Potion Explosion
Collect and combine ingredients to mix potions and try to become Student of The Year.
Dear students, it's time for the final exams of the Potions class! The rules are always the same: Take an ingredient marble from the dispenser and watch the others fall. If you connect marbles of the same color, they explode and you can take them, too! Complete your potions using the marbles you collect, and drink them to unleash their magical power. Remember, though, that to win the Student of the Year award, being quick won't be enough: you'll also need to brew the most valuable potions in Potion Explosion!
Number of players: 2 - 6
Game duration: 19 mn
Complexity: 1 / 5
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Play Potion Explosion and 965 other games online.
No download necessary - play directly from your web browser.
With your friends and thousands of players from the whole world.
Free.
Rules summary
For tips on how to play potion explosion, see Tips_PotionExplosion
Game play
- Players start by picking two potions that they want to make.
- Players choose their first potion going clockwise around the table, and their second potion going anti-clockwise.
On Your Turn
- On your turn, take any marble ("ingredient") from the dispenser.
- If two marbles (or groups of marbles) of the same colour collide when falling to close the gap in a column left by taking a marble, they explode and are also taken by the player.
- This will repeat as "exploded" marbles are removed and subsequent groupings collapse.
- Exploded marbles are placed in the user's "hand".
- i.e. the rectangle above the flasks in the player's board.
- One at a time, you can move these marbles to the matching colour on the potions in your board and/or to the "Pool" holding flask.
- The pool can hold at most three but can hold any colour.
- If there is available space in your pool you must fill it with marbles from your hand before ending your turn.
- Any marbles left afterwards in your hand at the end of your turn are returned to the dispenser.
- When all the holes of a potion are filled, that potion is completed and it moves to your potion area, becoming worth its VP at the end of the game.
Other Actions
- At any time on your turn (before or after your regular marble pick), you may also:
- Drink a potion from your potion area, to activate their effect.
- You can only drink each potion once, and it still scores VP even after being drunk.
- Hover over to see the effect.
- You may drink multiple potions in a turn if you have them.
- Once per turn, ask the professor for a Little Help.
- This costs -2 VP, and lets you take any one marble from the dispenser, without triggering an explosion.
- Drink a potion from your potion area, to activate their effect.
- At the very end of the turn, you must draw new potions to replace any that you completed (You cannot add marbles to these new potions until next turn).
Skill tokens
- The game is setup with ([# of players] + 2) skill tokens from the start.
- When you make your third potion of the same type (i.e., with the same power), or when you have made five different types of potions, take a Skill token for 4VP.
- With 5 or more players, you also gain a skill token when you complete your 10th potion.
Game End
- When the pile of Skill tokens has been depleted, that round is played out and then the game ends.
- Skill tokens are scored even after they have been depleted.
- The player with the most VP points is the winner.
Tiebreak
- In the case of a tie, all tied players (starting from the first player in turn order) each one at a time take one marble from the dispenser to try to trigger an explosion.
- The player who takes the most marbles this way is the winner.
- Note: each player may get the skill token of 'the 5th different kind of Potion' once.
- You do not get a 2nd skill token of 'the 5th different kind of Potion' after you collect the 2nd set.
Potion effects
There are 8 types of potion in the base game, but only 6 are used in any particular game. These 6 are chosen at random, unless the “Simple Game (fixed starting potions)” option is used, in which case the omitted potions are always Balm of Uttermost Stickiness and Filter of Lavamancing.
- Abyssal Draft: Take up to 1 Ingredient of each colour from the bottom row of the Dispenser slide tracks. You can only take 1 Ingredient from each slide track.
- Balm of Uttermost Stickiness: Take 2 or more adjacent Ingredients of the same colour from the same slide track of the Dispenser. No Explosions are triggered.
- Elixir of Blind Love: Steal all the Ingredients from 1 opponent’s Pool.
- Filter of Lavamancing: Discard up to 5 Ingredients of 1 colour from the same slide track of the Dispenser back into the tank. No Explosions are triggered.
- Potion of Magnetical Attraction: Take 2 adjacent Ingredients of different colours from the same slide track of the Dispenser. No Explosions are triggered.
- Potion of Prismatic Joy: You can place all Ingredients (up to 3) in your flask's ingredient Pool on any holes of your incomplete Potions, regardless of their colour.
- Potion of Wisdom: Take one Ingredient of your choice from the Dispenser. No Explosions are triggered.
- Sands of Time: Activate again the effect of 1 Potion you already used.
Variants
Fulminating Serum
- The fulminating serum will possibly be available.
- It discards 2 ingredients on the same track back into the Dispenser. No explosions are triggered.
Fifth Ingredient
Ghost Ectoplasm
- Ghost Ectoplasm is added as an extra ingredient. It is found in the Ghastly Cauldron.
- This ingredient can be used as any colour, both for explosions and for brewing.
- When you exchange an ingredient with the Ghastly Cauldron, you must take a marble from it (Ghost Ectoplasm if possible) and put another marble in its place. After that, gain 1 reward token.
New Potions
- Brew of Feather Touch: Take 2 or more ingredients of the same colour from the same row of the dispenser. No explosions are triggered.
- Chameleonic Varnish: All ingredients of a colour of your choice is changed to another colour of your choice (Except wild). How to use: Clicking on the Blue ingredient will allow you to choose the colour you would like to convert from and then clicking on the Blue / Red ingredient, allow you to choose the colour you want to convert to.
- Dram of Poltergeist Swat: Steal 1 ingredient from an opponent’s pool, then exchange it with the Ghastly Cauldron.
- Ghastly Concoction: Exchange an ingredient in your hand with the Ghastly Cauldron.
Professor Tiles
- A professor tile is chosen at the start of the game. Its effect apply during the whole game.
- Reward tokens (1 point each) and scolding tokens (-1 point each) might be gained during the game.
- List of professors:
- Albedus Humblescore: You can discard 2 ingredients of the same colour from your hand to discard a little help token.
- Antiqua Thriftymind: If your pool is full at the end of your turn, exchange an ingredient in it with the Ghastly Cauldron.
- Gideon Prissymann: If you finish your turn with one or more ingredients still in hand, you recieve a scolding token.
- Gravitha Tidygall: If you do not put ingredients in a potion from bottom to top, receive 1 scolding token after that potion is completed (max 1 per potion).
- Overwhilma Explosiwa: If you collect 8 or more ingredients with your regular pick, exchange one of them with the Ghastly Cauldron.
- Shi Zan Shuimo: You may instead activate the effect of a potion you have already used when you take a little help token.
(The effect of Gideon Prissymann, as described above, is different from that in the physical game. Also, the seventh professor — Anxiogenous O’Clockitt — is not used in the BGA implementation.)
Sixth Student
Mandragora Leaves
- Mandragora Leaves is added as an extra ingredient.
- During explosions, they are treated as a regular colour.
- When brewing, layers can be filled with only mandragora leaves instead.
- You cannot change the colour of mandragora leaves, even with potions.
New Potions
- Concentrate of Selfishness: Steal 1 ingredient from each opponent’s pool.
- Generosity Confection: Take one ingredient per player from a side track, which must be all adjacent. Then give 1 ingredient to each player. If an opponent’s pool is full, discard that ingredient instead.