Escape: The Curse of the Temple - First Play!

26th July 2022

It's Tuesday! That means it's time to meet up with the Woking Board Gaming Club at the The Sovereigns.

Time to steal the idol... and escape, Indiana Jones has nothing on this real-time, cooperative dice game, well at least until those crappy rolls inevitably turn up!

---

What's in a game?

• ​Tiles: The game comes with about 20 tiles, they depict various different kinds of underground sandstone chamber from a top down view. There are several different types of tile but all of them display a number of exits and also show icons of some sort.
  Main tiles: This includes the beginning tile and the escape tile, it also includes gem tiles, more on gem tiles later.
  The backs of each of these tiles feature 2 adventurer icons, also more on icons later.
  Gem depot: This is not a game tile per se and is used to store gems and track the amount which get used.
  Basic tiles: These are the most common type of tile; as well as a pair of icons they also feature an entrance (Stairs.) and exits. They are for the most part empty but some contain 'gem spaces'.
  The backs of these tiles also feature 2 adventurer icons
• Gems: Basic acrylic tokens in translucent green.
• Meeples: There are 5 of these suitably fedora-wearing meeples, one each in every player colour.
• Tokens: Circular card tokens, again in each player colour. These are used to quickly identify which meeple belongs to which player.
• Dice: Lots of dice! 25 to be exact and enough to give each player 5.
  These are not normal six-siders and all the numbers have been replaced with symbols which match the symbols found on tiles. The symbols are:
  Adventurer X2: A green man running away (Presumably from a giant boulder?) while carrying a whip!
  2 sides on each die has the adventurer icon.
  Key: A blue key icon.
  Torch: A red torch icon.
  Gold Mask: A grinning gold icon.
  Black Mask: A leering black mask, the black mask result on dice is bad news.
• Soundtrack: Yep! The game comes with a soundtrack, it serves as the game's countdown timers for the game's 3 rounds and it also plays atmospheric, moody ambient audio!

Escape: The Curse of the Temple has good quality components. The tiles all feel suitably thick and sturdy. The acrylic gem tokens are kind you see in a lot of games which use them to depict gems, they are a sparkly, pleasing shade of green though.
The bespoke dice and meeples are wooden which is always a nice touch.

There's not much art to speak of, the tiles show flagstones and that's about it. It's clear artwork that does not get in the way.

About half a dozen icons are used throughout the game, luckily they most relate to the dice and there's never a need to refer to the rules - which is a good thing since this is a real time game with a countdown.

---

---

How's it play?
Setup

• Tiles: Put aside the Start and Exit tiles, then shuffle all the remaining tiles into a face-down stack. Finally shuffle the Exit tile into the bottom 4 tiles in the stack.
• Start tile: Put the Start tile into the central playing area, since it has two doorways, reveal and place 2 tiles from the stack and place them adjacent to the starting tile with the stairs connected to the exit from the start tile.
• Gem depot: Depending on player count, place 7-16 gems on the gem depot tile. 
  Also place 2 gems adjacent to the gem depot tile, these 2 gems can be very important later on.
• Players: Give each player the token and meeples in their colour, then give each player 5 dice for their personal use.
  ​Each player should then place their meeple on to the starting tile.
• Soundtrack: Prepare the soundtrack.

On to play
In Escape: The Curse of the Temple players are collectively attempting to explore a lost temple to find the exit and escape before becoming trapped.
It's not so simple though; not only must they find the exit, they'll also need to activate the gem tiles and spaces to make their escape possible.
The game is played over 3 rounds and does not use a typical turn structure. Instead, turns are actually synchronous, in other words, players perform all their actions at the same time and in real time!
This involves all players rolling their dice and resolving their actions simultaneously. How is this all done? Read on.

