Compounded is a game about building chemical compounds through careful management of elements, a fair bit of social play and trading, and just a bit of luck. In Compounded, players take on the roles of lab managers, hastily competing to complete the most compounds before they are completed by others – or destroyed in an explosion. Some compounds are flammable and will grow more and more volatile over time; take too long to gather the necessary elements for those compounds and a lot of hard work will soon be scattered across the lab.
Although Compounded does involve a fair share of press-your-luck tension and certainly some strategic planning, the most successful scientists will often be those who strike a good trade with their fellow lab mates. Players are able to freely trade elements, laboratory tools, and even favors – if there is truly honor among chemists!
Learn to Play: Compounded
- Like the theme
- Just a game, not compelling enough
- Science
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Science themed — Another science-themed game they like the theme of. Heard it's fine but it's just a game.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- So many games and we can't play them all because we're not robots. We have to eat and sleep and do other things as well.
- I really enjoyed the concept of this. It's a co-op game. This we got even before I started going to say hating co-op game, but understanding they weren't for me.
- It sounds okay, but it also big and we don't need it.
- This is actually not sad. It's actually a positive thing getting these out of the house so we can get more games into the...
References (from this video)
- Satisfying engine building
- Engaging player interaction
- Interesting dice placement
- Building a company and expanding its influence
- Corporate/Industrial
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Area Control — fighting for some area control of the different spots on the board
- Dice Placement — placing dice behind privacy screens with various numbers on them.
- Engine Building — it's a bit of an engine building game with the cards that you are getting in front of you
- Tableau Building — grow your company's buildings to to gain greater income.
- Worker Placement — using dice to send workers out onto the board
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- This is a deck-building game.
- one of the interesting aspects of this is there's 13 ways to win the game.
- Essentially, 13 dark pacts in the game and each of those dark pacts is a unique win condition that feels, you know, it feels like crazy to get.
- You can also play two times and three times multipliers on those cards to double every aspect of the card.
- that just feels like a very satisfying aspect of the game.
- the main mechanism of the game is I split, you choose and that's always one of my favorite mechanisms because it's it's not a difficult game to teach, but it's a difficult game to make decisions.
- So, what do you sacrifice and what do you keep is also an interesting aspect of that one.
- This is a great family game if you want to.
- And so, there's a lot of lying and promising of other people where you're like, "Do you want to go there with me? Nobody else go there.
- I swear to god, don't go there."
- And so, there's a lot of sort of lying and intrigue and where you're going and promises that you're making and stuff like that.
- please, you know, check out my new series. It's all funny and games when it drops in May.
References (from this video)
- Engaging majority bidding mechanism
- Nice engine building
- Scales well with player count and time
- Like almost everything about the game
- Action cards can make the game wonky or weird
- Tendency for runaway winners
- Misunderstanding rules has been common
- Might sit on the shelf due to infrequent need for six players
- Building compounds
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Engine Building — The other stuff that you are doing is basically like a engine builder.
- Majority Control — The person who has majority is the one or the ones if you have a shared majority to do that action.
- Simultaneous action selection — You are deciding behind your little player screen where to put your action cubes and then everybody reveals and you put the action cubes down on the different actions.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- Hello everyone, this is Senan.
- And this is Johannes.
- Welcome back to Keep or Cull, the series where we play all the games and decide whether we want to keep them or cull them right out of the collection.
- It's a double keep.
- Double cow.
- It's a call for me, a keep from you.
- It's a double kick.
- It's a keep count from you and a count from me.
- It's a keep from me, a call from you.
- It's still a keep.
- And those are 10 more games and we did like a 50/50 this time. We kept five and we culled five.
- My favorite, I think actually Inside Job.
- My favorite is either Wild West or Inside Job.
- And that's going to be the end of the video. Thank you so much for watching. I'm Johannes and you've been watching Board Gaming Ramblings and bye-bye.
References (from this video)
- Raising experiment levels allows for more elements to be pulled from the bag (discovery experiment).
- Raising study experiment allows for more claim tokens and a journal tool.
- Raising research experiment allows for more elements to be placed on compound cards.
