Almanac: Crystal Peak - Discussion

0:07 thank you some viewers may find the following video disturbing viewer discretion is advised hey everyone welcome back to board games unlocked and today I'm doing a no run through review for Almanac the crystal Peak uh this is basically uh gonna be a pretty straightforward review as well I highly recommend you go check out my review for Almanac the dragon road because this is basically that like this is uh just that game just with different gimmicks and different mini games and kind of a different setting besides kind of like the desert or the Middle East or the Mediterranean kind of ERA this is definitely more in your like higher North areas it's a lot colder a lot of like winterized kind of setting it's called the crystal Peaks and uh yeah it was actually really funny because I was thinking about doing one of those where I just re-uploaded my dragon Road uh discussion and then just like dubbed over when I said dragon hood and said Crystal Peaks um and then just kind of like slip like put this cover over it but I obviously didn't do that um so technically this isn't yeah this isn't like an expansion or anything it's I guess it's it's its own Standalone thing if you're more interested in whatever theme that this is versus the other one then I mean I guess get this but if you're not familiar because this isn't an expansion or anything Almanac the

1:38 crystal uh the crystal Peak or the dragon road is a worker placement game where you have a bunch of different mini worker placement uh maps that you play on over the court the overarching game Whoever has the most Fame by The End wins and what you do is you start you always start off at like a trading post or something like that but then whoever's the guide will decide which map to go to and you always have two options you have an encounter in between them then you go to the new map and that new map has like a different rule of how work replacement is going to work here uh you and then so there's there's basically that work replacement gimmick and you also but you're basically gaining either more workers you're gaining resources to then use those to complete contracts or to sell for a bunch of money because contracts are worth points they're also special abilities you're uh increasing the size of your Caravan which allows you to hold more Goods points gives you defense to help fight and gives you more workers that's kind of the general actions that everyone's doing but then each location has something special or unique to it and you just kind of do that over the course of I think six games yeah six mini games and then Talia Fame points and whoever has the most wins when the first Almanac came out uh the dragon road I was very skeptical because um and this isn't really a dog on anyone personally but this is from colossal

3:10 games and I typically do not like their games and it's from designer Scott alms who I typically don't like his games and that's just a more of a personal thing and I was so taken aback by the dragon road because because of those main two reasons that I really I really liked it and I was like man yeah it's like an almanac Saga or a series so I'm I'm hoping that they just do more I think more mini games are always going to be good for this kind of game and uh I think he actually commented and was like hey we are actually working on stuff so I think that this is actually really cool I like the fact that there is another one uh just because it's gonna give you different work replacement stuff and most of them work most of them you know stick The Landing pretty well I can't really think of anything in Dragon road that I was immediately like oh this is busted or this actively does not work in the crystal Peak there's none there's not I was gonna say there's none or there's not there's none that are broken but there are a few maps that have that I came across that needed more clarification this is kind of the overall issue with doing games like this if you just want to have a bunch of just different mini games then you have to really make sure it's crystal clear because they put the rules the placement rules are set up on those they're not in the actual rule book and the actual rulebook is going to be your overall hey here's your basic actions and here is you know you know how the game works

4:42 what you do on your turn and then bar whatever the the changes are on that but sometimes especially in this one there were a few that we came across that just didn't make sense like one one uh for example there's one in here where for setup it's like you have to start on one of the three blue spaces at the bottom and and I was like but if that's where you go as a worker you can't go on the same spot that is that someone else is so if you're playing a four player game and there's only three blue spots how does that work so we just assumed okay well yeah then you can start out in the same spot but then the rules of that one was then you have to place your network next worker up to three uh space is a available spaces so then from that point on then you can't go on the same ones and you kind of hopscotch over each other but stuff like that isn't clarified and you run into that kind of a few times especially in this one and that can be kind of frustrating if if sometimes it's not so Crystal Clear or you have a group that just does not agree on the interpretation it can kind of bug the game down so that that's just kind of uh what I feel is like a little bit more apparent in this one we did also come across some that we just actively did not like like the the gimmick or the game that's just kind of gonna be what happens when you are playing a game like this it's kind

