Dr Eureka

Dr Eureka is a game that has been on my radar for many years and I have never picked it up or played it for whatever reason. Recently, we had a chance to play it at a board game cafe down in Portsmouth. I am really glad that we did because playing it in a board game cafe is probably the best way to play this.

The concept is super simple. Everyone has three test tubes with marbles of different colours, and a card is turned over that shows those marbles in those test tubes in some kind of orientation. What you then have to do, by moving marbles from one test tube to another without dropping any of them on the floor, is get them into that specific orientation.

This reminds me so much of the very well known logic puzzle where you have different containers with different amounts of liquid in them, and you have to work out how to get exactly one amount of liquid into one container simply by switching between the containers.

The first person to complete the correct marble layout shown on the card wins that card. The first person to a certain number of cards wins the game, and to be honest, that is about it. It is quick, it is easy, and it is quite good fun, but it is not without its obvious share of issues.

First and foremost, this is as much of a dexterity game as it is a logic game, in that transferring the balls from test tube to test tube is actually quite hard. Toby found it quite tricky to do, and I am going to be honest, I reckon any kids under seven or eight are going to find it quite difficult, as the dexterity needed to transfer those marbles is not easy. They are going to drop marbles, and be prepared for those marbles to go everywhere all over the floor, which again is fine, but it is something to be aware of.

I think the biggest issue I have is that once you have done half a dozen puzzles, you are kind of left thinking, now what? We enjoyed it for about five minutes, but I cannot say we would ever play it again, and the boys were just asking, right, okay, done that, what is next?

Component quality is really nice. The test tubes are a little bit brittle, so they could easily get broken over time, but they are not terrible. The marbles are nice quality, and everything goes nicely back into the box.

The biggest issue here is purely that there is not a lot of longevity. We had fun for five minutes and then had to move on, and we are probably never going to play it again. Therefore, I am going to give this a middling score. The key thing is that I would say yes, do play this, but play it at a board game cafe like we did. I would not go out and buy this, as it is definitely not going to get even close to regular play, which is a shame, as I think with a few extra rules, maybe some extra bits, there could be a bit more here to make it more of a long-term prospect.

*Play it in a Board Game Cafe