Officinalis (2019)

Officinalis is a game of folds, observation and combinations. You play as an herbalist whose goal is to harvest medicinal plants to concoct infusions that bring big while avoiding the poisonous plants of your opponents!

More concretely, this game has 7 great families of plants that correspond to the Natural Environments in which they grow (Common plants, Forests, Prairies, Mountains, Landes, Rivers and Gardens). In nature, most of these plants breed in several environments, but for the purposes of the game, we chose to "categorize" them in the one where they most generally evolve.

Each medium contains 7 plants: 5 widespread plants, 1 rare plant and 1 toxic plant. For simplicity, we call Toxic, a plant that is potentially dangerous. In reality, most of these plants can have beneficial virtues if properly used. As Paracelsus (considered to be the father of toxicology) so aptly puts it: "Everything is poison, nothing is poison ... It's a question of dosage". The game also includes two plants that we invented from scratch for the needs of the game. They have special exotic abilities that pleasantly spice up the gameplay.

The last 4 cards are the pickers, they are not playable and are used to define the middle of predilection of each player.

To win the game, you have to accumulate as many points as possible by harvesting plants. The rarer the plant, the more points it yields. On the other hand, toxic plants make them lose.

But the secret to being victorious is to create infusions by combining certain plants to score bonus points that will make all the difference. There are 8 possible combinations: Anti-Stress, Circulation, Detox, Hepatitis, Silhouette, Wishes, Articulation and Peaceful Night.

The amusing detail is that these combinations are authentic mixtures of infusions created by the herbalist Jean Maison du Comptoir d'Herboristerie. The icing on the cake: Each box of Officinalis contains a tea bag. This game is literally to be enjoyed by the fire.

A round ends when all the rare plants (the Merveilles) have been harvested. This rule point may seem trivial but it adds a very interesting notion of stress. Indeed, the round can end after two or three rounds, so it may be wise to take risks to score more points ... Or not.

The game is played in 7 rounds but nothing prevents you to shorten or extend the game if the heart tells you.

Officinalis funded on the Kickstarter platform

Officinalis was funded on the Crowdfunding Kickstarter (See the campaign) platform on the 23 November 2018, the campaign lasted 22 days. 1,316 people helped funded the game, whose the amount requested was €4,000.00. Thanks to these 1,316 people the game could be funded up to €37,099.00, ~927.48%.

Rule, Educational Sheet ... 2 Files Available2 Files Available

Download the rule for Officinalis or any other documents (scenarios, goodies, pedagogical sheet, erratum, ...). 2 PDF files are available. See all available files