Overview
At a glance
Is this game right for my group?
ABG editorial scores on a 1–5 scale.
Harder to teach
High replayability
Highly interactive
Scales well
Deep strategy
How it plays
How does it play?
In Alchemidus, players try to extract gold by manipulating alchemic formulas drawn from 15 pages of a book of magic. By modifying dice rolls, players puzzle out which processes produce gold.
Core mechanisms
Key systems that shape the decisions players make.
Read the full game description
In Alchemidus, players try to extract gold by manipulating alchemic formulas drawn from 15 pages of a book of magic. By modifying dice rolls, players puzzle out which processes produce gold. Whoever can get the most gold at the least cost is the winner. In more detail, Alchemidus is a speed puzzle, with players trying to be the fastest to find the cheapest way to convert clay to gold. The game has four pairs of d6 dice, in gold, lead, clay and white to show the process. The 2 gold and clay dice, and 1 of the lead dice are rolled and placed on their respective marker cards. The players must figure how to progress from the two clay numbers, to the one lead number, and then back to the two gold numbers. To do this, there are three rows of five cards dealt out from three small decks. One row has spells to remove a die, so you need that to go from clay to lead. Likewise, another row is spells to add a die, so you need that to go from lead to gold. The third row is to modify dice values. The spells are varied and often symmetrical, so you might have one spell saying "If the total is >=7, do..." and another saying "If the total is