A dark, dingy place infested with god knows what. Rats scurry past your feet, the stench of death lingers in the air and, as the last flickering torch peters out, your belief in salvation from this place peters out with it. But enough about the Job Centre.
Escape The Dark Castle is a story driven coop RPG by Themeborne, in which players start the game wrongly incarcerated in the dungeon of a castle and have to work together to escape, the castle is also dark so the name comes together nicely. It’s never explained why you’re imprisoned so feel free to make up your own reason, personally I went with mistaken identity and being too awesome. Each player adopts the guise of the character of their choice and takes the corresponding custom dice. The dungeon the players are going to be traversing is made up of 16 unique cards, 15 that are randomly selected from a deck of 53 story cards and one selected from the boss deck at the bottom of the deck. There is always the same start card placed on top of the deck which has the characters escaping their prison. The small number of cards being used for each game out of the much larger number in the box means that each play-through has a high chance of being different. This offers players a new experience every time they play extending the games replay-ability right out of the box.
There are three traits: wisdom, cunning and wisdom. Each character is equipped with a custom dice that depicts which skills they are more proficient in along with the character card also showing this on the wall behind the character.
Escape The Dark Castle runs similarly to an adventure book, players decide amongst themselves who will then over the next card, read it and have to work together to complete the challenge on that card. This can range from choosing which way to go in a corridor to fighting a monster your party has stumbled across. Along the way players can pick up equipment which can aide in combat or replenish health, when picking up equipment you can distribute them to any character but each character can only hold a maximum of two items, essentially one in each hand.
Gameplay is very simple, there are three symbols on each custom dice and an assortment of matching symbols on the story cards. Players must match the symbols on a story card to ones rolled on their dice to progress. It is important to talk about your plan however as there are some cards that have immediate effects when turned over, these cards effect the player that has turned them over so be careful. If one player dies along the way the entire party fails so communication is key to success.
There aren’t any turns in Escape The Dark Castle, once your party has completed whatever challenge the card has thrown up you can move onto the next one. This keeps the game flowing nicely and provides an almost seamless story running alongside the gameplay.
Escape The Dark Castle is retro RPG and therefor takes influences from older RPG’s like Dark Castle, a video game from 1986 that gives Escape a lot of visual jumping off points, such as its black and white aesthetic. The minimalist gameplay keeps Escape The Dark Castle accessible to newer players as well as giving it a fast-play nature. It also acts as a great into to RPG’s without overwhelming players with the amount of selection that a game like Dungeons and Dragons gives them. As I’ve already said, Escape The Dark Castle is a story driven game so it does rely quite heavily on its writing and creating an atmosphere and its definitely good at that. “You are knocked unconscious and dragged down a side passage. You awake strapped to a table where a man in a filthy apron is scrapping rust from a jagged blade. You are to be a test subject for the castles torturer.” That is lifted directly from a card in Escape The Dark Castle to give you an idea of what you’re in for and I think we are in agreement that it certainly sets the scene.
RPGs are a dime a dozen and usually players have gone through enough to find the one that works for them, Escape isn’t a long term campaign type of RPG though. Escape is the type of game you bust out during downtime of your campaign RPG to keep the ambience up and players in character. If you like RPGs and are looking for a smaller, more bite-size one then Escape The Dark Castle is perfect for you. Even if you don’t like RPGs it’s worth a look, with its refined writing, around twenty minute gameplay and such a low barrier to entry it would make a brilliant addition to your games library.
Head down to your local game store to get more hands on with Escape The Dark Castle but in the mean time, keep checking back to Game Changers for more gaming news and updates and remember to follow us on Twitter at @gcgamingtank.
Happy gaming guys!
Escape The Dark Castle is a story driven coop RPG by Themeborne, in which players start the game wrongly incarcerated in the dungeon of a castle and have to work together to escape, the castle is also dark so the name comes together nicely. It’s never explained why you’re imprisoned so feel free to make up your own reason, personally I went with mistaken identity and being too awesome. Each player adopts the guise of the character of their choice and takes the corresponding custom dice. The dungeon the players are going to be traversing is made up of 16 unique cards, 15 that are randomly selected from a deck of 53 story cards and one selected from the boss deck at the bottom of the deck. There is always the same start card placed on top of the deck which has the characters escaping their prison. The small number of cards being used for each game out of the much larger number in the box means that each play-through has a high chance of being different. This offers players a new experience every time they play extending the games replay-ability right out of the box.
There are three traits: wisdom, cunning and wisdom. Each character is equipped with a custom dice that depicts which skills they are more proficient in along with the character card also showing this on the wall behind the character.
Escape The Dark Castle runs similarly to an adventure book, players decide amongst themselves who will then over the next card, read it and have to work together to complete the challenge on that card. This can range from choosing which way to go in a corridor to fighting a monster your party has stumbled across. Along the way players can pick up equipment which can aide in combat or replenish health, when picking up equipment you can distribute them to any character but each character can only hold a maximum of two items, essentially one in each hand.
Gameplay is very simple, there are three symbols on each custom dice and an assortment of matching symbols on the story cards. Players must match the symbols on a story card to ones rolled on their dice to progress. It is important to talk about your plan however as there are some cards that have immediate effects when turned over, these cards effect the player that has turned them over so be careful. If one player dies along the way the entire party fails so communication is key to success.
There aren’t any turns in Escape The Dark Castle, once your party has completed whatever challenge the card has thrown up you can move onto the next one. This keeps the game flowing nicely and provides an almost seamless story running alongside the gameplay.
Escape The Dark Castle is retro RPG and therefor takes influences from older RPG’s like Dark Castle, a video game from 1986 that gives Escape a lot of visual jumping off points, such as its black and white aesthetic. The minimalist gameplay keeps Escape The Dark Castle accessible to newer players as well as giving it a fast-play nature. It also acts as a great into to RPG’s without overwhelming players with the amount of selection that a game like Dungeons and Dragons gives them. As I’ve already said, Escape The Dark Castle is a story driven game so it does rely quite heavily on its writing and creating an atmosphere and its definitely good at that. “You are knocked unconscious and dragged down a side passage. You awake strapped to a table where a man in a filthy apron is scrapping rust from a jagged blade. You are to be a test subject for the castles torturer.” That is lifted directly from a card in Escape The Dark Castle to give you an idea of what you’re in for and I think we are in agreement that it certainly sets the scene.
RPGs are a dime a dozen and usually players have gone through enough to find the one that works for them, Escape isn’t a long term campaign type of RPG though. Escape is the type of game you bust out during downtime of your campaign RPG to keep the ambience up and players in character. If you like RPGs and are looking for a smaller, more bite-size one then Escape The Dark Castle is perfect for you. Even if you don’t like RPGs it’s worth a look, with its refined writing, around twenty minute gameplay and such a low barrier to entry it would make a brilliant addition to your games library.
Head down to your local game store to get more hands on with Escape The Dark Castle but in the mean time, keep checking back to Game Changers for more gaming news and updates and remember to follow us on Twitter at @gcgamingtank.
Happy gaming guys!
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