| Escape The Night | ||||||||||||||
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| Season 1 | Season 2 | Season 3 | Season 4 | |||||||||||
| Board Game | ||||||||||||||
The Board Game is an interactive addition to the Escape The Night franchise. This addition allows up to 11 fans to play throughout the award-winning show themselves! Joey Graceffa funded this project through a Kickstarter campaign. If it is to be put up for retail, it will most likely hit online stores in early 2021 and summer for store shelves. However, Joey does not know if either option will be available.
Starting June 30, 2020, Joey began to upload the images of the guests daily starting with the teaser image of The Savant to the official Discord. The artwork of the characters, except the Savant, did not match the features of their role counterparts in Season 1. This was later revealed to be because Joey and Studio71 Games did not have the rights to the YouTubers' images. This meant the board game has featured all-new "guests" with the same roles.
An upgrade to the premium edition of the game (which was a Kickstarter exclusive) gave buyers a textured golden box, premium 3D playing pieces, 11 collectable tarot cards, 3 exclusive room tile, 4 exclusive playing cards, a Board Game cast poster, a playable Colin character card, and a pair of golden dice.
In early December, it was revealed by Joey on Kickstarter and on the Escape the Night Twitter page that Covid caused unforeseen problems, prompting a delay in shipping. Joey wrote:
- “Unfortunately, due to (even more) unforeseen manufacturing challenges in the midst Covid-19, the game will be delayed until early 2021.
There are most likely many emotions and questions in your heads as many of you were looking forward to playing the game this holiday season--so please accept our humblest apologies. After experiencing so many obstacles while manufacturing the game in the middle of a pandemic, this had to be done to ensure you receive a complete, fully realized version of the game to last for years to come.”
He then put a video of an unboxing of a nearly complete prototype of the Standard Edition of the board game.
On March 9th, the ETN Twitter page posted a tweet telling people to finish the server as games would be making there way to those that funded the Kickstarter campaign. This was a three month delay on the original shipping date set in December 2020.
Types of Cards
Game Play Q&A
Q&A Videos
How many players can play at once?
This game is co-operative, meaning you work together. You can play it by yourself, with two friends, three friends or up to eleven people in total. There are 11 characters that must be used each game. So if you have 3 players, two of them would control 4 characters each and one of them would control 3 characters.
If a player is eliminated early, are they out for the whole game?
Generally speaking, you usually have more than one character you are controlling. So even if one is eliminated, you still have another one. Also, if all of your characters are taken out, another player can give you one of theirs to play. In playtesting there was very little sitting around. If you are playing with 3 people, you can use 3 characters for each for it to be 9 cars given out then let the remaining 2 be played if all 3 of a person's card is gone.
Is this game a play once and done? Or can it be played multiple times?
This game has lots of replayability. There are only 25 SAE tiles, but 80 different options for what could be underneath them. You also don’t know if it will be a monster or a clue. Plus the mysterious man does negative things to the characters each time you gain an artifact. You roll the dice to see what happens and so that is another mechanic that causes each play to be different. Lastly, there are different ways to set up the board to make it more or less challenging.
When you reach the endpoint of the game, does it become a PVP game at that point?
No. In the final round, it is much like ep 10 of season one. The players move their characters quickly, taking one turn at a time, and can keep going until time runs out on the hourglass. The only time it is player vs player is in the death challenge.
Why can the Savant defeat the Evil? Is that overpowering?
Defeating the evil of the house is less of a disadvantage than you think. There is only one card in the monster deck, which has 30 cards, named the evil of the house. That is what it is referring to. Some games, it might not even be drawn. It is the hardest monster in the game, so if it does happen it is awesome, but I don’t guarantee a win. The Savant can still die in death challenges like any other character.
How does playing alone work?
Because this is a co-operative game, in truth, you are playing against the board. So it works for one player or eleven. In the single player version one player controls all eleven of the characters, rolling for each one separately. The only rule change is during the voting process. Instead of using the voting tokens, all living characters are flipped over and shuffled. Then two are drawn and that is who goes into the death challenge each turn. It is very fun even with one player.
What are the challenges?
All 20 of the death challenges are handled differently. Here are two examples – Perverted Mannequins: Each player rolls two dice. Player with the highest number picks a character not in the challenge to die. You might remember this from Episode 4 of the show. Electric Chair: Each players rolls one dice as fast as they can. The first person to roll three sixes lives. You might remember this from episode 9, where you have to toss 3 rings in your partner's respective learning chair's hoops.
