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

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Don’t get me wrong, I am far past the ‘iron liver Dan’ days of my youth and waking up in car show room entry ways holding on to half eaten cheesecake slices. True story. Don’t ask. But I do still enjoy the odd tiple. Especially if that tiple happens to be unusual and interesting. And coincidentally, that is pretty much a perfect depiction of Distilled: unusual and interesting. If you want to play it on Distilled's dedicated Discord server, find it here: https://discord.gg/Th9WFcX Over seven rounds, players take very simple actions by buying cards from both a premium and/or basic marketplace, then simultaneously distilling spirits before selling and/or aging their swill to earn money and SPs. Public milestones force players to race for additional SPs, while each player can score up to two private goal cards to pile on the points. Seth Berrier is the scripter behind Distilled’s digital presence on Tabletop Simulator. Seth is a seasoned programmer and software engineer. He has worked on projects in the commercial sector, for Benjamin Moore & Co. and ThermaSolutions Inc., and was a recipient of the Google Summer of Code grant project working on the Crystal Space 3D game engine. He teaches game development and web programming courses at the University of Wisconsin Stout and has guided dozens of games in the Junior and Senior level project courses for the game design program. As soon as I opened the lid on the box for Distilled, I knew I made the right decision to go all in on my pledge. “In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is Freedom, in water there is bacteria.” Benjamin Franklin

Sell Phase– Players bottle their spirits, score spirit points, receive money and gain a label bonus. Points and money are awarded for the cards that make up your spirit (including a barrel) that has been distilled in the previous phase.Note: While this is a game about making alcohol, it focuses more on the true science and business behind it, not the consumption! Of course, for fans of games about beer, wine, and other alcohol - such as Viticulture, Vinhos, Brewcrafters, or Homebrewers - you might find this game interesting. Or if you've ever wondered how people distill liquor or brew beer, you might find this intriguing as well! As it is, some rounds come down to this: you’ll buy a bunch of stuff, shuffle up the cards you want to use in the recipe, then pull out the top and bottom card, and voila, you’ve got your spirit. If you only had enough money to hope for the best, you might get hosed. I had a game where I got hosed on three different turns, ending up with vodka each time. In that game—a game where I produced vodka four times—I lost by 40 points despite doing a decent job of trying to mitigate a bad card draw. As a slight disclaimer, it is worth noting that the pics I have provided for this review were taken from my Signature Blend pledge level copy of the game. So, there may be elements not present in the base game, such as brewers from the Middle Eastern expansion, metal coins, coasters, shot glass, neoprene mat etc. But, that said, the base game and components are all produced at an excellent standard and the retail version of the game is still superb.

Distilling a spirit is a science, it is a craft that is finely tuned and perfected over a number of years. Distilled is in essence the embodiment of this craft. Distilled is a well crafted and tasteful blend of mechanisms that when mixed together leaves a very appealing taste on the metaphorical gaming pallet. It is really hard to find fault in this masterpiece. But I do have a job to do… “Alcohol may be man’s worst enemy, but the bible says love your enemy.” Frank SinatraThe other thing that might turn off some players: money. That’s because, for at least a round or two (and maybe more if you aren’t able to generate a handsome product), you aren’t going to have any cash.