This review has been a long time coming: I’ve had Chaos & Alchemy for over six months now, and that’s more than enough time for a playtest!
Back in January, the head designer at Clay Crucible Games sent me a box containing Chaos & Alchemy – a card game inspired by the history and writings of ancient alchemy! He had presented demos of the game at GenCon 2012 with some noteworthy success, and sent me one of the few copies left from his limited print run – which were rapidly selling out! And so I was asked to play the game, but hold off on the review for a bit, as a Kickstarter was being planned for a larger print run and new release.
A few months later, I learned that Clay Crucible Games was teaming up with Game Salute for a wider distribution of the game, and the Kickstarter was pushed back a bit. So I held up the review a bit more, waiting for the go-ahead to post one.
Finally, I got the word I could write a review for Chaos & Alchemy in the latter part of July. So I finally got to put the game on my schedule, and get that review out. But in the interim, I managed to misplace the review I had written months ago, so had to go back to writing up a new one for the game.
Today will be a dual review of Chaos & Alchemy: A discussion of the original version of the game which I playtested, and another that gives a nod toward the upcoming new re-release and what it has in store.
And as it so happens, this day is also to be the first day of the Chaos & Alchemy Kickstarter campaign. And this Kickstarter campaign will not only be for a larger print run, but for new illustrations as well. Funny how things work out sometimes…
Chaos & Alchemy Card Game
Chaos & Alchemy is a fast-paced card/dice game for 2 to 5 players, who take on the roles of competing alchemists seeking to win the King’s favor by being the first to turn lead into gold. The original game was published by Clay Crucible Games, and came with a deck of 80 cards, 5 success/failure cards, 26 small six-sided dice (1 purple, 5 green, and twenty black), and an instruction sheet. The new release by Clay Crucible Games and Game Salute will feature 90 cards, 9 dice, and a “Success Cube”. The new release is contingent upon a successful Kickstarter campaign, which started today and is already 65% funded.
Production Quality
The production quality of Chaos & Alchemy, as with any card game, hinges mainly on the cards themselves, by taking in account their appearance, sturdiness, artwork, and the designer’s creativity and writing style. Other factors worth considering is the authorship on the rules sheet, as well as the box and components.
Starting off with the components, I found the box on the original game release of Chaos & Alchemy to be a simple brown cardboard box with colorful adhesive label. The label design was actually quite good, depicting a hooded maiden working at her alchemy bench. From the Kickstarter page, it appears that the box has undergone substantial upgrades, but still includes the logo and lady alchemist on the cover. The dice are of good quality plastic, and look like dice one might buy from any decent gaming store. This Reviewer assumes that the dice in the new release will be as good a quality as the original release.
The cards themselves are as sturdy as any card from a CCG, and are finished with a glossy-slick finish with a hit of reflectivity. In the original release, they are colorfully bordered, but have gray-scale illustrations. Based upon the Kickstarter information, the 2014 release will have new illustrations in full color with new border art - which is one of the main goals of the campaign. And the writing for the cards is very good, with clear instructions for when the card is played, and interesting and often humorous flavor text.
For the original release, the artwork was a bit scattershot in quality with some very good and some not so good. I particularly liked the sketch style artwork of Beth Sobel and Andres Canals, which I thought had some of the best illustrations in the deck. The new illustrations will be done by Enggar Adirasa (http://sensevessel.deviantart.com/) with Dann May designing the card layouts. And again, if you look at the card pics from the Kickstarter page, they look really awesome, with striking new card layouts.
“I’m an agent of chaos.”
As a card game, Chaos & Alchemy has some fairly cool medieval roots to it, and even a few fantasy elements thrown in for good measure. Each player in the game is an Alchemist, seeking to be the first in the Kingdom to turn lead into gold, thereby winning the contest set forth by the King. The designer used inspiration for the game from alchemical manuscripts found at The Alchemy Website – which is a totally amazing website for finding content to add some alchemical elements (pun intended) to your next medieval fantasy RPG.
