Crypt

The king is dead. On his deathbed, he made one final request – to be buried with all of his prized possessions. There’s only one problem – he had also promised these priceless heirlooms to his children as an inheritance!

Today we’re checking out Crypt, a 1-4 player bidding and set collection game by Road to Infamy Games. In Crypt, you take on the role of one of the children of a recently deceased monarch. You are competing against your siblings to recover priceless family heirlooms from your father’s tomb. The player with the highest value in treasure at the end of the game is declared the victor. Let’s take a look.

I love small box games. They allow me to easily chuck a game in a bag and have it ready in case of emergency – you know, like boredom. Before I even opened my copy of Crypt, I was excited. Not only is it a small box game, the box is pretty sturdy, and the illustrations and graphic design on the outside of the box are phenomenal. After getting the box open, my excitement continued. Everything in this game has a high production quality. All of the cards look great, and have consistent colors, matching well with the colors of the player dice.

There’s something about the art in Crypt that pulls me in. It isn’t particularly flashy or complex, but it feels consistent and elegant. I think the color pallete plays a big part in the overall feel of the game. I especially appreciate all of the player cards having two sides, allowing the player to decide which gender they wish to play. While this doesn’t really affect gameplay, it is a nice artistic touch that should honestly be an industry standard.

The setup process for the standard mode is quick and easy. Each player gets a player card and matching dice. Choose a first player, and give them the leader card – the last player receives the lights out card. Remove any treasure cards that are for higher player counts, shuffle the remaining treasure cards together, and lay out the collector cards.

The rule book is laid out in a simple and easy to understand format. Any questions we had in our first play were easy to find answers to, and explained well. The game does have several variant modes available. The solo mode is included in the base game, and there are a few more available for an extra few bucks including a, a co-op mode, and a higher player count mode that plays up to 8 players.

R2i was kind enough to send two copies of the game as well as the variant tiles and rules so we could have a full grave robbing experience. I’m not going to go into all of the variants in this review, but I do plan to cover them separately.

Turns in Crypt are broken into four steps – Reveal, Claim / Recover, Collect, and Pass Torch. Here’s a quick breakdown:

Reveal – Draw a number of treasure cards and place them according to the player count. Some will be face up showing their value, and some will be face down showing only their suit

Claim – Starting with the player with the Leader card, players place their servants (dice) on treasure cards to bid for them, choosing the value to bid. You do not roll the dice in this step. If a treasure is occupied by servants, you can push the current occupant out by bidding a higher value. Dice that are “pushed out” return to their player. It is worth noting that the last player (with the lights out card) can only bid on one treasure.

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Recover – If a player chooses not to bid on treasure, or has all of their servants pushed out in a round, they recover all of their exhausted servants.

Collect – Once the dust settles, players claim any treasures they have servant dice on. They then must roll their dice to determine if their servants become exhausted. Any dice that are rolled lower than the value that was bid become exhausted, and can not be used until they are recovered.

Pass Torch – Both the leader card and lights out card are passed to the left.

These turns repeat until there are no more treasure cards, players tally up their treasure value, taking into consideration any bonus coins they receive from collectors, and the player with the highest total value wins.

Crypt uses some pretty familiar mechanics, mashes them all together, and innovates with them at the same time. I love seeing dice used in a way that involves a decent bit of strategy. Instead of everyone just rolling dice and having the highest value win, players can guarantee they get a treasure they really need to complete a set by bidding extremely high on it, with a risk of losing their dice for a turn.

The set collection mechanic gives you goals to aim for that might conflict with your opponents and might not. An astute player will keep a mental note of which suits their opponents are going for and try to stop them from completing powerful or valuable sets.

I’m really enjoying Crypt. It’s incredibly easy to learn, looks great, and plays quickly enough that the mechanics involved can carry it through a few plays in a row without getting stale. Don’t get me wrong, there isn’t a lot of depth to Crypt. It could probably have been themed a million different ways, and there are other small box games I like better. All of that said, it’s still really good.

It is definitely a filler game, but it also functions as a nice quick solo experience for me when I’ve had a long day and want something quick to unwind with. Honestly, most of my plays have been solo. That said, I’ve played the base game at all player counts, and it feels good across the board. The listed age rating of 14+ is a bit high in my opinion. I can definitely see 8 or 10 year olds playing this one with no problem.

Once I’ve had time to experiment some more with the expansion content, I’ll be sure to post a mini review of it. Until then, Crypt is a great little game, especially if you can pick it up at msrp ($15 according to Kickstarter). The lowest I have seen it recently is $20 on Amazon, and I’d honestly spend the $20 on a copy if I was in need of a good filler. As it stands, Crypt will definitely be staying in my collection for the foreseeable future.

Review copy provided by R2i

Publisher: R2i Games
Number of Players: 1-4
Age: 14+ (8+)
Price at time of Review: $20

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