Tinctura Preview - Running A Pharmacy Is Hard Work

0:00 Hey there gamers, welcome back to the Board Game Co channel. And today we have a preview of Tinkura. Hey there gamers, it's Professor Mag here and welcome back to the Board Game Co. channel. Today we have a preview of Tinctura by Skeleig Games. Now this is a current game fun campaign so you can check out the link down below for everything that they have planned. This is a sponsored preview and this is also a prototype copy in front of me so all rules, components and things like that are subject to change. Now, Tinctura is going to be a competitive game for two to four players where you are in the 18th to 19th century and you are playing as different pharmacists. So, you are running your pharmacy, but because it is a little bit earlier than current day, you're not just fulfilling these different medicines for patients. you're actually a very hands-on where you are going out into the forest and foraging these different ingredients that you're going to need for your things that you're going to create such as ointments and tinctures, but you're also traveling into the village to make yourself better because you are not quite the most perfected pharmacist yet. So, you're going to be taking certain classes and training and upgrading your different skills as well. So, the entire thing is going to be very hands-on where you're very focused on being the best pharmacist and really trying to heal these different patients while taking on apprentices and hoping to train them to help these different patients as well for different bonuses. And at the end of the day, the player with the most points at the end of the game is going to win.

1:27 Now, taking a look here, the game is currently set up for two players. And I am going to go over the player area first so that I can remove this screen over here. But just know that this game is very clever where you're playing over the course of five different days that you'll track over here a typical work week for your pharmacist if you will. And you are working over the course of 9 hours. So you have from 8:00 to 4:00 you are filling your day with your work and you have these privacy screens where you're going to be using them planning out your day with these different tokens that you have and they all represent the different areas on the main board that you're playing on. So you have your pharmacy, the forest, and the village. And as you can see, the forest is green.

2:14 That represents where you're going to be going. Now, you have choices of what actions you're going to be taking when you go to those different areas, as well as a extra action as well that you're able to choose, but you're going to be slotting out your different days privately and then revealing them together. So, there is a turn order in this game where obviously you're going to go in turn order for where you go. But when players choose the same area to go in, that's going to really come into play because the player that is first in player order is going to be the one to go first there. So, taking a look here at this clock, you would set out uh your your stopwatch here with your different actions that you want to choose to do. And then once all players are ready for that particular day, you will simultaneously reveal and then start carrying out those different actions.

3:01 So, very quickly, just to go over the player board here, this track is going to make sense in a moment, but this is where you draft your patients from and slot them into the times over here. And then you have your different skills that you're trying to excel in as a pharmacist. So you are going to be able to train to increase these and you're going to need them to be at a specific level to be able to create the medicines that these patients need. Now you're also going to be going along this track here which I will talk about when we get to the forest. But this is also something that's going to be necessary for you to be able to treat your patients as well. This is going to be the player's botney track and this is going to be the mortar track. Now, at the beginning of the game, all players are going to start off with the same markers for each location. So, you have nine hours that you're able to spend, and you have three of each for the pharmacy, the village, and the forest.

3:53 So, you kind of have an idea that everyone's going to be spending all of the same time generally in the same places with three actions each, at least for the first day, which is Monday. And with that being said, in the village, certain things only start at certain times, such as 10:00 a.m. So, you can kind of anticipate that other players are going to be looking to do certain things before other things, but as the game progresses, a lot of that can change as well. So, those markers that you start off with, everyone starts off with the same ones, but there are ways for you to gain them, for you to spend more time in other places. So if you want to spend more time in the village, perhaps developing your skills, you're able to do that once you're able to gain more of those markers to use. So taking a look over here, if both of these players were to set up what they were doing and then simultaneously reveal, currently this player is going to be going first over here in initiative. So they start off with one resource, whereas this player is going second, so they have the two. And both players chose to go to the forest at 8:00 a.m.

4:52 So that makes sense because things over here start at 10 and 11:00 a.m. Uh we'll go over there's other things that could be done as well. But over here in the forest, this is currently set up for a two-player game. So all of these slots are currently filled, but for a three or four player game, these would be filled in as well. And looking at this chart here, depending on what time of day you choose to come and forage from the forest, you're able to take a certain number of resources. So this player here is going first and they're going to choose to take a resource from this area here. So also looking at the patients that are available because they are going to their pharmacy next, they may choose to uh ch start working toward this chatter fever and take this resource here. So, they're going to take that over here into their inventory.

