Thoughts on… Escape the Nightmare

Escape the Nightmare is currently looking for funds on Kickstarter. We were lucky enough to spend some time playing this with the designer last weekend at Mid Con. 


 

 

10… 9… 8… My friend is babbling uncontrollably, rocking back and forth and waving a hand of cards in the air and begging for mutilation. 7… 6… 5… I stare at my cards and try and figure out what to do. 4… 3… To my right a player is hunched over their card carefully reading out a binary string, oblivious to shouts for insects or monsters, and of course the ominous countdown. 2… 1… I trade…!

But it’s still coming.

Run!

10… 9… 8…

 

Matt’s Thoughts

 

Escape the Nightmare transports you and your friends into a terrifying world of madness, mutilation and tentacles. The exits are guarded, and every step you take will see you assailed by new challenges, each one more bizarre than the last. There are traps to navigate, and your fellow players will appear to lose their minds around you as it becomes ever harder to coordinate your actions. And something is hunting you through the darkness…

 

Escape the Nightmare trading

 

Effectively, Escape the Nightmare is a cooperative set collection game. Each player has a hand of cards and by trading with your fellow players you hope to get someone holding 4 of the same set at once, at which point you have overwhelmed one of the game’s guardians. Beat all the guardians and you’ve won the game. Except it’s not that easy.

Firstly, the game is played in real time, by which I mean there is no turn order and players can all talk to each other at once. This instantly causes chaos. Then the moment you receive a card in a trade, you must do what it says or you all lose. This can be anything from demonstrating you have a certain distribution of cards, to spontaneously hugging someone, to singing the song of your people (to be interpreted as you see fit). Have you ever tried to organise a trade with someone reciting a 20-digit string of 0s and 1s? It’s not going to happen! Plus, many of the actions will require other players to respond to you correctly. Hopefully the player who passed you the card should be able to help there, but they have problems of their own to deal with! Inevitably, any sense of coordination slips away like the memory of a dream. And then the game adds its piece-de resistance, a 10 second timer.

Whichever player has the “It’s Coming” card starts the timer, announcing to the group: “It’s Coming! Run!”, and steadily counting down from 10. If a player has not swapped with them for that card before the end of the timer, everyone loses. If they do, the timer starts again. Each 10 seconds becomes a desperate race with the knowledge you are only buying yourself a few more precious seconds. This countdown is the terror inducing flame that ignites the game’s brandy-soaked fruit explosion of a core.

 

Escape The Nightmare Cards2

 

This game is hard. I mean this game is rock solid. Wait, what am I saying? I mean this game is nightmarish! I have never seen a game in which it is possible to lose within seconds, but in Escape the Nightmare, you will. The fact that the game offers quick restart rules says a lot! And that is just the standard difficulty. You can also play on hard mode, in which each guardian adds a global special rule that must be obeyed. For example, the countdown might now be silent and determined by how long the player with the It’s Coming card can hold their breath!

Yet this difficulty doesn’t come from random chance or push your luck elements, nor does it come from a traitor player. Losing a game happens because you fail to communicate properly with the other people around the table. Maybe you didn’t tell them what effect you were passing them, or you didn’t help them with their card rule. Effectively, it’s all your fault!

 

Escape the Nightmare setup

 

When you finally complete a set, throw it down on the table and stop the timer, the sense of triumph is tremendous! Everyone is able to sit back and catch their breath while the player’s hand is reshuffled. The process of creating the hand is a bit fiddly though, requiring a specific number of cards to be discarded, making sure you keep the “It’s Coming” separate, then dealing out the hand. This process ensures there is at least one set available, but probably no more than one around the whole table. It’s a cunning trick to make set collection that little bit harder, but the redrawing process does break the immersion.

It is also quite possible to feel a bit left out of the group’s success, particularly if the set is formed at the other end of the table to you. Typically there is so much going on around you it is very possible to miss the approach to victory, and you’ll be rudely awoken from the dream by a player suddenly announcing you’ve won. If you prefer to sit back and plan, you might get left behind. However, if you can throw yourself into the craziness and embrace the chaos, you’ll have a an absolute blast whether you helped form that winning set or not!

 

Escape The Nightmare Cards

 

A game called “Escape the Nightmare”, centred on the idea of “running away”, offers up some pretty obvious jokes. The fact I’m not going there should tell you something. This game is good. The feeling of tension and panic it creates is all encompassing. I can’t quite believe it myself, but it makes the tension of Space Alert feel like a casual slow burn experience, and whereas that game ends with 10 minutes of tedious “paperwork”, this ends in a flash and is up and running again almost as quick. While it doesn’t offer the depth or replayability of Space Alert, Escape the Nightmare fills its role perfectly as a high-energy filler.

 

Chris’ Thoughts

 

I liked this game even more that Matt, I think! After playing it just twice, I ran towards where he was minding his own business and demanded that he come play it with me later.

It has a lot of elements I really like in games and is clearly very well designed.  The wide range of difficulty settings means that you can ease into it and get used to the unique challenge it provides. In addition, you can choose the type of nightmare you include to customise the game to your players, from the sing-song Delirium to the fiendishly difficult Death.  Personally I found Monsters and Insects to be particularly fun.

 

Escape The Nightmare Hugs!

 

In my opinion it achieves the perfect balance of being a great warm up game for a games night, but could just as easily be deployed in a party setting with more casual players.  The constant countdown adds great tension, the card effects lead to many humorous moments, and the constant trading means that something is always going on.  However the game doesn’t fall into the trap that many shorter or sillier games do, of being too random and lacking in strategy. There is a real skill component in the game, as indicated by the increase in chaos and failure when the designer was swapped out of the group for other new players.

The real recommendation for this game comes from the fact that unlike Matt, I’ve never backed something on Kickstarter before, and have now just done so. I recommend that you do too before IT catches up to you…10…9…8…7…6…

 

Rating: A psychedelic dream!

 

If you are interested in getting hold of this game, we recommend you go check out the Kickstarter page right now! The campaign will end on November 25th.

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