Forbidden Island vs Escape: The Curse of the Temple

Forbidden Island can be taught within a few minutes to absolutely anyone. It starts off slow and progressively leads into more complicated situations, so there’s time to get into the feel of the game. You only need to know how to do four actions, and the result of them is instantly visible, there’s pretty much nothing to micromanage.

The game retails for around $15, which is very cheap for the replay value and quality of the components that this game packs.

The components of Forbidden Island are not only visually beautiful, but also durable, so they should hold up to wear and tear just fine. The game comes in a high-quality tin box and is full of thick and sturdy island tiles, durable cardstock cards, and eight treasure figures made of soft plastic.

The game looks amazing, it’s full of colorful high-quality artwork that really enhances the theme of treasure hunting on a mysterious island. The game’s box already gives a great first impression, featuring a big copy of the “Lighthouse” location tile. These locations that form the island have a huge variety of detailed and great-looking art on them.

On a design note, it is also very well done in the sense that it’s easy to distinguish which tiles are sinking, even in the blue-ish looking locations.

The rules of Forbidden Island are straightforward. After setting up the map and choosing the difficulty, you are randomly assigned one of the six different classes. During your turn you can take up to three actions in total. All actions cost 1 point, you can move, shore up a drowning tile, give a treasure card to another player on the same tile, or collect a treasure. After that you draw two cards from the treasure card deck and take a number of flood cards equivalent to the water level.

The game is won when you play a “Helicopter lift” card on the “Fool’s Landing” tile while you have all players on it and you’ve uncovered all the treasures. There are many lose conditions – you can lose if the water level reaches the highest mark, if both the tiles housing the same treasure drown before you manage to get it, if the “Fool’s Landing” tile drowns, or if a player drowns.

Forbidden Island lets you adjust the difficulty, which is great because you can adjust to the group you’re playing, be it a group of experienced gamers or your family. This is done by moving the slider on the water level meter to one of the four sections. Basically, you start with a higher initial water level.

There are many variables to Forbidden Island that keeps it replayable. The cards you draw and the map you create will always vary and the fact that you get a random class makes the game feel different every time.

The six classes have highly different abilities, for example, the pilot can use an action point to fly to any tile on the island, the messenger can give treasure cards to another player anywhere on the map, and the engineer can shore up two tiles on the same turn for one action point.

Since Escape: The Curse of the Temple is played in real-time and the players are taking actions simultaneously, there’s never a dull moment. You’re constantly doing something - rolling dice, moving, placing gems, talking with your teammates, trying to rescue each other, etc.

The game is played while listening to a 10-minute soundtrack that includes atmospheric sound effects for extra immersion. Every three minutes a gong sound plays, which means you have to run for the starting chamber. If you don’t reach it before a door-shutting sound plays, you lose one die for the rest of the game, so this always leads to some gripping moments where players are frantically rolling and re-rolling dice.

Not only does Escape have three purchasable expansions - Illusions, Quests, and Traps, but there are also two expansion modules in the base edition - Treasures and Curses. These expansions make the game more challenging and add to the replayability of it.

If you’re playing with the treasures, then some rooms have treasure in them that you can claim by rolling the correct symbols. For example, a treasure can be a key that lets you teleport to any tile, or a door tile that lets you connect chambers that don’t have direct connections.

If you’re using the curse module, then you must draw a curse card when you enter a chamber with a purple mask. A curse can, for example, make you play the game with one hand on your head, or permit you to speak until you break the curse by rolling the right symbols.

There are some ways to make the game a little easier or harder, which is great for adjusting Escape for the group you’re playing with. You can add or remove gems - they determine how easy it is to escape the temple from the final chamber, the bigger the gem pool, the more difficult it is.

The content in both the purchasable expansions and the included expansion modules can also be used to make the game more challenging. They add more elements to the game - things you can find in chambers, things you must do, etc. For example, the “Curses” module can lead to you finding a curse that makes you play the game with one hand on your head until you manage to cancel the curse.

Escape is played while listening to a 10-minute soundtrack that marks the beginning and the end of the game. Due to this it’s easy to grab and quickly play through because you can know for sure that it won’t drag on for too long.

The game has a lot of fun, social, and cooperative interactions between players. It can only be won if all players manage to escape, which encourages you to work together and help your fellow adventurers.

The biggest cooperative aspect of Escape is saving “locked out” players. A player can get locked out of actions if they have rolled five black masks. A black mask makes you set the die aside until someone on your tile rolls a golden mask to counteract two black ones. Basically you will be racing against the clock, exploring, and placing gems until someone next to you locks themselves out, which then forces you to go save them.

The rules of Escape: The Curse of the Temple are very straightforward - the whole game consists of rolling dice to perform actions, making the game very easy and accessible to people of all ages and gaming backgrounds.

The game takes place in real time, players receive five dice and play while listening to a 10-minute soundtrack. They simultaneously roll dice to move, explore, activate gems, and assist other players. Each action requires rolling specific symbols. You keep exploring tiles until you discover the exit chamber, which requires you to roll a specific amount of keys to exit. The amount of keys required can be reduced by placing gems in “chamber” tiles.

If a player rolls a black mask, then he must set that die aside until he rolls a golden mask that can counteract two black masks. If a player gets in a situation where they have rolled five black masks, then they are “locked out” and must wait for another player to come around to their tile and roll a golden mask to unlock their dice.