You run a village apothecary. Collect recipes that make and refine ingredients, then use those ingredients to brew commissions for points. Most points at the end wins.
Ingredients
There are four ingredients, from cheapest to rarest. Each has its own colour and shape:
Your satchel holds at most 10 ingredients at the end of your turn. If you have more, you choose which to throw away (the cheapest are picked for you by default).
Setup
Everyone starts with two recipes: Kitchen Garden (gain 2 Herb) and Mortar & Pestle (upgrade 2). The first player starts with 3 Herb, the 2nd and 3rd with 4 Herb, the 4th and 5th with 3 Herb and 1 Ember.
Six recipes sit on the recipe shelf and five commissions are on offer. A gold coin (worth 3) sits over the first commission and a silver coin (worth 1) over the second. There are two of each per player. When the gold runs out, silver moves to the first commission.
Your turn: do exactly one thing
- Use a recipe from your hand. It moves to your used pile.
- Gather recipes give you the ingredients shown.
- Refine recipes let you upgrade up to N times. Each upgrade moves one ingredient one step up (Herb→Ember→Dew→Shadow). You can spread the steps over several ingredients or push one ingredient up several steps.
- Transmute recipes swap the ingredients on top for the ones below. You can repeat the swap as many times as you can pay for, all in the same turn.
- Take a recipe from the shelf. The leftmost one is free. For any other, put 1 of your ingredients on each recipe to its left. You also collect any ingredients already sitting on the recipe you take. The shelf then slides left and refills.
- Rest: take all your used recipes back into your hand.
- Brew a commission: pay exactly the ingredients shown. Keep the card for its points, plus the coin above it if there is one. The row slides left and refills.
End of the game
When a player brews their 6th commission (in 2–3 player games) or their 5th (in 4–5 player games), the current round is finished so everyone has had the same number of turns. Then the game ends.
Score: commission points + coins (gold 3, silver 1) + 1 point for every ingredient that isn’t Herb. If there's a tie, the player who went later in turn order wins.
On this screen
- Top row: commissions. The big number is the points, the shapes are the exact cost. A coin in the corner is a bonus. Ones you can brew now glow.
- Recipe shelf: the dots above a recipe show how many ingredients it costs to take (one for each recipe to its left). Shapes under a recipe are left there by other players, and you collect them.
- Your bench: your ingredients (10 slots), then your hand. Tap a recipe to use it. The ↺ Rest tile takes your used recipes back.
- ▲ means refine (upgrade), + means gather, and a recipe with an arrow is a transmute you can repeat.
- Tap a rival at the top to see their ingredients and recipes. The ⋯ menu has the full score breakdown and game log under Game info.
Tips
- Early on, good recipes are worth more than a quick small commission.
- Transmute recipes are strongest when you repeat them several times.
- The coins go fast. Brewing the first commission early is often worth it.