Escape the Dark Castle
A cooperative fantasy adventure game for 1-4 players
Escape the Dark Castle is a simple, fantasy adventure game that you can start playing in just a couple of minutes! It’s a cooperative game and for those not familiar, that means you all work as a team and either you all win or you all get defeated by the game.
Players take on the role of prisoners trying to escape a castle filled with horrors, traps and challenges which are represented by the main deck of ‘chapter’ cards. As each card is revealed, players work together and make decisions about how to try and overcome the obstacle they are faced with.
Each player has a die representing their skills and they can use these dice collectively to try and defeat the monsters and other obstacles they encounter along the way. You’ll get the chance to collect useful items on the way which might help you heal, or be weapons to help in combat.
Escape the Dark Castle has a big focus on storytelling and each chapter card has an atmospheric and immersive set up before going into the mechanics of each challenge.
The goal is to complete all of the chapters in your deck and then defeat the final boss, but you all need to be alive to even attempt this battle!
If any player dies along the way then you all lose and meet a grizzly end stuck in the castle. Just shuffle all of the chapter cards in the game to create a new deck and try again with a new set of challenges to face!
Escape the Dark Castle is for 1-4 players, lasts around 30 minutes and is for players aged 14+
Why we love it:
Escape the Dark Castle is such a simple game to get set up and going so you can be playing in just a few minutes. The set up and rules are simple but it’s a tricky game to win and you’ll all need to work together to succeed!
This beautifully illustrated game is made by Themeborne, a local Norwich based company. We are very lucky to have Themeborne so local and they’re a bunch of lovely folks who are good friends of Slice + Dice so it’s great to have such talented people in our fine city!
We love a good cocktail name pun at Slice + Dice so this game led to the creation of our Escape the Dark and Stormy Castle cocktail, the perfect companion to your escape attempt!
Where to find it:
You can find Escape the Dark Castle in C7 in our library. Columns 7 and 8 are full of other cooperative games too!