Wizard's Brew

Verbesserte Neuauflage von "Das Amulett"

Wizard’s Brew started life as Das Amulett, produced by the German games company Goldsieber in 2001. Das Amulett was one of the three finalists for the very prestigious German Spiel des Jahres (Game of the Year) that year (Carcassonne won the prize). The game was only produced in German, never in English. A number of changes have been made to improve Das Amulett into Wizard’s Brew. The game has been re-themed. Spell cards have increased from 33 to 36 in the base game. In addition, 14 new Spell cards will be available as expansions to the base game spells.

In the original game, the types of Element Cards produced by any given area of the board was predetermined and printed on the board. In Wizard’s Brew, the Landmark Tokens are distributed randomly at the start of every game, adding a variable element, and making for a different game experience every time out. A unique wooden Horse Marker and a wooden Wizard’s Hat have replaced the two generic plastic cones from the original game. A customized wooden die uses a visit track that has been added to the board, making the administrative task of counting visits much easier.

Combine all these new bits with the 50+ wonderful new pieces of art created by Michael Phillippi, and throw in the very talented designer team of Alan R. Moon and Aaron Weissblum and it all makes for a wonderful gaming experience in the form of WIZARD’S BREW!

Spell cards are the heart and soul of the game. You get two of them, randomly and for free, at the start of each game. You then acquire more via very short (once around) auctions at the start of each round. In these Spell card auctions, you bid Energy Cubes—you get only 10 of these and they “recycle” during the game. Whatever you bid stays “on the card” and empowers this card ONLY for that many turns--so wise and careful bidding is needed. The Spell cards generate the Element cards shown on the Spell cards. This phase takes only a few seconds while you select these powerful Element cards.

You then use these Element cards to bid on and collect Ingredients. The race to collect Ingredients is the goal of the game! You may only bid for Ingredients with the Element cards that are shown on the Landmark Tokens on the game board Areas such as Oceans, Deserts and Mountains. The placement of the Landmark Tokens varies, with a random set up each game. To increase the strategy and interactivity between the players, there are Spell cards that let you bid extra cards or different cards. And there are Spell cards that let you change the rules of the bidding. So you need to maneuver to get the right Spells at the right time and to be in the right Area of the board to take advantage of the Spells you control.

At the end of the round, after a certain number of Area visits defined by a roll of the die at the start of each round, you take back the Energy Cubes (usually one per card per round) that let you use each of your Spells. When those Spells have no more Energy left to empower them, they are lost for the rest of the game!

That’s it! It’s a race to acquire a certain number of Ingredients using Spells and Elements acquired in auctions. The Spells keep things very interesting. Only a limited number of them come up during each game and usually in very different combinations. A lot of engaging player interaction occurs as a result. Games vary in length from as little as 20 minutes to as long as one hour, seldom any longer than that!

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