So that’s the meta-flavor bit.
Chaos & Alchemy is won by building an “alchemy lab” worth 10 points before the other players do. Your alchemy lab consists of those cards you play – place in front of you – with values ranging from 0 to 3 (or sometimes variable amounts). Sounds pretty simple – but as it turns out, it’s not!
In order to play a card, you have to run an experiment each turn by rolling 3 dice (sometimes more if you have a card that adds dice), and comparing each die’s value to the Fortune Die. If a die is less than the Fortune Die, it counts as a failure, while results equal to or exceeding the value count as successes. Successes can be used to play a card to build your lab up, or to draw a new card to add to your hand. Failures force you to discard a card, but you can resolve your successes before failures, and there is no penalty for having no cards in your hand to discard.
Each player always has a minimum of one success per turn, regardless of roll, and the starting target number on the Fortune Die for a success is 4 or more. Again, sounds like a simple set of rules using dice and cards – but nope, not so simple.
Here’s the Chaos bit – any time you roll a doubles, the Fortune Die gets rolled. If you roll all the same number on all your experiment dice, you must roll the Fortune Die twice. You do have a minor advantage of choosing whether to resolve your successes with the current value or the new value after the roll, but it means the Fortune Die’s target number gets changed now and then – or quite a bit if you have lots of players!
And to add a bit more Chaos and competitiveness to Chaos & Alchemy, there are plenty of cards which don’t build your lab so much as steal or destroy parts of the labs of other players!
The designer created a wide range of cards and effects, each color coded for easy identification. The gold edged Innovation cards build up your lab’s point total, and also give some special advantage. For instance, adding a Mortar & Pestle to your lab gives you one point, but also lets you add +1 to one of you experiment dice each turn. The Brass Orrery has a point value equal to half the value of the Fortune Die, so it changes all the time, and might suddenly grant a win to a player. But some Innovation cards can be used to harm other players – adding an Alchemical Spy to one’s lab grants 2 points, and, when first played, also lets you look at another player’s hand and steal a card to add to your own hand. And there are plenty of other cards in the deck which can affect the course of the game for other players.
Black bordered Misfortune cards can be added to another player’s lab to cause troubles or even steal points – such as placing a King’s Disfavor in a player’s lab applies a -2 to his point total. Action cards, lined in blue, often cause trouble for other players – the Compensated Thief allows you to take a card from another player’s laboratory and place it in your own, but the victim gets to immediately draw and play a card. And I can personally attest that in a two-player game, the Action card called Stars Align can be really troublesome for an opponent, as it lets you pick up the Fortune Die and set it to whatever value you choose! And there are also a few red-bordered Reaction cards in the deck, which allow you to react to another player – the Hasty Intervention card can be played anytime to force an opponent to discard the card he just played while blocking its effects. Oh yes, the Hasty Intervention can sometimes be the one card that can prevent another player from achieving victory – at least for that turn!
The play style is pretty fast, although I never got to play with 4 or 5 players so not sure if the play slows down a bit when you max out the players, and the rules are very easy to teach. This game has that feel of “snatching defeat from the jaws of victory” rather than the other way around, with one’s lab being built up and then pilphered when you near victory, and so you grab stuff from your opponent’s lab, and so back and forth quite frequently. But eventually, a victor emerges, with most games lasting less than an hour – most games I’ve played last about 25-30 minutes. And if the standard victory conditions seem dull after a while, the designer also threw in in some optional rules to make the game last longer or have a slightly edgier play style.
I should mention that a month or so after I received my copy of Chaos & Alchemy, Clay Crucible Games sent me an expansion pack which added Substance cards to the game, as well as a few Innovation and Action cards. The green background Substance cards add a new way to use your successes from your experiment dice. They allow you to “mix” any two Substance cards from your hand, and play both of the effects on each card. The names of the Substances are drawn from alchemical lore, such as Quicksilver and Aqua Fortis, and each one has a unique effect which can be very beneficial. While there is no mention yet of any expansion decks, this Reviewer wonders if we might see one come out as part of the stretch goals for the Kickstarter.