• Soundtrack: Begin the soundtrack, the clock is now ticking.
• Roll the dice: When a player wants to undertake an action it is resolved by rolling dice, getting a required result will then complete that action. This usually means get at least 2 specific symbols on the dice.
  Rerolls: Players are free to reroll their dice as much as possible (And will have to do so nearly all the time!) to resolve an action. However, that brings me to...
  Black masks: Any time a die gets a black mask result, it becomes locked. A locked die cannot be rerolled or used for anything. When this happens (And it will happen.) the affected player should leave the die showing the black mask. Luckily, we come to gold masks...
  Gold mask: When a die comes up with the gold mask result, the player can use it to unlock up to 2 black mask locked dice. Very useful!
  Set aside: After making a roll, the player may set aside a dice on any face for later use. A player may also change their mind and reroll dice set aside in a later roll.
  A good example of setting aside would keeping a gold mask result in anticipation of getting a black mask later.
  Aid: If 2 or more meeples are on the same tile, they may help each other by contributing die results to the other player's action.
  A player can even use a gold mask of their own to unlock another player's locked dice.
• Actions: There are several actions each player can perform, which they can do in any order as required.
  Move: The player may attempt to move their meeple into an adjacent tile. The tile they are moving on to will show 2 icons that will need to be rolled. Typically this involves a green adventurer and 1 other icon - sometimes another green adventurer.
  After matching the icons, the player can move their meeple into the relevant tile.
  Explore: If the player wants to move their meeple through a doorway that does not yet have a tile, they must get a result with 2 green adventurers on their dice.
  Once this is completed, they flip a tile from the stack and place it adjacent to the doorway they want to go through.
  When adding new tiles to the playing area, the doorway with the stairs is always used to make the connection.
  ​Gems: Some of the basic tiles have space for a gem and number of the main tiles will have 3 gem spaces (For 1, 2 or 3 gems.).
  What's important about gems? Well, they need to be removed from the gem depot tile and put on the gems spaces on the tiles in order to allow the players to escape.
  How is this done? next to a single gem space will be a torch symbol and a 4. As an action, if a player gets 4 torches on the dice, they can move a gem from the depot tile to the space on their current tile.
  For the tiles with 3 gem spaces, 1, 2 or 3 gems can be shifted, however, only 1 of those spaces can be used on a tile. Furthermore, it gets harder to achieve  to move more gems. E.g., it takes 10 torch symbols to shift 3 gems, which is impossible for a single player and requires a group effort - probably with 3 players!
• Turn of fate: This action does not require rolling dice, it does however, require unanimous agreement from all players.
  When this action is triggered, it allows all players to reroll all locked dice. It's a powerful move that can free up a lot of dice but it comes at a cost. One of the 2 gems that were put adjacent to the gem depot tile must be added to the tile, thus making escape harder.
  Since 2 gems were put to the side, this can be done twice in a game.
• End of round: When a gong plays on the sound track, it marks the beginning of the end of the 1st round. All players must return to the starting tile before countdown expires and a door shutting sound plays.
  If a player gets back in time, nothing bad happens.
  If a player fails to get back in time, then they permanently lose 1 die for the rest of the game!
  2nd round: The second round now begins and is basically a repeat of the 1st round, players must again move, explore and shift gems until this time 2 gongs play and must return to the starting tile or suffer the same penalty.
  Even if the exit tile is discovered in the first 2 rounds, at no point can the players use it to escape in those rounds. Which brings me to the 3rd round and the endgame.

Endgame
When the 3rd and final round begins, all players must get to the exit tile and successfully perform the escape action.

• Escape: Obviously this action can only occur in the 3rd round and when the player is on the exit tile. They must then roll their dice to escape.
  The player must get a number of key results equal to the remaining number of gems on the gem depot tile, plus one! I.e., if the gem tile is empty, they still need at least 1 key. If there were 3 gems on the tile, they would need 4 keys.
  What makes this worse is that players cannot help each other in the final escape. Players can only use their own dice, which is why losing dice in the first 2 round can be really bad as can having too many gems remaining on the depot tile.
• Boon: When a player escapes they may give exactly 1 of their dice permanently to another player as assistance.

The soundtrack has a total countdown across all 3 rounds of 10 minutes.

If one or more players are still in the temple when the countdown has finished, then they collectively lose the game.
If all the players have escaped before the time runs out, then the players collectively win!

---

---

Overall
I'm going to start by saying that I'm a bit ambivalent towards real time games.
I've played some good ones and can see how they have their place in gaming but for me but broadly speaking, it's not why I like and play board games. I like to think out my decisions and choices at least a little bit.
Add to the mix a push-your-luck dice mechanic and you've a game of a lot of quick frantic rolling. You really don't want to roll those dice off the table!

Having said all of this, I think Escape: The Curse of the Temple is a solid game and there's a lot to like about it.

Firstly, rules and theme mesh together well. Chucking dice as quickly as you can to escape feels good.

The synchronous dice rolling is a clever little system.
Generally real time games are always trying to impress upon players that they're up against the clock, this can be a little jarring in a game where players are having to wait for another player's time to run our and get their turn. By having synchronous actions, it heightens the sense of urgency as everyone is in it together.

Being able to provide assistance another player on the same tile is equally clever. It's an elegant mechanic that also feels organic and makes sense.

This means it would seem like a good idea to have players explore the temple as a group, it would make shifting gems and unlocking dice easier...
But there's a couple of rules that throws a spanner into that strategy.

Firstly; exploring as group can slow down that exploration. Players can't escape if they don't shift enough gems or find draw exit tunnel from the stack.
Secondly; players will want to avoid creating single long corridors, they will need to return to the starting tile twice and the further away they are from it, the further it is to get back.

This will force players to split up or go in pairs or stick close by if they have the option, at least for the first 2 rounds.
This can change contextually when certain tile are revealed or have to be put in play in a certain way or a player get too many locked dice and so on.
Players will have to think quickly and decisively as well as adapt to emergent events.

Escape: The Curse of the Temple obviously has a quick playtime - 10 minutes! That feels a little strange because the setup and explanation time almost feels longer than a single game.
It's reasonably easy to learn, I can't imagine novice gamers struggling to learn the concepts here.
It also not a game to be taken too seriously and leans heavily on luck which is not unusual for cooperative games. Although, even accepting this, a bad run of rolls can sour the experience.
​But treat Escape: The Curse of the Temple as a cooperative, silly, fun, filler of a game and it will be a enjoyable time. So long as your luck is better than mine... much better!