I have recently been playing a prototype of a little roll ‘n’ write Souls-like called Cryptborn. It was sent to me by designer Samuel Steele and I have been rolling and writing my way through various dungeons, while bludgeoning various beasties to death.
For players who are unsure what a roll ‘n’ write or a souls-like game is, I will give a brief run-down of their characteristics. I have quite a few roll ‘n’ writes and love things like Fliptown or Fleet but will play anything like Super Mega Lucky Box or Railroad Ink if it’s offered to me. In these board games, you either flip cards or roll dice and then write something on your player sheet. Then at the end of the game, everyone tots up their scores and depending on your choices, you will either win or lose. They normally include combos and chaining of actions, but on the whole, they are relatively light, simple affairs.
Souls-like video games on the other hand, are devious works of pure hatred and I adore them. I gave up on Dark Souls 1 and Dark Souls 2 but Bloodborne is where the genre blossomed for me. Then I returned to Dark Souls 1 and 2 and showed them what for. They are essentially Gothic, dark fantasy games about death. You level up, get stronger, take on harder enemies and when you die, you normally lose any ‘unbanked’ XP. So every battle is difficult and every encounter is a chance to lose progress. It’s devilishly unfair at times but once you get over the learning curve, they are one of the most rewarding game genres I have ever played.
Cryptborn tries to meld these two things together and on the whole, does a very good job at that. I only played a prototype and there are still systems and mechanics being worked on but I came away enjoying my time and will be keeping an eye out for this quirky little game.
Dungeon-Delving Delights
Cryptborn is a ring-bound book, a dry-erase pen, a die and a plastic sheet you can use to overlay on certain pages of the book. Your goal is to get though as many floors of the dungeon as you can, gathering loot, snagging gold and pummelling enemies as much you can. Over the course of the game, you get better with better loot and levelling up but healing items are sparse and it can, at times, get rather tasty. Especially when you have those bouts of bad die-rolling, as we all do!
Designing a Dungeon
Your first job in Cryptborn is to design your current floor. This involves picking a dungeon type, of which there were three in this prototype and rolling the die to decide the layout of the dungeon. Of these three prototype dungeons, one was a ‘small’ dungeon and 2 were ‘medium’ sized. Each had their own enemies and things to worry about but for starters, you map out the floor.
Firstly, after selecting either a small or medium-sized dungeon, you mark a start tile on your sheet you have overlaid on your book. Then, a die roll will tell you how many rooms until the middle room of the current floor, which you draw on your sheet. Then, again, roll the die to see how many rooms until the end room and the inevitable boss of that floor. Medium dungeons have more branching paths but you get my drift.
After that, you roll the die to decide what is in each of these rooms, using a reference table in your book to decide. They can be things like shops, treasure and more likely enemy rooms but you do all this before setting off through this danger-laden creep-fest.
Once you have your floor mapped out and know what to roughly expect in each room, you roll the die to decide on what enemies are in each one. These enemies are different in each dungeon type and have their own strengths, weaknesses and traits to worry about.
I found the whole design process simple, quick and made me feel I had a part in a portion of the game I would not have any sway over. If I had three rooms in a row with enemies, well, I only had myself to blame! Super.
Traversing and Fighting
Once you had your layout sorted, it was time to get stuck in! You move, room by room, tackling everything head-on. Treasure rooms you rolled for treasure, shop rooms you bought goods and things to generally help you along and in the enemy rooms, well, you did your best not to die!
Combat is a very simple affair; you start with an attack of 1 and you roll the die, if it is higher than the enemy’s defence stat, you did 1 damage to said enemy. You then roll for the enemy and if the die roll is higher than their attack value, you take damage equal to their attack value. Easy as peas. The bosses are obviously larger and more difficult but in return offered awesome loot on their demise.
Along with that, most enemies have traits, so as well as having different stats, they also have other little wrinkles to take into account. Some heal, some have quirky combat abilities and some even have strange tactics to deal with. I found the range of enemies and abilities, even for a prototype, rather enjoyable.
Going Deeper, Death and Persistence
After you have killed the boss of the floor, which in larger dungeons may require backtracking or taking different paths, it is on to the next floor. There are rules about how many loot items you can keep and swapping between floors but mostly it’s a game of how long can you stay alive before your poked in the eye too much by a rancid skeleton.
There are also rules about taking items and stats between games but that is up to the player. I think that the game is supposed to be like a souls-like and death is supposed to be permanent. It’s your game though, do as you please.
Components
I thought the components in this game, while being a little thin on the ground, were lovely. The artwork has that Darkest Dungeon, cell-shaded style that really fits the theme and narrative. While I do think a separate sheet of tables or enemy stats would be beneficial, everything worked and worked well. It’s an easy game to play and set up but it gets increasingly difficult as your heath dwindles.
Final Thoughts
The Cryptborn prototype I played is not the finished article; however, what I played and experienced was a quick-to-play, entertaining roll ‘n’ write that has elements of the Souls-like games and I adore that. It was a simple and rewarding game that I can definitely see myself playing in the future.
I will be keeping my eye out for this one, this preview has certainly piqued my interest. Right, I am off to have another run of trying not to die and looting. Laters gamers!
