Crimson Keep
- Board's Eye View
- Jul 29
- 2 min read
Designed by Nick Warren, Crimson Keep is a fantasy-themed card game for two competing players, tho' it's also playable as a solo/solitaire game. The premise is that you are building a tower to defend against the impending attack of a hostile dragon. During the course of the game, you'll be playing cards that battle your opponent and, crucially, cards that build and reinforce your tower and keep, while collecting runes to advance on a track that will summon the dragon to attack your opponent. If the dragon then completely destroys the other player's keep, you win the game, but if your opponent defeats the dragon before their keep is destroyed it is they that claims victory.
In Crimson Keep, you're playing cards from your hand but they are inactive when played; it's only when flipped - a separate action - that the cards take effect. On your turn you get to take two actions (play a card, flip a card, draw a card, use a card ability, move or attack) and for each action you advance on a track, progress along which offers the incentive of additional free actions. You'll probably want to avoid as much as possible using one of your actions to draw cards because you get a free draw any time you end your turn with no cards left in hand.
It's the two-stage system of activating cards that makes this game stand out from other hand management games. Much of the excitement comes from the inevitable race to be the player who summons the dragon, but there's a push-your-luck element to this too: if you summon the dragon at less than full strength, your opponent's keep may be able to withstand a premature attack and you could therefore find you've handed victory to your opponent. We've also seen some exciting tussles in our plays at Board's Eye View where one player has focused heavily on the rune set collection needed to summon the dragon but the other has instead thrown all their energy into building their tower defence and keep...
Crimson Keep is due to go to a crowdfunding launch in August. We'll add a link to the campaign when it goes live.
