The 4 Squares Review: Cryo

[@lexmartel]

These are the reviews I love best, when the opinions varies the most. I think i'll give it a try! it looks pretty neat to be honest.

[@MatheusVenti]

Yeah, sometimes someone say amazing things but turns out that it is much more their style than mine. With 4 opinions, also knowing them, I have a much more consistent evaluation if I will like the game.

[@nobled1050]

love the 4 person review, great insight from different perspectives

[@DarthEd77]

I love the artwork and color scheme. It reminds me of the artwork of French comic book artist Moebius.

[@ryanbrown9102]

Art is awesome, indeed

[@wm2922]

Yessssss! Dude, totally :)

[@ZManGamesOfficial]

Very good eye! Moebius was very much a visual inspiration for our art team while working on this game.

[@geoffreyhawley503]

Moebius was my immediate thought as well.

[@DarthEd77]

I’m with Roy on this one. This game is way better than 6.5. I don’t feel like you see that many cards over the course of a game, and you have to go with the cards that you get. An expansion would certainly help, of course.

[@aManoftheMeeple]

I'm with Roy on this one. I love the look, the components are great. I think its extremely streamlined, I love the theme. Would I like to see a few more card options....absolutely, but when Roy said this is a game to teach people at a convention, I thought he hit the nail on the head. I have a few different play groups and this will easily be one of those games I can bring to each group and teach how to play and then continue to play.

[@DeltathRiylaan]

Yeah. It's a great game and the only complaint I'd have, if any, would be a want for more card options. And that's something easily adjusted with a Terraforming Mars Prelude sort of expansion.

[@danielgreen6083]

While I totally want to see an expansion with more cards, I can say that I've played 10+ games at this point and I do not feel like the game plays out the same each time! You have to remember that the 8 different cards play more like 24-32 cards as you can only use them for one of their options each time. Every combination of effects plays pretty uniquely, and the randomized cavern layout, the damage tokens, and which resource tiles you see early on in the game can totally shift what strategies you are looking to pursue each game. Each game is kind of like a puzzle - you sit down, look at your opening cards, the board, and the starting caverns, and you try to piece together where your best string of points are. The streamlined and tight nature of the game, including limited spaces and cards, keeps that puzzle at just the right size where you are able to crunch through and get rewarded for strategic play rather than just flying by the seat of your pants each game. I was glad to see that Roy saw that in the game, but in any case, I hope we get to see an expansion so the others 3 can revisit it with more "stuff" and perhaps find it more to their tastes then!

[@DeltathRiylaan]

This game has some of the most modularity out of the gate in terms of unique setups. You could play the game 100,000 times and not have the same setup. It totally changes the early turns especially. It's a great idea and makes it RIPE for expansions. You could expand the game forever with small box expansions that don't change the rules by simply adding cards, resource tiles, incident tokens, etc. Not that you couldn't do bigger expansions that change the game, but it would be so easy to grow the base game as is. It's a fantastic setup.

[@MrSomesayso]

I love when the 4 squares gets together man. Keep it up guys!! Awesome awesome awesome content!

[@notsaved]

I'm really puzzled by the reviews I'm seeing around for this one - seems quite polarizing. It's a stunner so I really hope to like it and be with Roy on this one

[@JefferyHunt]

Having read the rules and watched a play through, I’m super pumped for this game.

[@boardgameknight2791]

So glad you all reviewed this one! Big Luke Lorie fan over here.

[@Warchoon]

Mechanics are pretty close to Dwellings of Eldervale, but depth is much lower, and variety is a bit lacking. Interesting idea with using cards in different spots, but overall no surprise it got a much lower score.

[@JayBee10]

I feel like the resource token immediate use vs. use as an engine-building component is becoming Luke Laurie’s calling card. And in some ways, that neat mechanism is ironically kind of what’s turning me off here: I hate to bring in a different game in an evaluation of a given one, but it’s hard to separate the fact that this cool idea has been seen before in Dwellings of Eldervale, a game with much more replayability. It kind of hurts to see the limited number of spaces on the player boards and the limited variety. Maybe some people will appreciate the less overwhelming amount of choices, but with shelf space at a premium now, I don’t think this one is for me.

[@AvengerNk]

Cryo is the Greek word for "cold".

[@gobot90]

Doss anyone know the song in the credits?

[@mrdreadful5567]

Roy’s face when Zee calls it a small game! “The audACITY!”

[@dearmrdw]

Forget about this new stuff guys, you finally have Auf Achse on the shelf! Please review XD

[@rustymandude]

After playing this game with bringing new people in (about 8+ plays, where half had a new person) this game is an excellent ‘stepping stone’ game. It’s very streamlined. I think at first I would have been where everyone else is, but now I’m team Roy. The streamlining is a positive.

[@dynamitebucket]

Any other games that do that with the cards? Tuck them in locations for different effects. La Granja comes to mind. It's a nice mechanic.

[@jakobtremblay6933]

Zhanguo does something similar, one of the best game in my collection

[@PhYnKL]

The last few 4 squares videos have had the same audio problem where there's some pretty strong white noise/static throughout. Otherwise your videos are all really high quality

[@NeuralFizz1]

Yeah, noise gates would make the audio 100 times better!

[@gamesnstuff657]

When it comes to Sci Fi games I always take Roy's reviews with a grain of salt. I'm the same way with western themed games haha.

[@EpicGamingNight]

It’s really more about the fact of this is the kind of euro-ish game that I really like! Extremely streamlined! Resource management and player interaction! Having an enjoyable theme it’s just a little extra!

[@gamesnstuff657]

@@EpicGamingNight Fair enough! Your comparison to Alien Frontiers did intrigue me. I do enjoy that game. I'm just not sure I would love the player interaction part of it. If I get a chance I will have to try it though.

