Quacks of Quedlinburg spin-off features pig-racing and simpler gameplay
Going for a golden cauldron.
Race farmyard animals to win a golden cauldron in the upcoming board game spin-off from Quacks of Quedlinburg.
Called Mit Quacks & Co. nach Quedlinburg - which is roughly translated into English as With Quacks & Co. to Quedlinburg - the game for two to four players takes place in the German town of Quedlinburg, where its local children hold an annual race that sees them riding on the backs of donkeys, sheep, pigs and cows. The children’s mounts are encouraged to go faster with the promise of food, with certain types of food causing the animals to race ahead. However, a certain herb, when fed to a mount, will cause them to get sleepy and want to take a nap. The racing children all dream of crossing the finish line first and earning the prize of the golden cauldron.
In a similar fashion to Quacks of Quedlinburg, Mit Quacks & Co. nach Quedlinburg sees players pulling tokens from a bag and placing them on their boards. Rather than ingredients for a potion, Mit Quacks & Co. nach Quedlinburg features different farmyard food items - such as beetroot and carrots - that the players will be putting into their mount’s feedbag in the hopes that they will move further along the racetrack. Unlike in Quacks of Quedlinburg, where players simultaneously pull tokens from their bags, players in Mit Quacks & Co. nach Quedlinburg each take turns to pull tokens.
The number of squares that a player’s animal moves is determined by the number indicated on the token they draw from their bag. Each token pulled will also trigger a different effect, with red tokens allowed players to earn up to three rubies - which they can then spend on buying more tokens for their bag - yellow tokens giving the player a random bonus; green tokens allowing that player to draw again, or place an already drawn token back into their bag, and blue chips granting players the option to move more spaces or upgrade one of their existing tokens.
Dreamweed tokens, which are coloured white, are placed onto a player’s animal dream-board whenever they are drawn. When a player has drawn three, they must stop pulling tokens and spend any rubies they’ve collected at the food market, buying more tokens to put into their bags to increase their chances of moving further along their boards. Players cannot buy two of the same coloured chip and must spend all their rubies, or will otherwise have to discard any remaining rubies.
A round finishes when all the players have drawn three dreamweed tokens and finished their shopping. Players then begin a new round by putting all their tokens back into their bags, including the ones they’ve just bought, and starting anew. Whichever space players reach on their player board indicates how far their mounts move on the race track at the end of each round, with the first player to reach the finish line of the track being the winner of the game.
Mit Quacks & Co. nach Quedlinburg was created by the original designer of Quacks of Quedlinburg, Wolfgang Warsch, who is also responsible for creating the co-op card game The Mind, as well as roll-and-write game Ganz Schön Clever - That’s Pretty Clever - and the party board game Wavelength.
German publisher Schmidt Spiele is the studio behind the Quacks series, including Mit Quacks & Co. nach Quedlinburg, and the various expansions for Quacks of Quedlinburg such as The Herb Witches and The Alchemists.
Mit Quacks & Co. nach Quedlinburg is set to be released sometime this year at a retail price of €30 (£25/$34), with an English-language version yet to be confirmed
.