ESCAPE THE CURSED TEMPLE

Designer: Kristian Amundsen Østby | Publisher: Queen Games

You know that scene in Indiana Jones, where the ball rolls towards him in impending doom, and there’s a mild panic that poor Indy may not make it out of this one…that’s is basically the whole vibe of this game, in the best way. As the title suggests, you’re going to need to escape the temple, but not without your treasure. Roll dice to meet the conditions to open a new room, and lay a new tile down in that direction, before making your way to the exit before it’s too late. Sounds lovely and delightful.

Except for the indescribable mounting panic that the game impressively builds. You’ll play a CD track (or if you’ve moved too far into the future and don’t own a player, you can find it on their website), that times you to exactly ten minutes to escape. Part way through, you’ll hear gongs sound, where first, you’ll have to race back to the starting chamber or lose one of your dice, and at the next, escape.

That’s stressful enough, but then come the dice. This game is a simultaneous play game, so everyone is frantically rolling their dice as quickly as possible to try to meet conditions of each room, losing dice on some rolls, recovering dice on others, and there’s a real tension made up of the culmination of music, the time limit, and the repeated hit of dice on the table. If your team splits up in its exploration, you’re even more hyper aware of everyone, everywhere.

The fact is, stressful as it becomes, it’s immensely fun. You’re constantly rolling, shouting for more dice, squealing at the time pressure and failed rolls at a pivotal time, with everyone doing the same around the table. Sure, you could go do physical exercise to raise your heart rate, but why would you when you can play this joy of a game?