Along the way, players will gather loot cards. These are usually helpful items such as weapons, healing devices, and other objects that can be used throughout the game. However, each character can only hold four items, and some count for two slots instead of one. Players will need to decide which to keep and which to drop. Members of the crew are free to exchange items between chapters, but must ensure that before the next chapter card is turned no member of the crew has more than four slots’ worth of items in their inventory. For maximum variety each time you play, all content in the Escape the Dark Sector range is designed to be mixed together. You’ll need a copy of the Escape the Dark Sector core set, and we recommend being familiar with how to play it before adding any expansion content. After completing a chapter and before turning the next chapter card, ensure both tactical action cards are flipped to their ready sides.

Another negative point is that some of the cards in the game are extremely similar. When playing multiple times, it was often difficult to tell if we had already used that same card before. Overall this makes the game feel repetitive even if players actually experience different encounters. Final Thoughts: The items a member of the crew is carrying must be placed in their inventory area. Each member of the crew begins the game with an inventory capacity of four vacant ‘slots’. The text on each item card describes what it does. Some items must be discarded to be used, but otherwise you can use them multiple times.

Final Score: 2.5 stars – Escape the Dark Sector is a good game, but issues with replay value and hard to understand rules make for a less fun escape. The other crewmember may still perform one action in the round you trade with them, so long as that action does not involve the use of any of the items being traded. For maximum variety each time you play, all content in the Escape the Dark Sector range is designed to be mixed together. As these i mmersive chapter cards are revealed one by one, players must make decisions about what to do, before using a combination of tactical dice combat and the timely play of item cards to complete them. Zatu has an excellent range of games and for most of them the best prices too. Delivery is always fast and I have never received a game in bad condition. 10/10 would recommend.

Instead of a castle, players are now in a space station, in which they are imprisoned. Like the previous game, this is a story game, similar to a Choose Your Own Adventure book. The goal is for the players to reach their ship, the Equinox, by surviving a series of encounters. This cooperative game supports 1-4 players and is 20-60 minutes long. Gameplay Overview: The rules of the game are quite simple, but we do recommend you read this rule book in full before your first game, even if you have played another game in the Escape the Dark series before - there are plenty of differences. The very fabric of what you consider real is shattered as you hurtle through time and space - coming face to face with legendary dangers of the distant past...Great online store for board games. They always arrive perfectly and undamaged which is important to me. When Close Combat begins, all members of the crew choose one action each and then execute them simultaneously. Escape the Dark Castle sparks an odd kind of pleasure in me. I have no personal experiences of tabletop gaming in the 1970s and ‘80s, yet I find myself feeling nostalgic about that period of gaming all the same. It’s possibly a result of having grown up watching countless episodes of Knightmare, a television game show inspired by Dungeons & Dragons that ran from 1987 to 1998. Either way, there’s something about the concept of Escape the Dark Castle that I find compelling. It feels like something from another era, when the seeds of board games like HeroQuest and roleplaying games like Call of Cthulhu were just being planted. It feels like something from another era, when the seeds of games like HeroQuest and Call of Cthulhu were just being planted.

A word of warning: despite its simple nature, this devious game will often defeat you! If you fail, try again. You’ll have fun exploring the space station every time, regardless of the outcome. This new cybernetic implant allows the crewmember using it to take the ACTIVATE DRONE action and perform the Basic function of any drone without turning it to its Drone Recharging side afterwards. The formula laid down by Escape the Dark Castle (Dark Castle) is adhered to in this follow up, Escape the Dark Sector (Dark Sector). 1 to 4 players will make their way through a series of chapter cards, turning them over one at a time to uncover traps, monsters, moments of respite and more on their way to the final boss and the way out. It’s a cooperative game with a simple dice mechanic making it incredibly easy to teach and play.This action involves popping out of cover to exchange fire with the enemy – you will SHOOT, hoping to inflict wounds and remove chapter dice, and you will be shot at, risking a loss of HP. For a crewmember to take this action, they must have a ranged weapon loaded with at least enough ammo to match the lowest Fire Rate of that weapon (see example below). Sector, like Castle before it, is every bit a spiritual successor to the Choose Your Own Adventure and Fighting Fantasy gamebooks. The influence of which is clear to see in the style and gameplay of both games. When drawing any number of item cards, place them face up in a temporary item pool where all players can see them. Then, decide as a group how the items will be distributed among the crew. To take an item, place it in your crewmember’s inventory. After all player actions are fully resolved, and after resolving return fire from the enemy, if all chapter dice have been removed the enemy has been defeated and combat ends.