Overall Score: 3.9 out of 5.0
(If they keep with the new art style and box shown in the Kickstarter, I’d give it a 4.2 rating!)
Final Conclusions
I really had a hard time finding fault with the play style and game mechanics of Chaos & Alchemy, and it really is a fast-paced and fun card game to play. The use of both dice and cards which can have adverse effects on other players really adds some tension and excitement to each player’s turn, while the effects of the cards themselves provide plenty of opportunities for strategy. While the artwork on the original set was hit-and-miss in quality, it in no way detracted from the enjoyment of trouncing your fellow alchemists by stealing their gear, or when dropping misfortunes upon the front-runner for the King’s prize.
I could even see enterprising GMs using the Chaos & Alchemy as a meta-framework in D&D or Pathfinder, to generate plots and adventures from the Kingdom’s alchemists vying to be the first to appease the King.
Given that a successful Kickstarter for Chaos & Alchemy will mean the new release has more quality artwork, a fancy box, and a larger print run, I can definitely recommend this as a great “beer & pretzels” game for those nights when your favorite RPG gets cancelled, and you still want to play something with a fantasy edge to it!
Reviewer’s Note: This Reviewer received a complimentary copy of the product from which the review was written.
Grade Card (Ratings 1 to 5)
Back in January, the head designer at Clay Crucible Games sent me a box containing Chaos & Alchemy – a card game inspired by the history and writings of ancient alchemy! He had presented demos of the game at GenCon 2012 with some noteworthy success, and sent me one of the few copies left from his limited print run – which were rapidly selling out! And so I was asked to play the game, but hold off on the review for a bit, as a Kickstarter was being planned for a larger print run and new release.
A few months later, I learned that Clay Crucible Games was teaming up with Game Salute for a wider distribution of the game, and the Kickstarter was pushed back a bit. So I held up the review a bit more, waiting for the go-ahead to post one.
Finally, I got the word I could write a review for Chaos & Alchemy in the latter part of July. So I finally got to put the game on my schedule, and get that review out. But in the interim, I managed to misplace the review I had written months ago, so had to go back to writing up a new one for the game.
Today will be a dual review of Chaos & Alchemy: A discussion of the original version of the game which I playtested, and another that gives a nod toward the upcoming new re-release and what it has in store.
And as it so happens, this day is also to be the first day of the Chaos & Alchemy Kickstarter campaign. And this Kickstarter campaign will not only be for a larger print run, but for new illustrations as well. Funny how things work out sometimes…
Chaos & Alchemy Card Game
- Game Design: Michael Iachini
- Card Illustrations: Andres Canals, J. Embleton, Jane Falkenburg, Lana Gjovig, LochaBWS, J.J. Mason, Beth Sobel
- Publisher: Clay Crucible Games & Game Salute
- Year: 2012
- Media: Card Game (with dice!)
- Price: $35 (The game is also available through the Kickstarter campaign for a $25 pledge.)
Chaos & Alchemy is a fast-paced card/dice game for 2 to 5 players, who take on the roles of competing alchemists seeking to win the King’s favor by being the first to turn lead into gold. The original game was published by Clay Crucible Games, and came with a deck of 80 cards, 5 success/failure cards, 26 small six-sided dice (1 purple, 5 green, and twenty black), and an instruction sheet. The new release by Clay Crucible Games and Game Salute will feature 90 cards, 9 dice, and a “Success Cube”. The new release is contingent upon a successful Kickstarter campaign, which started today and is already 65% funded.
