In Four Humours, you are a doctor in medieval times, and everyone knows that your personality is determined by an imbalance of your bodily fluids, a.k.a., the four humours:
Choleric (Yellow bile) - Goal-oriented, decisive, ambitious.
Sanguine (Red blood) - Talkative, enthusiastic, social.
Melancholic (Black bile) - Analytical, detail-oriented, reserved.
Phlegmatic (White phlegm) - Relaxed, peaceful, easy-going.
The kingdom — composed of six map tiles with various locations — is filled with all types of personalities, from choleric sorcerers to phlegmatic peasants. Prove you're the best medieval doctor by visiting citizens throughout the kingdom so they can live out their life's ambitions...or lack thereof.
Each turn, you play a personality potion from your hand onto a citizen on a scene card to determining that citizen's personality. Each citizen can have one of two potion types played onto it, and you play each token face down so you know the personality of the citizen, but none of the other players do. Once all citizens on two of the scene cards are covered with potions, all potions are resolved in the following order:
A lone choleric wins, whereas two or more are discarded, after which...
Two or more sanguines win, whereas a single one is discarded, after which...
Exactly two melancholics win, whereas more than two are discarded and a single one sneaks away, after which...
Any number of phlegmatics win.
Place winning potions on the corresponding scene in the kingdom.. If a melancholic token sneaks away, place the potion on an adjacent scene connected by a path or bridge. After all potions have been placed, see whether you've completed any of the four randomized goals on display, such as having a potion on each of the six map tiles or occupying two pairs of locations that are connected by bridges. Then reveal four new scene cards and begin another round.
When a player completes an objective, the first party tile is resolved. Party tiles are similar to scenes with citizens, but they are available to play onto on your turn at any point in the game. Once the players at the table have completed six total objectives, the last party tile is resolved and the game ends. The player with the most objectives completed wins!
Alternatively, instead of using a shared kingdom board, you can play in "Fiefdom Mode", with each player having their own fiefdom board. After resolving scene cards, players place their winning personality potion covering a matching character in your fiefdom. The objectives now encourage you to cover all characters of certain types or to create a specific pattern within your Fiefdom.
- Interesting theme
- One of the only bag drawing games I actually enjoy
- Cool little indie game
- Happy to play it more
- Not the perfect game for me
- Doesn't rise in ranks of Planet Unknown
- Balance of four humors in the body
- Medieval times
- Planet Unknown
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Area Control — Gaining control over cards by placing tokens.
- Bag Building — Drawing tokens from a bag.
- Set Collection — Collecting specific sets of marks.
- token placement — Placing tokens on a board with two sides.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- we have officially played all of the games that we have brought back from Gen Con
- this is going to be a hot and heavy video we're going to go through every game we brought home why we brought them home and what our initial impressions of them
- 10 Penny Parks should be on your on your radar like it's one that you might want to consider it does something different it's Unique it's got a cool theme
- this is four science from gray fox games this is a real time uh stacking and building game trying to solve a science experiment
- three ring circus by games you know I forgot about it still think trick draw T it for me I this would be number two though is okay that it can take number two for you
- it is a tableau you have your three rows of cards and you have to sequence your numbers and the colors in the order that you want them to
- we finished playing all of my city played through the entire campaign
- we started the Legacy version of sagr and as any of you know this is a legacy game so we don't want to start another Legacy game while we're in the middle of a few other titles a few other campaigns
References (from this video)
- The host doesn't understand the meaning of 'humors' in the game title and feels the game thinks it's funnier than them.
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- solo mode — The game is mentioned as having a solo mode, indicating it can be played by a single player.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- I don't know that much about this game but I'm going to play it and I'm going to be I'm going to be ragging on it the whole time I'm going to be roasting this game the entire time I play it to show it that it g ain't got nothing on me you ain't got nothing on me game you
- oh look oh oversized cards I don't know if I want to be regular cards or big cards
- this is so thrilling every time I play it I'm just thrill thrilled
- I reset the game that way that's how I reput them back away not how they come originally
- there's so many ways to stab somebody
- you know this is save the date here we spent way too much money on this stuff
- this is a game about Vikings if you couldn't tell from this strapping Gentleman on the cover
- what's a Viking game without pillaging
- this is a deck building game but it's a very unique deck building game
- it's kind of like Hot Potato the board game
- I cannot see that title without thinking of the song You're So Vain
- they are building worlds with the games that they are making
- I don't know what to say about these because I haven't read the rule book