Review
Crystal Palace
Crystal Palace has a genuinely fresh idea at its centre: choosing dice and paying for them. It is worth returning to, though a few rough joins keep it from feeling fully finished.
- Published
- 2019
- Designer
- Carsten Lauber
- Publisher
- Feuerland Spiele, Brain Star, Capstone Games
- Players
- 2–5
- Playing time
- 150 min
Crystal Palace caught my attention with one neat idea: you choose your dice, then you pay for them. I cannot recall meeting that exact arrangement before, and it gives the game a welcome bit of tension when the working day is already sitting on your shoulders.
At its heart, every die choice is also a payment decision. Wanting a particular value or action is not enough; you have to decide whether it is worth the price, and that small connection gives the choices some proper weight.
Wanting a particular value or action is not enough; you have to decide whether it is worth the price, and that small connection gives the choices some proper weight.
WhiteColarGamer
Player interaction comes indirectly through the cards and the placement, as choices overlap and opportunities narrow. That is also where the joins begin to show: some cards can become far too strong in the right circumstances, while the scoring from the BM/buzz placement is so slight that it feels oddly out of place.
I would certainly play it again, because the central mechanism has real spark; Crystal Palace simply feels like a palace that needed a little more work around the seams.
I would certainly play it again, because the central mechanism has real spark; Crystal Palace simply feels like a palace that needed a little more work around the seams.
WhiteColarGamer
Source: BoardGameGeek
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