Crypt of Chaos Review

I do love a good dungeon crawl and I also cherish a cooperative game, so surely Crypt of Chaos with its lovely character art and its very small box is an assured winner. Crypt of Chaos is a randomly generated crypt crawler, for 2 players without using dice, pens, or paper. Everything you need is in the petite box the game comes with and is perfect to take on trips.

There are other things to toy with such as a solo mode and a ‘chaos’ mode, where would Crypt of Chaos be without a ‘chaos’ mode? There are weapons, loot, monsters, and all your expected tropes that normally accompany games of this ilk. There’s a wealth of amazingly designed characters, which I will touch on later, and from the outset, it looks like a compact, portable box of mystery. Let’s have abgander then, shall we?

 Watch out for Traps!

In Crypt of Chaos, you must navigate a crypt, find two objects, kill a dragon, and escape. Sure, it sounds easy for battle-hardened veterans like ourselves but in practice, it’s not all smooth sailing. You pick from six lovely designed heroes. Each character has slightly varied stats and a special ability. I think most of these characters are far too attractive to be wandering through crypts. Except maybe Baleblood, who like most orcs, is fittingly grotesque.

As in games like Sub Terra, after picking your beautiful character, you draw floor tiles, place them in a Carcassonne-esque manner and take an action. Your actions are move, explore, fight and search. You and your partner alternate turns and meander your way through this dark, dank, crypt. Some tiles have chests, some have monsters and it’s up to you to navigate through this twisted labyrinth without losing all your health, and ultimately, escape.

Just like Sub-Terra, where the map mechanic in this game reminds me a lot, the end-game tile is shuffled into the second half of the deck to make sure, while being random, it does appear in the latter half of the game. Before that happens, you must find the two items needed to escape. The Key of Freedom and The Lost Sword are both located in this maze and once found you can stick it to the games last boss, the dreaded dragon.

The map design is not the only similarity to the above mentioned cave escape game. You also have certain map tiles that require certain items to navigate. There are gaps you need special boots to jump over and cave-ins you need a pick-axe to smash through. With randomly placed chests, certain rooms need gear that has to be found before escape, every run is slightly different.

In Battle, Anything Can Happen!

The combat system in Crypt of Chaos is simple. When you take on one of the game’s feral beasties, you go head to head using the game’s attack decks. Both players and enemies have a thin battle deck to draw from. These cards randomly generate an attack modifier from the lofty heights of +3 down to the dreaded ‘miss’ card. You add this value to your character’s attack value. Taking any weapon bonuses into effect and take this off the monster’s health.

When the enemies attack the same thing happens but you have a defense stat that subtracts from the enemies’ attack. In between each round of battle you have the chance to run away, tail between your legs but the health of the enemy resets. It’s a risk/reward, push your luck battle system.

I feel the same about some of the chest-based loot too. Quite a few of the chests have traps and certainly, in one of our games it led to a weird outcome. I was the generic warrior bloke, Wolfhowl, who is no relation to Beowulf, probably. Every stinking chest I opened was a trap, by the time I had got to the dragon I had no health and my co-op partner had found all the potions, which I don’t think you can pass, according to the rules and we had no chance of victory.

I think this was an isolated incident as it never happened again but as with all randomly generated games, be aware of what can happen. This combined with the very luck based combat system can lead to flat games, where you did little wrong, yet failed miserably. Apart from that, I found the game quick, fun and if you want a portable dungeon crawler with randomly generated content, it should be considered.

Components

 The small number of components in Crypt of Chaos, on the whole, are high quality. The tiles are thick cardboard, the player sheets feel durable and everything seems like it’ll last a very long time. The art design, while at first seeming a bit over-realistic, I actually like a lot. Although it does have a stark contrast between the realistic looking protagonists and the hand drawn tiles and monsters. I also feel some people will have issues with the overly-small cards that come with the game. However, I thought they were fine. The rulebook is well written, although there were a few things I would have liked clarified, like “can you pass items between characters?” but it was very understandable and laid out nicely.

Final Thoughts

The battle system is a bit swingy and a bit random but for the sake of replayability, I don’t mind. Sometimes you have bad games but the game is so quick, that does not really affect its experience. The Chaos mode, which just gives each character set equipment to take on the crypt does not change much but it is nice to have and does give the game a slightly different flavour. The component quality, on the whole is good and the game manual does its job. Half the artwork is stunningly beautiful and the game has a unique look to it. If you are in the market for a quick, cheap, portable co-op dungeon crawler, you should try it. There is fun to be found buried in this dark, eerie crypt.