#TBT Tomb Raider: The Card Game (Crypt)
Before there was Solitaire Times, I posted my session reports in geeklists of the 1 Player Guild on BoardGameGeek. Let's go back in time! To December 2018...
The theme of Crypt is very silly. As a spoiled prince or princess, you send your servants (dice) into the crypt of your deceased father and have them claim as many heirlooms as they can, so you can sell them. The automated enemy player in the solo game is a ghost that scares your servants away and makes some of the valuables disappear.
In every round there are three available treasures, two of them face up (you can see their value), one face down (you only know what type it is). You use dice to try to claim them, by setting them to a value and placing them on the cards.
Then the ghost rolls three dice and will push dice off your claimed cards if it has rolled higher values. You take the treasures that are left for you to claim, but now you have to roll the die that you placed on it and score at least the value you used. So if you wanted a card very bad and put two fives on it, good luck. Dice that roll too low get exhausted. You can reclaim them later, but you'll miss a turn.
When you're the leader, you get to roll (or recover) twice, with the AI taking its turn in between. When the AI is the leader (you switch every round) it will have two turns, using the second turn for re-rolling any dice you pushed off the cards.
There are six types of valuables (like jewelry, or remains) and for each there is a collector who'd like to buy them for a nice bonus. Two of those can be used in game, for re-rolling or recovering one of your dice. Four give extra victory points at the end. This means you will be interested to get for example 5 points worth of tapestry, for a 5 point bonus. Or at least two cards with jewelry to score one of them double.
It's a nice light puzzle. Set collection, push your luck. Easy to learn and quick to play. It has a small box, so it is very portable. I scored 44 points (40+ is good) in my second play - the first time I forgot to look at the bonus opportunities. I hope it doesn't turn out to be too simple. We'll see.
👎🏻 Half the cards are not used in solo (or 2 person) play
👍🏻 Some thinking, some luck
👍🏻 Quick filler game
👍🏻 Purple dice
Years later.
Crypt! I think that's a fun dice game! Then again, not so much fun that I played it a lot. After four successive wins I put it in a drawer and forgot all about it. Until today, that is.
Yay! Another win.
Too bad a session takes just 15 minutes as I didn't feel like playing a second game. It will probably start collecting dust again for a while.
Anyway. Limerick Day soon. Time to practice.
A cheating Duke, oh so cruel
Got killed, well deserved, in a duel
His widow, she flipped
She went down in the Crypt
And ran off with the family jewels