Escape the Dark Castle

Last year, I missed a Kickstarter for a little card based dungeon crawler called Escape the Dark Castle.  There are a few of these type of games around, but what made this one so special?

It’s a game you can teach the player rules in a minute.  It’s one of those rare games that will take less time to teach than it will to setup.  And setup is primarily shuffling cards!

So for social gaming, this looked like a great option.  Then as a solo game, rave reviews were coming up all over the net.  This was a game I knew I had to play, and I wasn’t disappointed!

The game is just a bunch of cards, in every sense.  The pencil and paper are just used to keep track of you hit points – even the equipment is just a card you hold onto!  And now thanks to BGG user Mr Curtis, I have printed some health tracker panels that I will be using from now on instead.  You can see these trackers here.

But what is the game?  I can almost hear you screaming “Tell me about the game already!”.  I haven’t been avoiding talking about the story, it’s just really thin.  Each player is a wrongly convicted individual, and you need to escape.  You escape by making it through the entire castle deck, one card at a time.  But you need to beware – if one character dies, it’s game over.  You need to all get out, all you all fail.

As I said – thin.  It really doesn’t matter though, at its heart Escape the Dark Castle is just a ‘flip card, complete text, repeat’ game.  It’s what makes it almost mindless fun.

The official trailer by the creators really convey the old school feel and set the mood really well.

I will take you through how to setup and play, and you will see what I mean by playing is the best way to learn about the game.

Character Creation?

Now, the quicker maths minds will realise that those numbers don’t add up to 6, so how does that work?  Doubles, that are shown within a shield.  Each die has two sides with a double and a shield, allowing you to block in combat and possibly increase your chances of passing a skill test.

How do you know which character to pick?  Really go with your gut.  You do want to try and balance your party, however if every character has only 1 wisdom icon each, it’s a good chance that a wisdom test will end your party.

Lastly, depending on the number of characters, note down their health points.  18 for two characters, 14 for three, and 12 for four characters.  Keep this in mind even if you solo play – it’s characters you take in, not the number of players.

Create the Castle

Now, place the entry card (with the castle on the back) on top of the pile.  Your castle is now complete!

Before turning the first card and beginning the adventure, shuffle the item deck (the smaller deck of cards) and place them face down off to the side of the castle.

That’s it.  The game is all setup and ready to go.  During setup, I would have explained a couple of rules, so think of the next sections as being discussed while shuffling the decks.

Resting

Healing items are hard to come by in the Dark Castle.  At the start of combat, which I will explain when combat begins, one character can choose to sit out to heal.  Every round they are resting, they gain 1 health point.  That character cannot be dealt damage during combat, but neither can they attack or use items.  The character can rejoin combat after any round, but they can’t begin resting again until another chapter initiates combat.

Turn Order

Generally speaking, all actions happen simultaneously.  When the card says to do something, all players decide and have effects applied at the same time.  During combat, all players roll at the same time.  The only difference is who turns the Chapter cards.

The group decides which player will flip the next chapter card.  The player that turns the card reads the text, and any effect that describes You is describing the player that turned the card.

The only change in solo play is the player decides which character opened the door.  Personally, I put a token on the character card I am treating as the active player.  That makes it easier to keep track of who is who.

And now you’re ready to play!

There are very few weapons in the game, but a lot of various potions that allow rerolls or the like.  There are even food items, but none of the food is not what I would call appetising.

When you are ready to turn the next card, or drawing new items, you can freely switch equipment with other characters.  Items can be used at any time unless the text on a card states otherwise.

Now you are ready to play the proper game.  Choose the next player to turn a card, which for this rules explanation happens to be…

Combat

This continues until the chapter foe is defeated, or a character falls.  If the latter, it’s game over – all escape, or none do.

If you win, you get to draw an item card!  Here, players can shuffle equipment and hand things around as desired, then decide who will turn the next card.

Winning the Game

Play continues until either a character dies, or all of the cards, including the boss card, is defeated.  No side rules, no trigger conditions – just make it through the deck.  You can’t get a simpler game than that!

A simple game – then why so popular?

Huge heavy storied adventures are a lot of fun, but not all of the time.  There are times you want to spend a day playing an adventure, and there are times you just want to sit back and enjoy yourself.

I love role play games, and I generally end up being the storyteller.  This is great, and I enjoy it, but it takes a lot of time preparing stories and adventures, not to mention the time involved in getting everyone ready and then able to play at the same time.

Escape the Dark Castle is a great gateway game for people that want to try roleplay.  It’s true the game doesn’t leave that much choice to the player, but the groundwork is being laid.  Escape the Dark Castle is essentially a learning sandbox, letting players get used to ‘what would my character do?’ decisions without being bogged down by rulesets.

This is a game that you can literally stop and chat between each chapter card without losing track of what is happening in the game.  Because you only have to worry about the next card, this is a great game to socialise with as well.

There is also the simple fun factor.  Movies like Deadpool aren’t popular for their amazing stories and multi-layered plots – they are popular because they are turn your brain off fun.  Escape the Dark Castle is the same.  You might enjoy heavier games, but sometimes you want a game that is over and done before you can set up the truly epic game.

That all sounds great, but how do I know what a game is really like?

Well, today dear reader, you are in luck.  For today’s Blatherings is nothing less than a playthrough of Escape the Dark Castle with Alpal!

Check it out here.

Until next time,

JohnHQLD