[@TheBrokenMeeple]

Looks nice but I don’t think this will have the replay value or staying power. It wasn’t grabbing me during the overview and negative interaction may be a put off. Roy loves that kind of game though and anything with a sci fi theme. 😜

[@ega1324]

I once made an infinite increasing material glitch, it was awesome

[@johnrochester1419]

I think I tend to agree with the guy in the bottom left corner the most. We are simpatico when it comes to games.

[@tmon6219]

The game has 8 game bonus end cards 1 of them helps you get more points than the other 7. On twitch boardgamersteph did a play through today and they discussed this at the end.

[@danielgreen6083]

They strongly overstate the power of Crab's mission. By loading all of your crew pods into a single cavern, you give up the capability of scoring majorities (including 2nd places) in other caverns with them, which can grant you anywhere from 1-5 extra points each. Crab is good, but in this playtester's experience, it's right in line with the others for power, or if ANYTHING, just a hair above in the right cavern layout, nothing "broken" as they were calling it.

[@mattbrendlen]

I've only played Cryo as a solo setting (testing my rule knowledge, getting the mechanics, etc.), but I'm gonna tell you straight up: I like this game a whole hell of a lot more than fucking dumbass Blood Rage... THAT'S RIGHT, I SAID IT, COME AT ME BRO!

[@michaelshumber8153]

The artwork and sci-fi theme is what drew me in, but this may be a pass for me. The idea of having different abilities by recalling your drones looked cool, but after seeing a few reviews and 'how to play' videos...I'm reconsidering purchasing until I get a chance to play it from someone else's collection.

[@bertilandersson6606]

nice game, deluxified from the get go. But I will wait for the expansion before trying it out.

[@joinus948]

I want to buy this game, but with the price point around $50 its hard to commit to a game with low replay-ability. If it had a solo mode I could justify the purchase.

[@steveg8984]

Is this review about the game design and the fun? Feels like this game got review bombed because of variability. I was skeptical before I played it, easy to teach and has a good gameplay loop.

[@gelui13]

A Small game doesn´t have to be a bad thing. A 60$ dollar simple game it is a problem for me :/

[@truenorth2615]

Seal of Excellence on a 6.5 and two 7's ? I'm confused, how does that happen?

[@guillermoz4914]

Tom has explain this many times, they take the highest rating which is Roys 8.5 . They don’t do averages.

[@uplift-yourdailypickup6424]

@@guillermoz4914 Hmmm, not sure I would agree that's a good way to do that.

[@Bonzoso21]

@@uplift-yourdailypickup6424 I think Tom has explained the reason for that, also. This way is no different than if Roy had been the sole reviewer and scored it an 8.5, and nobody would question the seal then. The intention of this format is just to present more opinions, not to change the criteria for awards.

[@cartergreen2309]

Haven't played it but I heard the variability of cards and I'm out. It does look decent but I gotta have more replayability for me to justify buying a game anymore.

[@OlivierBL]

Agreed. As a casual gamer on a budget (I decided I would only get 6 new games this year). I was super excited about this but the more I learned about it the less it seemed for me. I don't like buying a game knowing in advance that I'll have to buy an expansion that'll probably going to cost at least 2/3 of the price of the game to get a "full" experience. I often feel like the industry is often taking advantage of the hard core collectors who will end up spending 3times the price of a game on exp. instead of trying to offer a complete game to the consumer. Im not against expansion (ill probably jump on a few Empires of the North's ones as well as upcoming Maracaibo's eventually), but I don't like games that "requires" an expansion to be considered good after more than 10 plays...

[@cartergreen2309]

@@OlivierBL yeah im in the same boat but because I have to be picky on my collection. I have about 250 games and my rule is if a game comes into the collection one has to leave

[@Atlas-FM8]

I was sadly very underwhelmed by this game. Energy Empire is a far superior worker placement game from these designers.

[@Judge021979]

Played on Tabletopia this week, and it was just fine. Not special or stand-out in any way.

[@EfrainRiveraJunior]

That's a _huge_ pass for me.

[@Butlerwo]

Do something about the audio quality pls. It makes it really annoying to listen to your otherwise great review with headphones.

[@riffleshuffleandroll]

The game might not be what you expect, but there is no reason to ... Cryo-bout it! Seriously though. I did not dig the vibe of this review. I felt some animosity here. Did everyone get upset with Tom for a second there?

[@riffleshuffleandroll]

@@PieInSkyGuy I got ya. There when Tom started describing the game, Zee shut him down and Roy said, “Good call.” Just felt some animosity! I can never read these guys when they are jabbing each other. Hah!

[@thedicetower]

If there's ever any animosity (and there's not!) we wouldn't show it on air. Anything we do like that is always fake. :)

[@riffleshuffleandroll]

@@thedicetower Good to know guys! Love the content. I watch your channel every day. =)

[@shlomaster1]

It looks like Roy is feeling guilty for his high score

[@randalladkins7452]

He shouldn’t. He’s the only one who scored this great game correctly :D

[@EpicGamingNight]

Not at all! I really like the game a ton!!

[@TheAmazingYeti]

Averages a 7.25 and gets a seal of excellence?

[@guillermoz4914]

Tom has explained this many times, they don’t do averages, they take the highest score which is Roy’s 8.5 = Seal of Excellence

[@_Cervantez]

What Guillermo said. That's because they usually let the one who likes it the most do the review. In that case if would get 8.5 as well (even though Roy doesn usually do reviews)

[@TheAmazingYeti]

Seems like it dilutes the value of the seal to me.

[@Ashwinz]

literally first. what i win?

[@JayBee10]

A blue shell!