SNAP Review – Little Alchemists

Andrew, when you were a kid, did you make “potions” in your parents’ kitchen?

Potions?

I remember our kids doing this A LOT – they’d mix a bunch of random stuff together, and they were like, “Look! a potion!”

Not in the kitchen. But I did do it with fountain drinks at restaurants and gas stations – So did you, come on.

What if you had a relative who was actually a magician and showed you how to make magical potions? Well, that’s the idea behind Little Alchemists.

Game

Little Alchemists is a game for 2-4 players, ages 7 all the way up to adults. Matúš Kotry, the designer of Alchemists, also designed this more introductory version, and it’s published by CGE.

The instructions say it’s “like running a lemonade stand, but the lemonade is magic.”

Art

Let’s talk about the art in Little Alchemists. There’s a lot here to love!

Each player gets a cool folding screen, a board to record their guesses of how ingredients combine, a board to hold their ingredient combinations for making a new potion, and a tiny bottle in their color.

We’ve also got plenty of tiles and tokens, all of which are vibrantly colored and attractive… and seven (EDITOR: oops, six) mysterious boxes that might hold something more.

Everything here is super well designed – there’s never much of a question as to where things go.

And don’t forget the app! It’s necessary to play the game, but it also adds to the immersive nature with visual and sound effects. And it guides you through any new instructions as well as providing helpful reminders – like discarding your tiles.

Shh!

Mechanics

With an app, player screens, and an abundance of tiles, I imagine we’re doing something secretly in this game.

Yup! Let’s talk about the mechanics and how to play Little Alchemists.

Every player starts with three ingredient tiles and two coins. Start the app and it will walk you through the process.

On your turn, put two of your ingredient tiles in the holder at the top of your screen, then tap “Make a Potion” in the app and scan the tiles. The app will show you what kind of potion you made! Show everyone the potion on the screen, but they don’t get to see what ingredients you used.

Put the matching potion token in the right place in your ingredient combination tracker. Then discard your two ingredients face-down and take two new ones.

You also have the option to buy a new ingredient from the market on your turn for one coin.

Once you’ve gotten the hang of this, the game introduces customers. Each customer is willing to pay each player ONCE to create their favorite potion. Every time you run through the deck of ingredients next to the market, a new customer is revealed, replacing the existing customer, if there is one.

If, at the end of your first game, the group can work together to beat a little quiz in the app, the next level will be unlocked, which makes the players compete to form and share “theories” about which kinds of potions each ingredient makes. You share a theory instead of making a potion on your turn.

Each time you play the game, you’ll earn key stickers to put on the next box, and get closer to unlocking the next level. And each level introduces a little bit of complexity: more ingredients, more potion types, and more ways to get points.

We did have some minor problems with the app a few times, either in scanning ingredient combos or in scanning a completed box to unlock more rules. It never misread ingredients as something else. It just refused to read sometimes. We’re guessing this was from low light or excess glare, and we were usually able to fix it by simply changing the angle. The app is also updated pretty regularly.

Expectations

What did we expect from Little Alchemists?

I knew this would be a game with a younger focus – the “little” and the 7+ on the box kind of gave that away. I didn’t expect it to be an app-driven game (why, I don’t know). But once we set everything up with the boards, I started to get pretty excited, because I actually do like pure deduction games.

Me too.

I had heard of Alchemists, which people speak of very highly. But it’s a pretty complicated game – complex enough that I was never really drawn to seek it out and play it. I’d rather play something easier to learn and less complex. I was definitely ready to try a kids’ version of it, though!

Surprises

Well, let’s talk surprises. What surprised us about this game?

I was surprised both by just HOW simple this game started – the first level of play is barely even a game! You just make potions and hope you can sell them to customers. It’s honestly just about perfect for that younger kid range, age 6-7, who wants to play this kind of game but doesn’t have the patience for more than about 10 minutes of structured turn-taking.

But the more we played, the more I liked this game. Of course, it’s fun to unlock new things, but the highest levels are also the kind of game I love to play! It’s not too long, it offers real choices and a race to deduce information first.

I totally agree. Little Alchemists does an amazing job slowly ramping up the difficulty. And I loved that after that first level, the game is a competition while simultaneously being a cooperative effort to open the rest of the boxes. If Czech Games Edition was trying to dial in the right way to hook kids, they certainly did that.

I also loved – minor point – the way they put the locked components in the box. They make kind of a false bottom, which opens up as you play more and unlock more of them.

Recommended?

So, do we recommend Little Alchemists, Anitra?

We talk sometimes on our podcast about “room to grow” – a series of games we recommend for beginner, intermediate, and advanced players. If you’ve never listened, we’ll put a link here somewhere.

Little Alchemists is a “room to grow” game all by itself, starting at a very low level and slowly adding more complexity. You can stop at any time on a level you feel comfortable with and just play that for a while, or even move back a level if you or your kids aren’t ready to move up. And by the final level, you are just a few small steps below the regular Alchemists game, if you wanted to move it up further.

We definitely recommend Little Alchemists to any family that feels ready for a game that has a lot of little pieces. (A lot!) If your kids like it, you’ll be able to dial in just how complex you want it to be.

We give it 4½ potions out of 5.

And that’s Little Alchemists, in a SNAP!

Find Little Alchemists on Amazon, direct from CGE, or at your local game store.

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The Family Gamers received a copy of Little Alchemists from CGE for this review.

This post contains affiliate links, which do not change your price, but help support The Family Gamers.

SNAP review music is Avalanche, provided courtesy of You Bred Raptors?