What does each round look like?
There are ten total rounds in the game and the last one is played different than all the others. For the first 9 rounds each character takes one action by rolling two dice. If they land on an SAE tile, they turn it over and resolve it immediately, whether it is a monster or a clue. If all of the tiles are resolved in a room then a character can take their action, after they roll the dice, to land on the artifact and claim it. If an artifact is claimed, you roll the dice and consult the mysterious man card to see what disastrous thing happens. At the end of the round, all players vote, one token for each character. They are placed in the voting box, with a “shield” so other people can’t see who you are voting for. After everyone votes, the cover of the voting tray is removed and votes are counted per person with the highest two going in the challenge. Then a death challenge card is drawn and the challenge is played out as described. After the death challenge, move the turn tracker forward one turn and do the same thing again. On the last round, there is no vote. Instead an hourglass is turned over (90 seconds) and players take turns, one at a time, trying to gather the last few artifacts before time runs out.
How does voting work? Does voting change in singleplayer?
At the end of the round, all players vote, one token for each character. They are placed in the voting box, which has a “shield” so other people can’t see who you are voting for. After everyone votes, the cover of the voting tray is removed and votes are counted per person with the highest two going in the challenge. If there is a tie, dice are rolled with the lowest number going in the challenge. In the single-player version you flip over all of the character cards, shuffle them ,and draw the top two to see who goes in.
With larger groups of players, does having your deck of characters dead mean sitting out?
There is a relic card in the game that can bring a character back from the dead, which helps with people getting killed off early, they can choose to revive anyone they wish, like the real show.
What are Stretch Goals?
Stretch goals are new items that are added to a game (in this case only the Premium Edition) based on reaching thresholds (number of backers, total $ backed, social achievements). They will be announced during the campaign.
Stretch Goal 1
Those who buy the Honored Guest tier (premium) or higher will now receive Tarot Cards of the characters in the board game. This does not include a personalized Tarot card if you bought the Exclusive Invitation tier.
UPDATE: Fans achieved this goal on July 11, 2020. This was about 3 days after the announcement video.
Stretch Goal 2
Those who buy the Honored Guest tier (premium) or higher will now receive gold dice, replacing the original in the premium version.
UPDATE: Fans achieved this goal on July 14, 2020.
Stretch Goal 3
Those who buy the Honored Guest tier (premium) or higher will receive 3 Secret Room Tiles. To use the Secret Rooms, you will need to shuffle them face down and draw one, placing it over the Dining Room. Placement of the SAE Tiles and the Artifacts are the same as in the Dining Room.
UPDATE: This goal was reached late on July 26, 2020. This was the first goal to take more than three days, taking a total of 12 days to accomplish.
Stretch Goal 4
Those who buy the Honored Guest tier (premium) or higher will receive 3 Random Holographic Character Cards.
Stretch Goal 5
Those who buy the Honored Guest tier (premium) or higher will receive Holographic versions of the Toughest Monster Cards.
Stretch Goal 6
Those who buy the Honored Guest tier (premium) or higher will receive 4 New Cards with Unique Mechanics. The cards will be 1 Monster Card, 1 Relic Card, 1 Clue Card, and 1 Death Challenge Card.
Stretch Goal 7
Those who buy the Honored Guest tier (premium) or higher will receive a Game Poster.
Stretch Goal 8
This is the final Stretch Goal before the end of the Campaign. Those who buy the Honored Guest tier (premium) or higher will receive a Beast Mode version of the game. This adds five new SAE Tiles to the board and a new playable character, Colin Wentworth, who will disappear after the 8th round if he has not been killed off in a death challenge.
How do the custom cards work in the game?
The custom cards will assume the ability of the Character Card you replace it with. So if you swap out The Fixer for your Personal Card, you will have her ability to trade places with another character in a death challenge. That way the game is always played with 11 characters and the abilities are balanced.
Why not a video game?
Joey said in a video, "I feel like Escape the Night is a very physical experience. It is very tangible, and I wanted to create a physical experience where you are having Escape the Night in your home."[1] However, he went on to say that, now that he knows fans also want a video game, he will start talking to his team about turning the board game into a video game, crossing his fingers on getting it done.
Gallery
Trivia
- The Gold Dice pictured in the Premium tier and higher were in by accident, and black dice were meant to be there instead.
- The Board game is heavily based on Season 1.
- The Tarot Cards of the Guests are different in appearance than their actual look in Season 1 (with the exception of Joey Graceffa).