5:43 They've taken their one. And then this player is going to get to do the same thing. So, they will take this out over here. And then again, looking at the board and anything that might be needed, they're going to grab one of these mushrooms, especially considering there's only two, and throw that over there. So, that is going to be the first hour of play for these players. They both went to the same place. So the turn order really the initiative came into play because they had to choose who selected first. Now if they were going to different areas you would still go in turn order but then the stakes are a little less high because you're not going for the same thing at the same time. So moving on to 9:00 for example the blue player is still going to go first. They're going to choose to slot this over here. And up in the pharmacy area one of the things they are able to do is draft a patient. So, they're going to choose to draft this patient over here with chatter fever, and they're going to slot them at the current time, which is 9:00 a.m. So, they have to be able to create the medicine that this patient needs by 9:00 a.m. the next day, in order to score that patient. And that's very important because if they aren't able to do so, it's actually going to cause a negative victory point instead for them, which can be very detrimental because a lot of other players are going to be healing their patients and scoring points instead for healing them. So that's where a lot of your points are going to come through come in during the game play. There is definitely a lot of points you're going

7:13 to be able to get during the endame scoring as well, but healing these patients is definitely going to be a priority for all of the pharmacists. So once this happens, the patients do fill immediately. Not all of the cards on the board are going to change immediately. Uh in fact, those are the only ones that are going to fill for you throughout the general round, but now you can see that the patients are actually going to increase in their level as well. So those are level one patients, and now we have a level two patient showing on the board. Now, at 9:00 a.m. for the purple player, uh they are also only able to grab one thing from the forest over here, but that's still great for them. So, they're going to grab this over here and be pretty ahead in the resources.

7:59 So, now, as you can see, both players chose to go to the village from 10 to 12. So, they have two blue slotted in a row. And that's going to be really important because some actions are going to cost you multiple hours to be able to do them, such as the training over here. So, both of them are choosing to go to training. And that's also something that all players are able to uh attend. So, both of these pharmacists are choosing to attend these advanced studies, and they are able to even choose the same exact one. So, they're able to spend both of their two hours here from 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. And they're going to be able to increase twice on this skill, as well as gaining a token of their choice. So, they're both going to be able to increase over here, which is going to make them better at creating certain medicines for the patients that need them. And then they're going to be able to take one of these, where this player might choose to want to go to the village more often. This player over here might want to go to the forest more often. So, they're going to be able to grab both of those for more flexibility in future rounds. And with that, they would have both spent both of these two hours together moving forward. Now, on to the 12:00 p.m. hour slot. Now, I think with that, you should understand the general game flow of the game where you are slotting where you want to spend your time and your different actions, but you're going to have choices of the different actions that you're doing. So,

9:30 I did walk you through what the first few hours might look like choosing certain things, but now I'm just going to go over the main board to show you all the different choices of the actions that you're able to do when you have those different tokens available. So, I will start off with the pharmacy. We'll go over everything that you're able to do when you're there. And then we will move on to the village because after that, the forest is mostly just that foraging part where you are grabbing out the different things. But the later in the day, there are much better spoils for you to be able to grab from that area if they're still available. Taking a look at the board here, you have your recovery point track, which is where you're going to be tracking your points throughout the game around the board. And then up at the top is going to be your pharmacy. So, this is where you have your days that you're going to track Monday through Friday, the five days that you're going to play throughout the game with the nine hours that you have available to you. Now you have your patients that you're going to be able to draft on your turn if you're at the pharmacy. You're able to have up to two patients. And when you draft them, you slot them into the hour where you took them. Now, as I said, you have to heal them by the next day. You have to give them the thing that they need, the type of medicine that you're creating for them. Otherwise, you're going to lose a recovery point, and you're going to lose that patient as well. They're discarded regardless whether you heal give them the medicine that they need or if they leave. But the they are also leveled from 1 to six. So they're going to get harder and harder for you to be able to create these

