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The Magic Shop is a game of magical, mercantile mayhem! Players each assume the role of a wizard or witch running their own magic shop, using ingredient cards to to concoct potions, talismans, scrolls, and magical weapons and armor with the help of your apprentices. Apprentices are sent into the market to gather magical ingredients and advertise to potential customers, or you may have some stay in the lab to help with the work of enchanting.
Ingredient cards are placed into your "cauldron" to produce a dice pool. This dice pool is then rolled in an attempt to complete enchantment lines (sets of specific dice facings). Players may opt to try and add more dice to their cauldrons to complete additional lines to make their items more valuable, but risk drawing magical accident cards that may make their apprentices vanish, curse the item, or turn some of your hard-earned gold into lead.
Cast spells to help you in your endeavors by having an apprentice visit the caster's tower, or hex your opponents to give you an edge in your quest to be the greatest magic shop owner in the city.
Try to anticipate your customers' needs when they arrive and sell them as many of your finished items as possible and pave the way to your victory! Victory Points are earned primarily by making the most gold selling your enchantments, but victory points may also be earned from completing all enchantment lines on a magic item. Points may be lost if your items end up cursed. The wizard or witch with the highest number of victory points at the end of eight turns is considered the winner.
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- And the excitement in the house is absolutely through the roof.
- Being an old school guy like myself, being able to take a look at this thing is truly truly incredible and it is the future.
- The future because it's done right with incredible passion.
- This isn't staged footage. Um they are just problem solving together.
- And isn't that what it's all about? Just just so much fun and just enjoying themselves.
- I'm blown away and I'm a fan for life.
- As the CEO to to put so much effort into this incredible board. This really blows away a lot of things.
- So, we have some incredible human beings out there in the world that have imagination and passion and love that that if they get behind this are going to be creating incredible games.
- The machine comes with 64 gigs.
- And I am 100% behind this.
- I guarantee you you and your family will get more use out of this than you ever will for for some dungeon crawl or some one-time Kickstarter that you're not sure if it's going to be good or not.
- I try to tell you as honest as I can, and I am telling you I am 100% behind the board.
- This takes all of that away. You plug it in, you you put the pieces on, you do a little tutorial, you don't have to explain everything, it's fun, and you are off and running with the family, okay?
- And that is the thing I think that shocked me the most.
- This thing is beautiful.
References (from this video)
- The art is really liked and distinctive.
- The bidding system is engaging.
- The thirst token system provides a subtle bonus mechanism.
- Three rounds feels like a good length for all player counts.
- It's a unique trick-taking card game.
- The theme is strictly aesthetic.
- There is a fair amount of chaos that happens, which might deter players who prefer perfect information.
- Card quality is fine but not premium, they are a bit thin.
- It's possible to not have a card of the desired bid value.
- There is a slight lack in production quality in some areas.
- magic shop
- magic shop
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- bidding — players are going to be determining what they think. They're going to be bidding for what they think is the maximum number of tricks that they're going to win in that round.
- Press Your Luck — If you win more tricks than you bid, you are shut out completely. You get no victory points that round.
- Set Collection — The winner of a trick is now going to have to choose a magic power that is based upon a suit that was played in the trick.
- Take That — if this player chooses that they would rather use one of the other suits, in this case there's only one, they would have to take a thirst token to do it.
- Trick-Taking — This is a trick-taking game. It's a mustfollow trick-taking game.
- trump — It's a game that has Trump, but that trump will change throughout the game.
- Variable player powers — the magic power that is based upon a suit that was played in the trick. [...] you can just do that without any type of additional action.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- This is a trick-taking game coming from a publisher Jupiter's Club that is themed around well a magic shop.
- The winner of a trick is now going to have to choose a magic power that is based upon a suit that was played in the trick.
- If you win more tricks than you bid, you are shut out completely. You get no victory points that round.
- The game is very interesting. So, you know, I play a lot of trick-taking games. I review a lot of trick-taking games and um you you start to see certain things that are like, okay, yeah, this is kind of an interesting thing, but I've seen it in a few other games.
- So, an eight out of 10. A really unique trick-taking card game, The Magic Shop.
References (from this video)
- Really interesting trick-taking game
- Unique elements make it stand out
- Really interesting art style
- Really, really well done
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Set Collection — It can bank tricks uh over several hands, and then someone finally wins them all.
- Trick-Taking — It is a trick-taking game
- Variable Trump Suit — It may change the trump suit in a particular uh round in in right in the middle of the round.
- variable win condition — It can change whether high cards win or low cards win.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- a silly little game, way overproduced, but fun like hot potato style game.
- unfortunately a two-player back and forth just a little too much going on in a small game.
- So, that's pretty much it.
- This says contemporary on it.
- Tom, what would be your advice to aspiring game designers?
- most of the advice given to me over the years has been along the lines of don't do it.