And he had with him a copy of Crypt, his new – at the time – collectible board game. And I said “Hey, I could review it for you!”
And he said “Sure! I certainly hope that you won’t wait for two years before you finally do it in a fit of shame-induced self-loathing!”
And I said “Sure won’t!”
This is why I don’t ask for review copies no more.
In any case, Crypt was – insofar as I can tell – a new idea for its time, a collectible board game. Every booster pack had additional tiles and AP’s which you could add to your existing game – expanding the board outwards as you played the game.
You’ve never heard of it?
This is because the game’s died the death of a small yellow dog already, insofar as I can tell. You can play it on CCG Workshop if you’re looking to get a taste of what the game’s like, but you may have to arrange to get one of your friends to play with you; there weren’t a lot of players listed on the website.
Essentially, it’s because the game didn’t have any particular idea behind it – it’s a combat system with the loose framework of a game wrapped around it. You pick a character tile, balanced along three axes of what kind of equipment they can use – for instance, the Spellmancer can cast third level spells, while the Warlord can’t cast any – and throw them into a dungeon, where you explore the dungeon in an attempt to find the key in order to get out. Once you get to the exit with the key, you try to roll doubles in order to exit.
Most of your time in this game is going to be spent hurling a variety of attacks at your buddies, using AP cards to boost up your attacks – adding damage, stealing weapons, adding range to your attack and so forth. You know what? Think of an FPS like Unreal Tournament with all of the extra fan-created widgets tacked on and you’ll have a pretty good idea of how the game plays; you’re basically just wailing on your friends while trying to find the magic key. As a matter of fact, there’s no way to plan strategy because the pyramid and its contents are entirely random every time that you play the game – compare that to Magic, or even Pirates of the Carribbean, where the choice is always on the player.
The setting of the game is typically…I hate to say it: It’s McCrackenesque. Stuff like Kevlar Bioarmor, Neutro Accelerators, blowguns, rabid dogs – you can even play actual military units, who run around the pyramid fighting on your behalf. You want the 3rd Armored Calvary to take on the Mummy in King Tut’s burial chamber? You got it. If you took a dozen different toy lines, dumped them on the floor and mixed up the various accessories, you’d have a rough feel for how this game would work. It’s not as over the top as World of Synnibarr, but it’s still pretty crazy stuff.
The physical components of the game are nice and sturdy, but the images look cheap, and somewhat amateurish – you can see a lot of the legacies of its digital design in the tiles, which frequently have gradients or computer-generated 3D boxes behind them. The dice are pretty awesome, though, jet black with red pips.
I’m left without words for a conclusion – not so much out of disgust, but just puzzlement. I guess that it’s worth a look if you want to see how not to spend money, but that’s a lesson that both the CCG and RPG industries will probably never learn.
-Darren MacLennan