6:13 of like the analogy I can think of is whenever you play like Mario Party and no one actually gives a about the actual board part of it everyone just wants to play the mini games but it can suck where you do the whole full round and you go and then the mid to the random mini game is like oh this one sucks so then but then you're like okay let's hurry up and get through the next board everyone's around so we can get to the next mini game and hope that we like it that's kind of this you come across a map that you don't like or someone doesn't like and then you're they're just kind of like okay yeah hurry up hurry up because I really want to go to a new one so I don't really know the longevity of these kinds of games it seems like both of these work really well on the newness the excitement of going to a new map you haven't seen before to see kind of what the rules of that one's going to be oh how can they twist work replacement this time and uh and then if I feel like if you played a lot then it might not actually be as fun to keep going to I mean yeah you're going to go in different orders but it's like okay but the substance of the game is not exhilarating it is the fact of going to the new the new maps so I think the original dragons Road I gave like a nine out of ten I think that definitely had something to do I mean the game the games are good like don't get me wrong like this is a solid work replacement one and it's fun the

7:44 encounters there's a bunch of that yeah I mean you're never going to see the same ones going from round around so that'll change there's a bunch of contracts that give you special ability so that'll change how you play and so there is enough variety between both the games that it it does have legs but it is kind of one of those well where you just want more Almanac games to come out because you just want to see the different types of work replacement I think and I don't believe that you can't combine them as far as I'm aware like you can't just combine all the encounter cards to the one massive deck as far as I'm aware there's nothing in the rulebook that says otherwise but I would just assume that because this isn't an expansion that you can just combine them um but with that with that being said it's it plays exactly the same so if you play Almanac the dragon road again this isn't an expansion it's just a re-themed one with you know I think 18 different Maps so 18 different games if you're tired of the Dragon Road and but you really like it then definitely go check this out because it's going to be new but you're definitely going to know how to play it doesn't change really anything about that and uh and yeah I mean it'd be cool if there was a way that you could combine them maybe not content wise but in like an overarching kind of game where you can like mesh the the maps together I think

9:16 that would be really neat it was like an overall Almanac map where it's like oh okay you can go to if you go to number five in the dragon road now you have options of going to these uh you can go to eight in the dragon Road or or nine in Crystal Peaks and then you can kind of hop back and forth because really the only thing you would need out of the two Almanac books that I can really tell and then you know the components on the sides I think that would be really neat if because they have Maps for the uh the overarching like world that you're in so like it looks like it looks like that and you could be like okay well we started at one so now we go to two or three and then three leads us to six or seven seven leads us to eleven or ten and then 11 leaves us to 14 or 15 and then 15 leads to 18 or 19.

10:10 I think that's really cool I think it'd be really neat again if you were able to combine these into one massive map so who knows uh I mean Scott definitely does it'd be cool if he sees this again and gives me some slight Insight I think that would be an awesome idea if they did a big kind of like Almanac maybe mini expansion where it comes with rules to combine them I still think this this game has legs I think that the Almond no maybe not not the crystal Peaks specifically but the almanac series they can do a lot with and I do like that so on a scale of one to ten I think from playing this again with a little bit more clarity uh from the oh wow this is so surprising I haven't seen a work replacement game like this uh and since the dragon P came out in or Dragon Road came out into 2020 so it's been two years um I'm gonna give Crystal Peaks an eight and I'm gonna drop dragon dragons road down to an eight so still extremely solid if you just want a kind of like a fun light party ask work replacement game it's not a party game by any means but it's lighter because of the gimmicky of the of the maps uh then I definitely I I do recommend these quite a bit so that's my thoughts on the crystal Peaks let me know what you think of it in the comments below and have a wonderful whatever time update it is for you hey everyone thank you for watching and I really hope that you enjoyed the video if you would like to see more of my content go ahead and click that subscribe button and the bell to be notified whenever I upload any new

11:42 content if you feel like supporting the channel you can go ahead and click that patreon link to be taken to my patreon and any help is truly appreciated other than that stick around for any any other run throughs or reviews or cool top tens or whatever I feel like putting on other than that like comment share and subscribe and have a wonderful whatever time of day it is for you