Crypt was designed by Jeff Chin and Andrew Nerger. It was a Kickstarter campaign in 2018. The campaign had a $2,500 goal but raised almost $220,000 from over 11,000 backers. I hope they all like Crypt as much as I do!
Yes...Crypt has a lot of dice and I don't normally like dice games. But the main use of the dice in Crypt is to manually set the die values to bid on Treasure cards. The dice represent your servants that are working to recover the treasures for you. The higher the value of the die the harder they work for the treasure.
Game Objectives
Win by having the most valuable collection of Treasures at the end of the game.
Game Components
Let's start with the box and art. When I saw this game on KS I really liked the art and box/card designs and that feeling only increased once I had the actual game.
The art is crisp and the actions/values of the cards are extremely easy to read. Nothing distracts from the actual game play.
Each player gets 3 colored six sided dice.
There are 60 cards:
- 4 Player Cards
- 6 Bonus Cards
- First Player and Last Player
- 48 Treasure Cards
Game Play
Game setup is quick - give each player 3 dice and their corresponding Player card. Shuffle the Treasure cards. Turn a couple face up and one face down. Go!
Crypt is a set building, auction and press your luck style game.
Each color of treasure has a corresponding Bonus card that come into play as you collect treasures and build sets.
Some of the bonuses can be activated during play (re-roll a die) or at the end of the game scoring.
The auction phase is the main action of Crypt. Each player takes turns using their dice to bid on treasure cards. The highest bid wins the card.
Beware though...after collecting the treasure the player must roll the die. If the die roll is less than the bid amount the die becomes 'exhausted' and is removed to the box. A player can use one of their actions to 'recover' their exhausted dice but they skip taking an action. So the higher the bid the greater risk of exhausting your dice. A fun press your luck mechanism.
Game play continues until all Treasures have been in an auction.
Thoughts
Is Crypt a hugely complex strategy game with bunches of miniatures? Nope. It is however a fun, fast small box game that is great with two players. We enjoyed it.
The Good: Well made and fun. Crypt has earned a spot in my backpack.
The Bad: Don't get too aggressive or you will spend all your actions recovering exhausted dice.
The Dastardly: The Lights Out last action is very powerful...choose wisely!