11:01 medicines for them as well. So taking a look over here, this current patient, you're going to need to create pills for them. Now this patient has chatter fever and needs pills for it. So they need the ingredients which are going to be our mushrooms and berries. And then after that you're going to look at the level. So this one is going to a reward you victory points based on the level that you're producing. So it's going to add your botney plus the skill that it is requiring. So for this one here, it's actually the skill that we were able to increase earlier with our advanced studies. So it would cost you an action to create the medicine for the patient. We would make the pills and with that action we would spend both of these resources off to the side and we would also have the level be the three plus the one which is our current botney. So that would be a total of four and with that it would be two victory points for us. So we would or sorry it would be a total of four. So it would be eight victory points. So we would be able to move up for the eight for healing this particular patient here and then we would hold them off to the side. Now, the patients are going to require higher and higher level medicines. But something else that you're also able to do is that if you're creating a tincture, you're actually able to add mushrooms to it as well. So, you can add mushrooms to increase the level of that tincture to make it even more powerful.

12:23 So, patients may need them, but you're also able to boost them if you're able to forge that for yourself. Now, finally, here you are able to brew some tea as well, which is going to help you work a little bit quicker. And with that, you are able to spend some of your herbs to increase yourself in initiative. So, if it were the purple player's turn and they were taking a turn in the pharmacy, they would be able to spend these to increase themsel here on the initiative track. And that's not only going to help them go sooner when they are visiting the different locations above the blue player, but that's also going to award you victory points at the end of the game depending on where you land on that track. Now, the village area is all about where you are making yourself better. So, you're going out into the village to increase your skills as a pharmacist. And as you saw here, we went to those group studies where you were able to advance yourself, but you're also able to attend individual training to increase your skills as well. And you're also able to take apprentices for yourself. Now, as you can see how this is set up, there are certain ones that will not be placed out depending if you are playing a two or a three player game. If you're playing four, all of them will be placed out. But players are only ever able to have up to two apprentices. And when you have an apprentice, you actually are able to upgrade them to journeymen to produce bonuses for you. And you're able to have up to four journeymen, but you can never have two of the same type. So

13:55 that is how you limit which ones you're able to have that you're only able to have so many bonuses in certain ways. But these apprentices are going to be very strong ways for you to add a special boost to your pharmacy. Now finally, there's this market over here. And the market is only open during specific times. So, today the market is open from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. And that is going to change each day, which is going to change players choices as to where they choose to slot certain things for their time because that's also going to be in relation to what's happening for the advanced studies that day as well. Now, here players are able to take mortars, which is going to help them increase on this track here, or they're able to take these as well, which are going to be different furnishings to place in different areas. So, as you can see by the color that is respective to where it would go, for example, the green one would go in for the forest here, where if you were to draft this, you would then take your token and increase it on these areas here. So, you're able to buy up to three different things over here. And that's going to cost you one, two, or four resources.

15:04 But if you try to go in the morning first thing, it's actually going to cost you an extra resource to be able to do so. But if you go at the very end of the day and you time yourself well, if there is anything left over, you're able to get it at a negative one discount. So that might be something for you to choose to do as well. But you might be worried about initiative and who might be doing that same thing at the same time. So you are going to use these to move forward on these different areas and they're all going to provide bonuses for you. Whether it's going to be an in-game bonus that's going to be something very special or it's going to be some victory points for you moving forward on these tracks is going to be really really important as well and players are going to need to focus on it because you only have so many items available in the market for you to be able to purchase each round. Now, finally, taking a look at the forest here. As you saw, we tried to take some things early in the morning, and you're only able to take one, but from 11 to 1:00 p.m., you're able to take two items from this area. Again, depending on what's left, because you're going to have less of a selection. And then at 2 p.m., you're able to take three. At 3:00 p.m., you're able to take four. And at 400 p.m., as you can see, both of these players are there at 400 p.m. you're actually going to take the rest, divide it out, and all players will get those.

