Zaubercocktail
Zaubercocktail Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Components
- 165 playing cards:
- 155 ingredient cards, in 10 different kinds, plus 4 Black Somethings
- 9 recipe cards
- 1 Magic Bolt card
- 7 magic stones (glass)
- 7 placement stones (wood)
- 1 game board
The magic ingredients (number of cards in brackets):
- Blue Schlums (27): Only their tears of joy are used in magic lore. As they have little to laugh about, very many of them are needed.
- Greenwurz (23): Men ascribe wondrous powers to it; women say that chewing Greenwurz is certainly good for the teeth.
- Lead Earth (21): Collected in large quantities. Legend says that if Lead Earth is mixed with the right ingredients, it can be turned into gold.
- Giraffe Extract (19): A glandular secretion of the giraffe-necked bats that live in the treetops of the tropical rainforest.
- Troll Hair (16): Gets caught in Norwegian blueberry bushes and is plucked by blonde women. In larger quantities it is good against techno hearing damage.
- Yellow Schlums (14): The distinguished relatives of the Blue Schlums. They supply the so-called "toad caviar".
- Silver Grass (11): Very sought after in South America, because it lends corrupt politicians an aura of seriousness. Recently increasingly in demand in Central Europe too.
- White Berries (9): A fruit especially sought after in Bavaria, from which the well-known "white beer" is made and drunk by the half-litre.
- Faran Leaf (6): Is said to contain a secret writing that becomes noticeable as an "inner voice" after drinking a Faran brew. Sought after by illiterates and stockbrokers.
- Gold Rose (5): An ancient Minoan cultivated plant, rediscovered in 1989 in a shooting gallery in Danzig. Very rare and valuable. Nobody knows what it is good for.
- Black Something (4): A coal-black, incomprehensible thing that can stand for anything without ever having to sit down. Makes every cocktail a blossoming landscape.
Setup
- Place the game board on the box insert. The game box together with the insert is placed in the middle of the table. Each player takes a placement stone and sets it on the large square starting field on the board.
- Each player also receives a magic stone of the same colour, which they place in front of them. (With fewer than 7 players, the unused placement stones and magic stones are set aside.)
- The 9 recipe cards are shuffled face down. Then three cards are counted off face down, and the Magic Bolt is added face down to them. These four cards are shuffled and placed under the stack of the other recipe cards. The whole stack is placed beside the game box.
Object of the Game
The players collect ingredients over the individual rounds and receive magic points for them. They use these points to advance their placement stones along the magic path. The player who stands furthest forward on the path at the end of the game wins.
Course of the Game
The game is played over several rounds. After each round, points are awarded and then a new round begins. As soon as the Magic Bolt appears, the game ends immediately.
Round Procedure
The oldest player shuffles all the ingredients and the Black Somethings thoroughly together into one stack. They then deal the cards face down, one at a time, to the players:
- In the first round, they deal ten cards to each player.
- In the following rounds, they deal only five cards to each player.
Undealt cards are set aside as a stack. The players take their cards into their hand. Only once every player has looked at their cards does the dealer reveal the top spell card, which states how points are awarded at the end of the round. Play then begins immediately.
All players act at the same time. They try to exchange ingredients. Each player calls out their offer loudly and tries to find a trading partner. Different combinations of cards are allowed in an offer. However, offers must always be truthful, and trades must be carried out as agreed.
Three examples of offers:
- "I am looking for three Blue Schlums and will give a Faran Leaf for them!"
- "I can give a White Berry, but urgently need a Silver Grass!"
- "For a Gold Rose I will give almost anything. What do you want?"
When two wizards have agreed on a trade, they exchange their ingredients as agreed. If one player gives other ingredients than the ones agreed, the trading partner calls out loudly "Stop!". The game is briefly interrupted. Nobody may continue trading at this point. The "wrong" trade is undone, and the "false trader" must move their placement stone back one field. Then the frantic trading continues immediately.
Black Somethings
- The Black Somethings have a joker function. They count as any ingredient.
- However, they may never be laid down alone. They may only be laid down in addition to "normal" ingredients.
