Distilled: A Spirited Strategy Game, Highly-Thematic Euro Game, Strie for The Title of Master Distiller, 30 Minute Play Time, for 1 to 5 Players, Ages 14 and up

Product Information

A spark kept him up all night putting the core gameplay mechanics to paper and planning out what is now Distilled. I brewed all-grain, which is starting from the grain, hops and yeast, and ending up with tasty, brown, dancing fuel. I have a quick question - I see there is a 5th player in a bag but I'm not 100% sure how to play with the 5th player? The removal of the top and bottom card is meant to mimic the angel’s share and the devil’s cut from the distillation process.

That tightness of only being able to make one spirit per round means that you want to try and make the best you can every time to get those all important points, but that little economic game that sits underneath makes you constantly aware that this game is still about running a business. But there is very little interaction in the game, making each experience a race to distill different (and limited) spirits before other players can complete their recipes. Also—and this is purely a guess based on my plays, so take this with a grain of salt—the distillery owner cards feel unbalanced. It works great at taking you through the process of making different spirits whilst giving you enough of an economic puzzle to back up the fun of getting the best out of your booze. The real question you have to ask yourself is, is the game worth pairing with a 60 year old MacCutcheon Whisky or is it only worth breaking out the cheap supermarket own brand?Choose whether to age your spirits to enhance their flavor, or immediately bottle them to sell it for quick profit. You then see which cards you have left in your hand and see which spirit you can make on your clipboard out of the recipes you’ve learned. I was given a copy of the retail version of the game, so while I don’t have fancy metal coins or a metal first-player marker, everything else here is top notch. Then they all get combined into a deck, shuffled, and the top and bottom card are discarded back to your player board for use in a later round. They have taken what must have started as a simple game idea and transformed it into an excellent gaming experience.

Players add yeast, water, and sugar cards to the “Washback” area of their board, then shuffle those cards. A typical round is made up of four phase; Market, Distill, Sell and Age phase and players will gain “Spirit” points over the course of seven rounds. Some of the spirits have a specific ingredient requirement and by removing two cards you may remove the only two cards that you need to complete a recipe. Distill Phase - Players will attempt to distill a liquid using the ingredients they have collected and added to the washback, add a barrel and claim a spirit label.Even the basic ingredients and basic items cost more than I would have guessed given how tight cash is.

The thing that really had me smiling however was the small sheet that I was presented with when I opened the box. Personally I’d be tempted to to leave out the private goals and maybe the bottle set collection for a first game. Beyond the minor issues I have already discussed, there’s one more caveat I need to mention: the playtime.For my final review play, I tried Distilled at five players, with three of the five players being experienced Distilled players. You’re left making some lesser spirit potentially, which in a game as tight as this can feel like a big loss. With four different markets out there you’re going to have quite a few options to choose from but be warned, money can be tight in this game, especially in the early rounds as your alcoholic empire is beginning to grow. A typical round is made up of four phases; Market, Distill, Sell and Age phase and players will gain "Spirit" points over the course of seven rounds. As of the publishing of this review they have already met the pledge goal in 23 minutes, so congratulations to Dave Beck and the team over at Paverson Games.

Turning over those top and bottom cards creates a feeling of tension not unlike taking that of risky the extra card in Blackjack, when you’re already at 15. I have to rule out tableau-building because the standard market actions are not upgraded or expanded upon in any way as new cards are bought and the game progresses in rounds. And considering this is the first foray into the world of game design for this team, they have done an outstanding job. My opponent’s character started with 4 coins, 1 yeast and their signature blend was worth 17 points and 3 coins.The asymmetry in distillery identities (the people who you play and who own these upstart distilleries) is slightly superficial as most boil down to gaining roughly a coin and a half per round during one phase or another—if not just a direct deposit into a player’s reserves.