16:21 So, this would actually work out really well where even if this player here at 100 p.m. took two different things, both players would actually get three each at 400 p.m. Now, that's not always typical. This is going to change, especially once you start being able to build out which tokens you want for yourself each round, but it's going to be really important also for you to draft specific ones that you may need for a particular type of medicine that you need to make for the patients that you have. Now, finally, when drafting from the forest, you are going to be moving forward on your botany track. So, if you do draft something that matches exactly what is next on your botany track, you'll be able to move forward for free. So, if this player were to draw this one here, they would be able to move forward, but you are also able to discard the one that you are drawing to be able to move forward as well. So you could choose just to not take whatever it is that you might be getting from the board to move yourself forward along this track. And again, that's important because you do need it at a certain level to be able to contribute to the medicines that you are making for your different patients, but it's also going to provide some endgame scoring for you as well. Players are able to experiment as well, and that's going to be this table over here. So, you're actually only able to do it twice per day. And when you do so, you're going to take one of these tokens out representing that it has been done. But when a player does that, they're going to use any hour that they want. So this

17:53 is something that you're able to visit with an hour that perhaps something that you wanted to do is gone or you just didn't really know what you wanted to do with that hour, but you didn't want to do anything that was available in the place that you were at, for example, the forest. If there was nothing there, you may choose to experiment. And with that, you're going to roll the dieice and then increase that particular skill. So with this one, you're actually able to choose any of them, but you're either able to increase your botany twice, which is going to be another way for you to increase your botney here, or you're able to uh increase your other skills depending on which one you rolled. At the end of each day, once players have spent all of their 9 hours, you're going to refill the main board for the end of day actions. So, you'll place in any apprentices that would be for the next round. Again, for certain player counts, you'll fill in certain slots for those.

18:46 You will change the merchant hours, which are a stack of tiles here for when they are open. You will refill the tiles here. You will fill in the forest and put out new studies for players to be able to attend the next day. So, after that, you'll move on to Tuesday, unless you at the end of the game. If it's the end of Friday, you'll go on to endame scoring. So, primarily throughout the game, players are going to be getting victory points for where they are on these different tracks as they advance, as well as the patients that they are giving the different medicines to, but you're also going to get some points at the end of the game as well. Now, finally, at the end of the game, if you do have any patients still in your tableau, you are able to attempt to create medicines for them for some RP, which is going to be your points at the end of the game. And then after that, you're going to be able to get points for your position in the T bar. So, you're going to get points for where you are on the bar. For example, right now, the purple player would be getting one victory point, but then you also get points scaled if you are the first, second, or third player. And then after that, if you have reached to the end of your botney track, you're also going to score eight points for that. So that's something that's going to be really important for you to try to get to the end because it's going to cont contribute to some of those higher level patients which are going to score you a huge chunk of points, but then it's also worth eight points inherently on its own at the end of the game. Finally, you'll get a huge chunk of points depending on

20:16 if you have up to four journeymen. uh the more you have is definitely better and you'll also gain victory points for your skills for the lowest one that you have depending on where it is. So everything you are trying to balance throughout the game is going to be not only gaining you victory points throughout the game with the patients that you are helping but also working toward those endame victory points such as having a full set of those journeymen in your tableau. Overall, Tincture is going to be a game that's very straightforward where you have the five days that you are working within as your pharmacy is open and you have the nine hours where you know that everyone has these certain locations that they are trying to visit at least at the beginning until they start building out their different specialties for where they like to go. But it just makes sense with the different things that you're going to be doing that not only are you trying to create these different medicines to supply to your different patients. But you're trying to visit the village and do some actions that are actually group actions such as the training where everyone's able to attend these different classes together. But sometimes you're trying to do things before other players, such as getting to the forest and forging those different herbs that you need for that one special medicine that your patient needs before they're going to walk away because you didn't make it fast enough for them.

21:33 You're also going to have your apprentices that you are juggling trying to get them into being these prestigious journeymen that are going to be a whole lot more helpful working within your differenties. But a lot of the pacing of the game is going to have you starting off as a very base pharmacist. And as you start upgrading your different skills and doing different things, you're going to start acquiring these journeymen. They're going to start helping you. And you're going to start seeing a much stronger closing to the week where you're going to acquire a lot of those different points for yourself before doing the endgame scoring. On top of that, hoping for some of the set collection that you were able to upgrade your different journeymen and upgrade your botney as well. So there's a whole lot that you're trying to juggle. Not just taking in these different patients and making what they need, but trying to be good enough to make what they need as well. So you can check out the link for Tincture down below and everything that Scaling Games has planned. This has been a preview. Thank you all for watching the Board Game Code channel. I've been Professor Meg and I'll see you all next time. Bye.