Production Quality
The production quality of Chaos & Alchemy, as with any card game, hinges mainly on the cards themselves, by taking in account their appearance, sturdiness, artwork, and the designer’s creativity and writing style. Other factors worth considering is the authorship on the rules sheet, as well as the box and components.
Starting off with the components, I found the box on the original game release of Chaos & Alchemy to be a simple brown cardboard box with colorful adhesive label. The label design was actually quite good, depicting a hooded maiden working at her alchemy bench. From the Kickstarter page, it appears that the box has undergone substantial upgrades, but still includes the logo and lady alchemist on the cover. The dice are of good quality plastic, and look like dice one might buy from any decent gaming store. This Reviewer assumes that the dice in the new release will be as good a quality as the original release.
The cards themselves are as sturdy as any card from a CCG, and are finished with a glossy-slick finish with a hit of reflectivity. In the original release, they are colorfully bordered, but have gray-scale illustrations. Based upon the Kickstarter information, the 2014 release will have new illustrations in full color with new border art - which is one of the main goals of the campaign. And the writing for the cards is very good, with clear instructions for when the card is played, and interesting and often humorous flavor text.
For the original release, the artwork was a bit scattershot in quality with some very good and some not so good. I particularly liked the sketch style artwork of Beth Sobel and Andres Canals, which I thought had some of the best illustrations in the deck. The new illustrations will be done by Enggar Adirasa (http://sensevessel.deviantart.com/) with Dann May designing the card layouts. And again, if you look at the card pics from the Kickstarter page, they look really awesome, with striking new card layouts.“I’m an agent of chaos.”
As a card game, Chaos & Alchemy has some fairly cool medieval roots to it, and even a few fantasy elements thrown in for good measure. Each player in the game is an Alchemist, seeking to be the first in the Kingdom to turn lead into gold, thereby winning the contest set forth by the King. The designer used inspiration for the game from alchemical manuscripts found at The Alchemy Website – which is a totally amazing website for finding content to add some alchemical elements (pun intended) to your next medieval fantasy RPG.
So that’s the meta-flavor bit.
Chaos & Alchemy is won by building an “alchemy lab” worth 10 points before the other players do. Your alchemy lab consists of those cards you play – place in front of you – with values ranging from 0 to 3 (or sometimes variable amounts). Sounds pretty simple – but as it turns out, it’s not!
In order to play a card, you have to run an experiment each turn by rolling 3 dice (sometimes more if you have a card that adds dice), and comparing each die’s value to the Fortune Die. If a die is less than the Fortune Die, it counts as a failure, while results equal to or exceeding the value count as successes. Successes can be used to play a card to build your lab up, or to draw a new card to add to your hand. Failures force you to discard a card, but you can resolve your successes before failures, and there is no penalty for having no cards in your hand to discard.
Each player always has a minimum of one success per turn, regardless of roll, and the starting target number on the Fortune Die for a success is 4 or more. Again, sounds like a simple set of rules using dice and cards – but nope, not so simple.
Here’s the Chaos bit – any time you roll a doubles, the Fortune Die gets rolled. If you roll all the same number on all your experiment dice, you must roll the Fortune Die twice. You do have a minor advantage of choosing whether to resolve your successes with the current value or the new value after the roll, but it means the Fortune Die’s target number gets changed now and then – or quite a bit if you have lots of players!
And to add a bit more Chaos and competitiveness to Chaos & Alchemy, there are plenty of cards which don’t build your lab so much as steal or destroy parts of the labs of other players!
The designer created a wide range of cards and effects, each color coded for easy identification. The gold edged Innovation cards build up your lab’s point total, and also give some special advantage. For instance, adding a Mortar & Pestle to your lab gives you one point, but also lets you add +1 to one of you experiment dice each turn. The Brass Orrery has a point value equal to half the value of the Fortune Die, so it changes all the time, and might suddenly grant a win to a player. But some Innovation cards can be used to harm other players – adding an Alchemical Spy to one’s lab grants 2 points, and, when first played, also lets you look at another player’s hand and steal a card to add to your own hand. And there are plenty of other cards in the deck which can affect the course of the game for other players.
