Yeah but when you teach the game to new players having played it yourself are you going to use that tutorial all the time?

I suppose that depends on how many different groups you’ll be teaching it to. For me I only have two gaming groups, so it wasn’t a big deal to play the tutorial twice. But I understand that might not be true for all.

Probably not, but it shows that leaving the Spirit Awards out entirely doesn't hurt the game if you choose to do that, and considering no players managed to snag a bottle collection bonus in my first game, I'd imagine you could simply leave that out as well and introduce it later if you felt that was a more streamlined way to ramp up new players.

@@TheBrokenMeeple I have twice so far. Already knew the game already both times. It has the extra advantage of explaining more thematic flavor behind the rules/mechanics than even the rulebook. If just one new player, it would be trivial to just dice right in and handicap that player extra $2 starting money. $2 in the hands of experienced players is a lot, but in the hands of beginner it just gets the, going (the First Taste starts them with $2).

They're working on a game called Luthier right now that I have my eye on! Still in production, but the idea of making instruments as a theme sounds so good.

@@beakerkell Count me in!

yup! waiting for distilled pre-order...Luthier sounds interesting too! Very unique industry-theme! 😊

Played Luthier today it was stellar!

​@@boredomiscommonso cool! How did you get a chance to play it?

There are lot of little bits to this game, some of which could have been extracted out as expansion material - but it does feel like everything and the kitchen sink right off the bat.

There are quite a few little rules and things that can be easily forgotten.

@@TheBrokenMeeple I guess I consider games like Wingspan and the like very entry-level games. This one didn't seem more complex than that game for example. Based on Zee's top 10, I'm surprised is all.

@@shoruk I don't think he was talking about making it closer to an entry-level game. I interpreted his wish for making it more accessible as being that it would be nice not to worry about learning (or teaching!) a couple/few of the "extra" things for the first play or two. I know I have an easier time teaching, even experienced gamers, the smaller my list of "how this thing works" is.

Agreed, it’s much less of an issue in solo mode but when playing with a group it can frustrating for those on the sides of the table.

Agreed on the OP items - some cards are just so much better and a must grab.

“Bad” flavours in a spirit don’t necessarily devalue the spirit. It may limit the appeal of it but also may enhance the appeal to others. Hard to say it should decrease the point value of it though.

@The Broken Meeple What I am getting at is for aging the extra VP should be from the aging cards, not just free points because you got lucky and let one drink age for 6 rounds. You pretty much get one additional signature recipe worth of vp for doing nothing but sitting on a card and its not like you lose anything doing so, you can make other drinks quite easily the following rounds. I was 50+ish points ahead of someone and they beat me by 2 because they got the free 16 points from aging for so long and they had 1 to 2 star flavors only and I had all 4 to 5 star ratings but I couldn't age for as long so I got the 10vp. Thematically the better drink should be worth more not because it aged longer which is my argument

@Iain MacLeod Meant to replay to you, not other guy see above

You are giving up the sale and label bonus for that spirit, as well as starving the next turn of money due to having to trade VP for tasting. Worst case scenario those labels are worth 2VP, but to age this long they should be worth much more. Money should give about a 20-35% return off the spending each turn (in money and/or points) so the compounding interest of keeping a barrel in storage could be offset by for losing other equally valid strategies. Unless you have one of the 3 very expensive upgrades that add tasting cards (or the bourbon barrel), you are basically distilling for the entire game, which means you've foregone the money the flavor cards add in your entire engine. Not to say aging isn't gangbusters but it appears to be balanced by non-aging players being able to consistently buy bottles and set collect to a similar number of points. Also, realistically you can only afford to keep one barrel in the storehouse aging this way as the other needs to either cycle back or not be used for aging.

What are your favorite recipe fulfillment games?

Could you share some of those, I like this game and would love to try others like it.

There's ways to mitigate. Adding extra sugars, which may add additional alcohol. There's cards that allow you to add additional alcohol as well aside from just the ingredients. There's cards that you can use to only have to remove one card instead of two. With a right combination of cards, you may not have to remove any at all during the phase. It can be frustrating to see your plan go horribly wrong. But when it goes your way, it's also very sweet. Edit: you can also use the alcohol for water or yeast. You can also take the remaining cards you lose for your next batch. This can be incredibly beneficial later. I just got done playing the game again and there's so many ways to overcome this.

For someone with their own review channel why are you all over these comments trashing a game lol

Thanks for your thoughts on the game, I respect your comments on the game.

@@Bleuchz lol it's okay. Don't be so defensive. Some people won't like as much as you do the games you enjoy. That's life. And by the way, Luke is by no means "trashing" your beloved game (a 6 is not that awful...), he's just giving his honest opinion "regardless of the consequences" as he does so well. ;) He is one of the best reviewer on KZfaq and it's nice to hear some interesting counter-arguments to this glaring review by the Dice Tower. Some counter-arguments that do echo some concerns I had when watching the explanations for the game.

As another said, you can 100 percent mitigate the push your luck and eliminate it even. Just add more ingredients. Just means you will likely be making a lower spirit. Push your luck is optional.

I believe the “push” aspect comes from trying to produce a recipe needing two sugars and only having two sugars in your batch and hoping they don’t come out in the distillation process. You could include four sugars, thereby making it impossible not to distill what you want but then you are eliminating some of the “push” factor. That’s my 2 cents, anyway.

@@tolkienfan4ever As well as there are upgrades that mitigate that. It's surprisingly easy to mitigate because depending on the tasting menu, one can plan adequate fallbacks and one's signature ingredient can't be pulled out. Not to mention that each sugar adds an alcohol so the probabilities are well determined. If you get shafted because you got moonshine or vodka it's really almost entirely your fault (esp, since i'm the early game, you should WANT moonshine or vodka because it will generate more money and money is more valuable than points until maybe the final 2 turns). As for Viticulture being thematic, Lol! There is a whole podcast devoted to where Jamey admits to not being thematic at all because real winemaking is not fun. It's a great game, but it's a bit less thematic that this one. He famously did almost no research when developing that game. That's fine, the game came out like 8 years ago… different times, these designers have the benefit of having played Viticulture before designing their own, while the reverse is not true.

Except the push your luck head and tail of your batch are very real things. Distilling spirits is not easy and making something good is never a guarantee. I would argue the theme is married to the game at all points.

@@tychay Happy to make you laugh. I didn't even try. ;) Let's have a look at some random top 10 thematic eurogames lists: - Brothers Murph: Viticulture (4th place) - ThinkerThemer: Viticulture (2nd place) - The Broken Meeple: Viticulture (5th place) - Marathon Meeple: Viticulure (1st place) - Dice Tower People's choice: Viticulture (1st place) etc. etc. (and that's only from the first results of a KZfaq search) Yep sorry "lol" I was being silly, that was a ludicrous statement. (I'm not even a huge fan of the game btw, I just admit that the theme is objectively well implemented... Worker placement does work well for theming in a eurogame...) But you're right, Distilled nailed the job of "spirits maker". "Spirits makers" are those guys who specialize on making different spirits every day, in order to get more points - or because they foolishly misplaced an ingredient... :D Distilled may be very educational with its recipes and the mixing of the ingredients, and the game does look fine, but the premise of it just feels wrong thematically. Had they chosen a "brewing potions" theme that the mechanics of the game would have felt more thematic to me (would have been less popular though!).

Judging from your comment you obviously haven't played it. It's very thematic; but hey, you do you buddy.