What I'm Playing - 'Escape: The Curse of the Temple'

'Escape' was a Kickstarter project from back in March 2012, which I only heard about well after the project had ended. Fortunately, there were enough copies made that I was able to get my hands on one through a reseller.

It uses a mechanic that I've only seen in one other game, 'Space Alert,' which provides an audio track to be played during the game, limiting each game to exactly 10 minutes. But unlike 'Space Alert,' this is a ("real-time cooperative") dice game, which makes it much easier to learn and play.

In the game, you and the other players take on the role of explorers who have stumbled upon a cursed temple and must now flee for your lives. To do so, they must explore the temple and seek out the jewels hidden within, which are needed to unlock the exit. The game begins with three tiles placed face up on the table--the entrance tile, where everyone begins, and two randomly chosen rooms.

Each player is then given five dice to use which have special symbols on each side. These symbols are a blue key, a green man (2), a red torch, a black mask, and a yellow mask. The first four are used in various combinations to perform the actions you can take during the game which include discovering new rooms, moving into new rooms, retrieving jewels, and eventually, escape from the temple. When the black mask is rolled, that die is locked down and unusable until that player, or another player in the same room, rolls a yellow mask. The yellow mask will unlock up to two black masks.

Off to one side of the playing space will be a holding pen for jewels, the number of which depends on how many people are playing. As the players explore the temple they will come across rooms where they can retrieve one, two, or three of the jewels. These are important because as a final hurdle to escaping the temple, every player will need to roll a number of blue keys equal to the remaining jewels.

The remaining component of the (base) game are thirteen face-down room tiles, plus the exit tile (randomly shuffled into the bottom four tiles), which are flipped over and added to the board as the players discover them. And with that, everything is in place to start the game.


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Using the included CD, or in my case a digital audio track via my smart phone, you run one of the two soundtracks which kick in some very nice ambiance noises. In a few moments a booming voice says “BEGIN,” and then all hell breaks loose. Everyone is frantically rolling their dice at the same time, branching out into the temple in search of jewels and the exit. But a few minutes in, the ominous background noise is broken by the sound of a gong, which is the signal for everyone to race back to the starting tile. Failure to do so in the allotted time (denoted by the sound of a door slamming shut) means losing one of your dice for the rest of the game. This process repeats a few minutes later and then finally the gong rings three times, which means it’s time for everyone to find the exit and get the hell out of dodge. To win, EVERYONE must escape the temple. If even one man is left behind, everyone loses.

I’ve played about ten games now, some with the expanded rules and tiles, and I think our win rate is close to 60%, though it may be lower than that. But even the loses have been fun and every game has involved lots of good-natured yelling and screaming at each other. If you’re looking for more casual fare and don’t mind the noise, I would highly recommend picking up a copy of ‘Escape’ if you can find it.

Image sources: 1, 2, 3.