Black bordered Misfortune cards can be added to another player’s lab to cause troubles or even steal points – such as placing a King’s Disfavor in a player’s lab applies a -2 to his point total. Action cards, lined in blue, often cause trouble for other players – the Compensated Thief allows you to take a card from another player’s laboratory and place it in your own, but the victim gets to immediately draw and play a card. And I can personally attest that in a two-player game, the Action card called Stars Align can be really troublesome for an opponent, as it lets you pick up the Fortune Die and set it to whatever value you choose! And there are also a few red-bordered Reaction cards in the deck, which allow you to react to another player – the Hasty Intervention card can be played anytime to force an opponent to discard the card he just played while blocking its effects. Oh yes, the Hasty Intervention can sometimes be the one card that can prevent another player from achieving victory – at least for that turn!
The play style is pretty fast, although I never got to play with 4 or 5 players so not sure if the play slows down a bit when you max out the players, and the rules are very easy to teach. This game has that feel of “snatching defeat from the jaws of victory” rather than the other way around, with one’s lab being built up and then pilphered when you near victory, and so you grab stuff from your opponent’s lab, and so back and forth quite frequently. But eventually, a victor emerges, with most games lasting less than an hour – most games I’ve played last about 25-30 minutes. And if the standard victory conditions seem dull after a while, the designer also threw in in some optional rules to make the game last longer or have a slightly edgier play style.
I should mention that a month or so after I received my copy of Chaos & Alchemy, Clay Crucible Games sent me an expansion pack which added Substance cards to the game, as well as a few Innovation and Action cards. The green background Substance cards add a new way to use your successes from your experiment dice. They allow you to “mix” any two Substance cards from your hand, and play both of the effects on each card. The names of the Substances are drawn from alchemical lore, such as Quicksilver and Aqua Fortis, and each one has a unique effect which can be very beneficial. While there is no mention yet of any expansion decks, this Reviewer wonders if we might see one come out as part of the stretch goals for the Kickstarter.
Overall Score: 3.9 out of 5.0
(If they keep with the new art style and box shown in the Kickstarter, I’d give it a 4.2 rating!)
Final Conclusions
I really had a hard time finding fault with the play style and game mechanics of Chaos & Alchemy, and it really is a fast-paced and fun card game to play. The use of both dice and cards which can have adverse effects on other players really adds some tension and excitement to each player’s turn, while the effects of the cards themselves provide plenty of opportunities for strategy. While the artwork on the original set was hit-and-miss in quality, it in no way detracted from the enjoyment of trouncing your fellow alchemists by stealing their gear, or when dropping misfortunes upon the front-runner for the King’s prize.
I could even see enterprising GMs using the Chaos & Alchemy as a meta-framework in D&D or Pathfinder, to generate plots and adventures from the Kingdom’s alchemists vying to be the first to appease the King.
Given that a successful Kickstarter for Chaos & Alchemy will mean the new release has more quality artwork, a fancy box, and a larger print run, I can definitely recommend this as a great “beer & pretzels” game for those nights when your favorite RPG gets cancelled, and you still want to play something with a fantasy edge to it!
Reviewer’s Note: This Reviewer received a complimentary copy of the product from which the review was written.
Grade Card (Ratings 1 to 5)
- Presentation: 3.5
- - Design:4.0 (Excellent card design; solid writing; cool use of historical references)
- - Illustrations: 3.0 (Some good and some not so good; but I’d give the new release illustrations a 4.5!)
- Content: 4.25
- - Crunch: 4.5 (Great rules; easy to play and teach; exciting strategies from card effects)
- - Fluff: 4.0 (Cool use of historical alchemical information; clever and fun fluff text)
- Value: 4.0 (Great price on the Kickstarter – those buying the game later will pay more!)
