“Fear is like a black cavern that is terrifying. Once you enter the cavern and explore it, you realise that you can get out of it, go through it and get out of it.”

~Isabel Allende

Vast takes you and your friends into the torch light of a classic cave-crawling adventure, built on the concept of total asymmetry. Gone are days of the merry band of travellers fighting off evil. In Vast, you will become part of a new legend… Any part you wish!

Vast: The Crystal Caverns is a game where each player plays a part and the part they play depends on how they win…

The Knight needs to kill the Dragon

The Dragon needs to escape the Cave

The Goblins need to kill the Knight

The Cave needs to collapse itself

The Thief needs to steal 6 treasure

Everyone is also doing their duty to prevent other players from winning too. For example, the Dragon can eat Goblins, but eat too many and the Knight has too much of a free run on things…

So, anyway… I have no idea how to explain this game as I don’t know how to play 3 of the 5 roles properly. 🙂 I’ve played as the Thief (of course) and the Goblins but the rest, no real idea.

Also, the game is so asynchronous that I can’t even explain the common rules between the various roles 🙂

Everyone has a player board, that’s a common thing… It has all the rules for that character including setup and lets you know what you can do on your turn.

Vast: The Crystal Caverns Positives

5 very different roles make me want to play it at least 3 more times 🙂

There is balanced gameplay, everyone has a job to do on both the offensive and defensive sides of the game.

Nice components.

Vast: The Crystal Caverns Negatives

Very hard to teach, very hard to learn. (and quite difficult to explain in a blog apparently :))

As everyone has a job to do, it means everyone MUST do it or the game falls down, like Trieste.

I feel the Cave player needs to know exactly what to do,  more than any of the other roles. It can probably make or break the game.

It was expensive.

Summary

A good game with plenty of replayability.

Jesta ThaRogue