Escape The Dark Castle is Wicked, Atavistic Fun - Review

I expect that reactions to Themebound Games’ Escape the Dark...

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Yes yes yes. I've been playing EftDC for over a year, and have enjoyed it immensely. It also passes the spouse test. She and I listen to our EftDC soundtrack, read the cards aloud in our best Orson Welles impersonation, and almost always lose when (if) we reach the final boss. MB review is pretty spot on, though I may know be experiencing my own sense of FOMO. I bought the core game. When it was reprinted, I bought he expansions. I did NOT buy the collector's box. Hmmmm....

The one thing I cannot do, is back the sequel. It's currently finishing up the pledge manager phase. It's sci-fi. The great EftDC aesthetics just don't seem to jive in the future as well as they do in a medieval pastiche. That, and the added rules for ranged attacks just seems unnecessarily fiddly for fiddly sake.

I’m all in on the sequel, so I’ll report back once I can play it. I personally love that style in a sci fi setting (also in on Dark Venture because of this & nearly pulled the trigger on Cryptic Explorers).

Man I’ll take a damn train game if it’s in all black and white like this. I have a thing.

I also have an advance copy of Cryptic Explorers. Looks cool.

Frohike you should get the Collector’s Box...it’s very cool. The six bosses are great, the Flaws are essential. There’s a new artifact, the Living Stone. There are also some other niceties, like the hilarious YOU token. Everything fits in the box SLEEVED. And man, they have like the nicest sleeves I’ve ever seen.

OMG I’m an idiot...LIVING STONE. Ha! Just got it.

FWIW, here's my review of it without expansions and snazzy extras.

therewillbe.games/articles-boardgame-rev...e-dark-castle-review

Then you are going to see the people that don’t, for a lack of a better phrase, “get it”

I see you've watched the Tom Vasel review.

I don’t watch anything he does...but seeing as this is a dude who once said that Talisman is not for (and I quote) “discerning gamers”...not surprised.

Well, when a door closes - a window opens.

Earlier this week, I missed the boat on Barnes' offer for those Frostgrave books. Damn.
Now I'll spend away that money on the EftDC "Collector's Box." The pledge manager for Escape the Dark Sector has it as an "add-on."

[MB, please PM your street address. My wife will be targeting your home with hate and vitriol.]

NOTE: If any F:ATtie wants to try this little gem of a game, the pledge manager is still open. It's a modest price, and I'm certain; if you like the aesthetic - you'll like the game. The UK pledge manager is a decent way to grab the core, the expansions, and all of the cute/unnecessary tiddly winks.

And I may have screwed that up too.
I just placed my order via their pledge manager. Supposedly, it went through.

This is telling, because an earlier e-mail informed me the pledge manager was closing last weekend (Labor Day weekend).

We'll see...

Okay. I'm an idiot. In a rush, I filled out a pledge manager that closed a week ago. While the order supposedly went through, I don't know if it really will.
So I sent a message to customer support.

Largely in part, because EftDC expansions and such are already available of the publisher's web store. Sigh...

Moral? Don't buy stuff hung over.

Happy Friday the 13th everyone!

Michael Barnes wrote: I don’t watch anything he does...but seeing as this is a dude who once said that Talisman is not for (and I quote) “discerning gamers”...not surprised.

Some fun quotes from his video review:

"I hate this game, I mean I hate it,"
"I despise this game, looks boring, looks dreadful, looks bad, looks like some kid's doodling,"
"Do you want to be these people?! They all look grotesque and nasty and blah!"
"The game itself... there's no game!"
"There's no decisions, this isn't role-playing, this is a game that should have come out in the 80's,"
"The solo game of this is extremely unfun,"
"This is one of my least favorite games I've played in a long time,"

and perhaps the inadvertently truthy clincher...

"I think the vast majority of people who watch Dice Tower reviews... I don't think this would be your style."

Michael Barnes wrote: Man I’ll take a damn train game if it’s in all black and white like this. I have a thing.

I get it. Black-and-white art can sometimes be more compelling than color art. The contrast can be more dramatic, and the linework can be very detailed, delivering a sense of texture than can go missing in color art.

I guess Themebound didn’t pay for one of the more expensive content packages...

Black and white artwork is especially good for horror:

From the Toadswart serial in Epic Magazine, with art by Tim Conrad:
https://dyn1.heritagestatic.com/lf?set=path%5B1%2F8%2F9%2F0%2F1%2F18901042%5D%2Csizedata%5B850x600%5D&call=url%5Bfile%3Aproduct.chain%5D

From the Illustrated Frankenstein, with art by Bernie Wrightson: