Escape Plan

EvEvanstar1,6

Players start the game with their meeple on a the hospital hex, adjacent to a hex with police men tokens. At the start of each of the three rounds, four new hexes get added to the board along with additional policemen tokens. Players run around the board visiting locations which may increase or reduce their infamy. Having greater infamy means that during the chart adjustment, if you cross one of the marked thresholds, each player with less infamy than you has to move a policeman token closer to your location. Whenever you want to move, which is almost every turn, you need to spend special tokens to avoid the police. Failing to do so results in taking on wounds, which eventually cost you a lot of points. The tension goes up in the third round when it's finally time to escape. The first few players to get off the map though the exit only pay $5, but later players have to pay $10, plus once one person escapes everyone has to pay an additional $1 per action they take from that point on. There are some interesting elements to the game for sure. I like how you gain and lose reputation across a single round, but only adjust the chart in between rounds. The tokens used to represent this are efficient and easy to track. I like the layout of the tiles, the way police tokens effect the tile you are on yet players measure their movement by counting different terrain types traversed, so you might be able to cleverly slip past the police tokens if the tile layout lines up your way. There are also some game elements that really prevent me from enjoying the game. Despite this being a lighter-ish game, at least for a Vital game, the rules still feel award. For example, one of the things you can do in the game is take over biker gangs. You pay $5, then get two biker tokens that can be spent one of three ways. One of those three things is you can spend one when you are on a tile with a helipad to move 2 spaces ignoring the police between the start and end tiles. Then there is a hospital tile where you start the game and heal at, which is differentiated from the clinic space which also heals, looks similar, but has different functions. A little more streamlining would have gone a lone way to making this a more intuitive experience. Another thing is that I found there were very few opportunities for me to make real decisions. When it's my chance to place a tile, there's usually only one or two places it can legally go. Often times there isn't a space on the tile that I'm left with for a business to go which means I'm chasing other player's goal locations most of the time. When it's my turn to move, the position of the police meeples restricts my options to one or zero good moves. This is further restricted by how difficult it is to have cash in hand. The game gives you very little money to spend and lots of things you have to spend it on. Running out of money in that final round is grounds for player elimination. This is further complicated by the fact that locations on the map close shop after a fixed number of players visit it. My disappointment with the game might be from unrealistic expectations. I wanted a more complicated, deeper Colt Express, where players run around, take shots, and push police meeples into each other, grabbing money, and pushing their luck in a lighthearted way. What I got was this hyper restrictive budgeting game with frustrating last round player elimination. :star: Art, Iconography and components functional :star: Clever or interesting mechanisms :nostar: Reasonably low downtime between turns with mildly AP players :nostar: Multiple plays stay interesting :star: Low or mitigatable luck elements :nostar::nostar::nostar::nostar::nostar: Raw enjoyment

GaGarfieldstar4,0

I was expecting something with more theme. A bank robbery would have been more interesting. [c] Theme: :star::star::star::nostar::nostar: <!-- size 7]Ok --> Gameplay: :star::star::nostar::nostar::nostar: <!-- size 7]A little bit too many things --> Interaction: :star::star::nostar::nostar::nostar: <!-- size 7]Not much --> Artwork: :star::star::star::star::nostar: <!-- size 7]Nice --> Luck: :star::star::star::nostar::nostar: <!-- size 7]Quite a bit of luck involved --> Strategy: :star::star::star::nostar::nostar: <!-- size 7]You have to be flexible and adapt --> Components: :star::star::star::nostar::nostar: <!-- size 7]Kickstarter, but also here, nothing special --> Play duration: :star::star::star::nostar::nostar: <!-- size 7]Ok --> Easy to teach: :star::star::nostar::nostar::nostar: <!-- size 7]A lot to teach --> Rules quality: <!-- size 7]not read --> Setup time: :star::nostar::nostar::nostar::nostar: <!-- size 7]Holy shit --> No downtime: :star::star::star::nostar::nostar: <!-- size 7]Ok --> Replay value: :star::star::star::star::nostar: <!-- size 7]Very modular and random stuff in it --> [/c]

Toni Cutillasstar8,0

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