If a player does not have two ingredients of one kind, they must announce this aloud and show their cards to all the other players as proof.
End of a Round
When a player believes they no longer need to trade, they lay their ingredients face down in front of them and place their magic stone in the cut-out in the lower area of the board (in the ring). That player takes no further part in the trading.
The second and third players who drop out from the negotiations place their magic stones in the cut-outs in the goblet (Kelch). As soon as three magic stones lie on the board, the round ends and is scored. (With four players, the round already ends when two players have dropped out.)
Each player must now present at least 2 cards from the cards in their hand for scoring. Each player may:
- lay down at most two different kinds of ingredient, and
- must lay at least two cards of each kind laid down.
The player who put their magic stone in the ring, meaning the player who dropped out of the negotiations first, may additionally move forward 2 fields if they are among the best three (with 4 and 5 players) or among the best four (with 6 and 7 players). If they do not manage this, they must move back the 2 fields.
Then all the ingredient cards played are shuffled briefly and placed under the supply pile, so that there are always enough cards for dealing. Finally, the players take their magic stones back from the board.
Scoring
When all cards have been laid down, they are revealed simultaneously. The value of the ingredients is determined and, where applicable (when two kinds were laid down), added together. The rulebook gives no separate value table for the ingredients; the worked example below shows the resulting totals.
- The players with the highest results move their placement stones forward according to the recipe card that is face up. Only the best three players ever move forward, regardless of how many players take part.
- The player with the lowest result must move their placement stone back, but never behind the last field of the magic path. If a player has laid down no ingredients, because they did not have two of a kind, they must move back.
If two players are tied, the player who has played more cards in total is ahead. If there is still no clear ranking, the tied players each draw a card from the supply pile. The more valuable card determines the ranking. The drawn cards are then placed under the stack. This process may need to be repeated.
Example of Point Calculation
- Arne has: 4x Giraffe Extract (44 points) + 2x White Berries (42 points) = 86 points
- Babs has: 3x Faran Leaf (93 points) = 93 points
- Chris has: 7x Greenwurz (70 points) + 2x Lead Earth (16 points) = 86 points
- Doro has: 3x Troll Hair (42 points) + 3x Yellow Schlums (45 points) = 87 points
- Erni has: 2x White Berries and 1x Black Something (66 points) = 66 points
According to the face-up recipe card (5/3/1/-2), the placement stones are moved as follows:
- Babs with 93 points: 5 fields forward
- Doro with 87 points: 3 fields forward
- Chris with 86 points (9 cards): 1 field forward
- Arne with 86 points (6 cards): stays where they are
- Erni with 66 points: 2 fields back
In addition, there is the bonus for the magic stone in the ring of +2 fields for the player who dropped out of the trading first. In this case that was Doro. Had Doro finished last, they would have had to move back 4 fields (2 for passing early and 2 for the recipe card).
Also note that Babs and Erni played only three cards, Arne and Doro already six cards, and Chris even nine cards.
Next Round
The dealer takes the supply pile and deals five cards to each other player, one at a time, without shuffling again. Depending on how the players traded and laid down ingredients before, they now have different numbers of cards available.
After dealing, the dealer reveals the next recipe card, and the trading offers of all players begin again immediately.
End of Game
As soon as the Magic Bolt is revealed among the recipe cards, the game ends immediately. The player who now stands furthest forward with their placement stone on the magic path has won. The game also ends early if a player reaches the large target field.
Translator's Notes
- The rulebook calls the card revealed at the start of each round a "spell card" (Zauberspruch) and the scoring card a "recipe card" (Rezeptkarte). These are the same face-up card, so both terms are kept as printed in the German.
- The Magic Bolt is printed as "Magischer Blitz". "Schachteleinsatz" is rendered as "box insert" and "Spielkarton" as "game box".
- Two words in the scan's OCR were read from the page image: "tieften dem Spielkarton" is read as "beside the game box", and "Bussen" is read as the penalty ("Bußen") in the Doro example.
- The author, graphics, editorial, publisher address and copyright text on the final page are omitted as credits.