2019 · Economic
Crystal Palace
Players represent competing nations at the first London World’s Fair, aiming to generate attention for eccentric inventions and recruit influential figures. Each round, players assign custom-valued dice to eight action spaces to acquire resources, patents, money and supporters; higher dice yield stronger outcomes but incur costs. Gameplay mixes dice-placement with resource management and engine-building as players develop inventions, deploy famous personalities, and compete for access to key institutions such as the patent office, press and banks. Rounds progress until scoring triggers, and the player with the most prestige from inventions, supporters and achievements wins.
- Players
- 2–5 best 3
- Playing time
- 60–150 min
- Age
- 14+
- Complexity
- 3.8 / 5
About the game
- Design
- Publisher
Expansions
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Where to buy it
Shop prices and second-hand copies, checked every day.
On Ludoya's tables
Full stats in Ludoya- 143
- Plays logged
- 280
- Players
- 2h 8m
- Average play
- 59
- In collections
- 11
- On wishlists
5.5/10
from 41 Ludoya reviews
Evan0.9 At the start of the round players simultaneously set their dice to whatever values they want them to be. Then you pay to the bank 1 for each pip across your dice. Then, going around the table, you take turns placing your dice as workers into an action slot. Each action board has more slots than it has activations, and the spaces are resolved from highest pip die to lowest. This means that it's likely some of your paid for moves each round won't resolve. Your goal is to collect personality cards that match invention cards, by amassing resources enough to claim and complete them. If players and or luck of the draw pile allow you to get cards that match, you get bonus points. If you run out of money, you take loan penalty tiles that have a substantial range for their point penalty. This gets worse, as when you score a bonus, you can give the bonus to another player, which could mean forcing them to pay some amount of money they can't afford, causing them to take a loan. The combination of players chumping your out of actions, swiping cards you needed out from under you, and the take-that of giving other players your effects make this game unplayably infuriating. I'm also not a fan of variable rewards and penalties for the same efforts, and this game does that in a big way. Would not play again. :star: Art, Iconography and components functional :nostar: Clever or interesting mechanisms :star: Reasonably low downtime between turns with mildly AP players :nostar: Multiple plays stay interesting :nostar: Low or mitigatable luck elements :nostar::nostar::nostar::nostar::nostar: Raw enjoyment
SrCornelius8.5 Local-(356)
Free, on web, Android and iOS
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Game facts (players, playing time, age, credits) from BoardGameGeek.