- Raising lab experiment allows for more spots to put elements in the workbench.
- Safety goggles tool allows discovering again at the start of the research phase.
- Pipette tool allows trading two for one element instead of three for one.
- Graduated cylinder tool allows moving experiments up or down levels.
- Bunsen burner tool allows placing a flame token on a compound.
- Journal token allows keeping one discarded element from a scored compound card.
- Grant chemical reaction moves one of another scientist's experiments up a level.
- Three game end triggers provide different paths to concluding the game.
- Excess elements that do not fit on the workbench must be returned to the element bag.
- If a lab fire is revealed, it is set aside and placed after filling empty spots.
- Flammable compounds explode if all flames are filled, with elements going to adjacent cards.
- If moving an experiment down causes a loss of a claim token, it is taken back into reserve.
- If moving an experiment down on the lab causes a loss of a lab storage marker, an element must be discarded if one was on that marker.
- completing compounds
- a laboratory
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Action Point Allowance — Players have a limited number of claim tokens and can perform a certain number of actions per phase, suggesting an action point system.
- Press Your Luck — The game is explicitly called a 'pressure luck' game, implying mechanics where players decide whether to risk continuing or stop to secure gains.
- resource drafting — Elements are drawn from a bag, which is a form of resource drafting.
- Set Collection — Players collect specific elements to complete compound cards.
- Trading — Players can trade elements, indicated by the description of the game as a 'trading game' and specific rules for trading 3 of one kind for any element.
- Worker Placement — Claim tokens are placed on compound cards, suggesting a form of worker placement to reserve or claim actions/cards.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- compounded it's a two to five players set collection pressure luck trading game where we take the role of lab managers trying to claim and complete compounds raise our experiment levels gain lab tools trigger chemical reactions and reveal lab fires trying to become the most successful lab manager
- how do we become the most successful lab manager by having the most atomic points at the end of the game
- the game would end immediately and go into final scoring
References (from this video)
- The game plays in nine rounds of four phases: planning, area, company, and end of round.
- The game is simultaneous, and players announce when they are finished each round so that all players can stay in sync.
- The advanced game includes additional tiles and cards.
- Changes for two players involve subsidiary dice and cubes.
- Solo mode includes a solo character card with an ability and point conversion chart, a saboteur placement table, and saboteur dice.
- Players own companies and will send ships as workers to different areas of the city to gain resources and increase their fleet and workforce.
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Area Control — Players with the most cubes in each area move all of their cubes in the area to the gear. Players who have cubes in the gear section of an area tile are said to have control of that tile.
- building — Players play building cards, paying the cost in resources. Buildings can have extensions.
- Card Drafting — Players draw building cards from a deck and discard some. In the advanced game, players also draw and choose sponsor and company cards.
- Dice Placement — Players place dice simultaneously. Dice represent ships used to transport workers and the pips represent the number of workers you're sending.
- Investment — Players gain a permanent ability by placing a cube on an investment tile.
- Resource Management — Resources are used to build buildings which earn money known as killer gold.
- Set Collection — The financial district gives you one machine or one electricity for each area you control to a maximum of six.
- Variable player powers — Each company card gives you a special ability that you can use during the game.
- Worker Placement — Players send ships as workers to different areas of the city to gain resources and increase their fleet and workforce.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- Players own companies and will send ships as workers to different areas of the city to gain resources and increase their fleet and workforce.
- Resources are used to build buildings which earn money known as killer gold.
- After nine rounds, the player with the most killer gold wins.
- The game is played in nine rounds of four phases, planning, area, company, and end of round.
- The game is simultaneous, be sure to announce when you're finished each round so that all players can stay in sync.
- Players with the most cubes in each area move all of their cubes in the area to the gear.
- Players who have cubes in the gear section of an area tile are said to have control of that tile.
- The player or players with the most cubes in each area move all of their cubes in the area to the gear.
- If you have sole control of a tile, it counts towards your overall number of controlled tiles.
- When everyone has finished actions in the company phase, the phase ends.
- All cubes that are in control area of each tile are returned to their supply.
- The player with the most killer gold wins with tiebreakers broken by the player with the most built buildings.