table in the back page of a manual, vs looking up a result on a PDA screen? neither of these takes you away from what you're looking for in your social around-the-table gaming...

***** I know, I know, I'm too young to be making the "kids today and their i-paddles" argument. Hahahaha You're right, it need not interfere and can be useful, but I can't help but feel like if there's anywhere sacred, where we could benefit from leaving these devices at the door, it's in tabletop gaming. I used a pdf for the charts and rulebook for the print-and-play solo game, Barbarian Prince. It was just for reference, but soon I found myself in zombie mode staring at that screen because the app closed unexpectedly, and so I thought maybe too much stuff was running, so I went to close other apps... so on and so forth, and down the technological rabbit hole we go. I wished I had just printed out the tables. I'm with Wojciech; I use the phone a lot, and though nobody's putting a gun to my head to do it, making a clean break every now and then is just what the doctor ordered for me personally.

Brian Blackwell You dont need a smartphone to run this game.... just read the whole rules. There´s "something" like a GM (gamemaster).

Arachnopud boardgames already have micro transactions... they're called promos. it's not hurting the industry as far as i can see. :)freemium games work on the concept that the game is complete, and 100% playable "out of the box" and if you want, you can pay additional money to get additional items/benefits/etc. promos do the same thing with boardgames. :)

I don't think microtransactions will ever arrive at that point in board games. The competitive nature of the game being around a single, physical table would prevent it, because it would cause in-person arguments which would drive people away from those games because people don't like conflict in person. Conflict online is completely impersonal, but when you are at a table together, you would quickly find that game in the trash because no one would want to deal with the drama, and people would be wary to ever buy another game with that mechanic.