I spent some of my Christmas money today on some board games — I grabbed Castle Panic, which I’ve never played but which I understand is an enjoyable moderate-length game that isn’t horrendously complicated, and Escape, which I hadn’t heard of prior to today, but which came recommended by some board gamers I follow on G+.

Escape is a really interesting game, as it happens, and I’m looking forward to trying it out with various different group sizes. Andie and I gave it a shot today, initially not quite sure what to make of it, but after a third playthrough — a game is only ten minutes long — we nailed it.

Escape is a cooperative game that unfolds in real time. You and your compatriots play intrepid explorers who have gone and got themselves stuck in the middle of a temple, with no idea of where the exit is. (Presumably they fell in through the ceiling or something.) It’s your job to find the exit, then exit through it. Simple, right? NOPE.

The temple, being a mysterious old temple, is cursed, and in order to be able to escape you need to not only find the exit, but also activate some magical gems along the way. Each gem you activate makes it easier to escape, but attempting to activate them takes up valuable time.

Almost everything you do in Escape hinges on the roll of the dice. Each player has five dice they can roll, and there’s no need to take turns — you just keep rolling until you get what you want, and you can set aside dice that you haven’t used to perform an action. Roll a black mask, however, and that die is out of commission until you roll a golden mask to return up to two of your dice to play. If you’re in the same room as another player, you can use your golden masks to “heal” another player’s dice, too, so it’s in your interests to team up rather than get too far apart.

Activating the gems is generally a matter of rolling a certain number of either torch or key symbols. Certain rooms allow you to activate multiple gems in collaboration with other players by pooling your dice, but obviously rolling 10 of one symbol is going to be a little more time-consuming than rolling, say, 4, so you have to weigh up the risks and potential rewards.

Just to add a little more stress to the mix, at two points during the ten-minute play session, a gong sounds, and then you have a short span of time to get back to the central chamber or lose one of your dice permanently. Conversely, if you manage to escape before someone else does — by both finding the exit and then rolling as many keys as there are gems left in the pool, plus one — you can give one of your dice to another player. If you haven’t all escaped by the time the third gong and countdown ends, you all lose, regardless of how many people have escaped.

Escape makes use of an audio CD to manage the time limit, but also provides a sand timer for when you’re playing in quieter environments. The CD is a lot of fun, though, being full of ambient noise and dramatic stabs when you’re all racing back to the central room. It reminds me of the somewhat more complicated Space Alert, another cooperative game that involves working together against a tight time limit — unlike Space Alert, however, which unfolds in hilariously painful slow motion after the CD is over, Escape happens in completely real-time, which takes a certain degree of getting used to but gives it a pleasingly enjoyable, frantic feel to it.

Looking forward to trying it some more and adding the “Curse” and “Treasure” modules for additional complexity and strategic options. In the meantime, if you’re looking for a super-quick game to hit your table as a filler or warmup, it’s well worth a look.