Escape: The Curse of the Temple

Minimum Players: 1

Maximum Players: 5

Minimum Playtime: 10 mins

Maximum Playtime: 10 mins

Age: 8+

Escape: The Curse of the Temple is a cooperative game in which players must escape (yes...) from a temple (yes...) which is cursed (yes...) before the temple collapses and kills one or more explorers, thereby causing everyone to lose.

Escape is played in real-time, with all players rolling dice and taking actions simultaneously. You must roll the right symbols to enter a room, and if you're at an open doorway, you can roll to reveal the next tile in the stack and add it to that doorway. Some rooms contain combinations of red and blue symbols, and if you (possibly working with other players in the same room) roll enough red or blue symbols, you "discover" magic gems, moving them from a separate gem depot onto that tile.

The real-time aspect is enforced by a soundtrack to be played during the game. At certain points, a countdown starts, and if players aren't back in the safe room when time is up, they lose one of their dice.

Once the exit tile is revealed, players can attempt to escape the temple by moving to that tile, then rolling a number of blue dice equal to the magic gems that haven't been removed from the gem depot. Thus, the more gems you find, the easier it is to escape the temple. When a player escapes, he gives one die to a player of his choice. If all players escape before the third countdown, everyone wins; if not, everyone loses, no matter how many players did escape.