Whirlpools destroy all moving objects (but not land) from the same space and adjacent spaces. The whirlpool is then discarded. Spinning phase The centre of the game's board, representing the mountainous island of Atlantis itself, is covered with several tiers of molded hexagon tiles (37 in total) giving the game a partly three-dimensional appearance. The island is made up of four different "rings", with a mountain peak at the centre, a ring of mountains around it, a ring of forest around that, and finally a ring of sandy beach at the outer edge. Each of the tiles has space to hold a maximum of 3 Atlanteans. As I mentioned, the game ends when volcano tile is revealed. Players then tally up the points indicated on the bottom of their explorers who made it safely to shore at the corners of the board. When travelling by boat, the player can also move a boat with villagers from other tribes on it, provided the player's tribe holds a non-minority position (in other words, no other tribe has more members in the same boat). This creates a tactical element by allowing players to transport other players' villagers. Sinking phase In 2012 "The Island" (Survive: Escape from Atlantis) was awarded the '2012 boardgame.ru (Russia) Best Family Game' and was also a '2012 Juego del Ano Finalist'.

On the reverse of the terrain tiles are different actions which result in spawning sharks, whales or boats; alternatively they provide you with an additional action to be played later in the game (like bonus moves, or the ability to relocate a shark, whale or sea monster). The middle ground is a bit further away from the water, but there is usually time to race past other people and make it to the relative safety of a boat, even if you might have to wait a little longer to find your opportunity. At least, you’re not going to be one of the first to land in the water and have to fight off sharks and sea monsters with your bare hands – which is futile of course and you’ll die trying. There are a limited number of boats, the island shrinks each turn, there are sharks, whales and sea monsters lurking in the depths and all the while you have got to try and remember who in your team is worth saving and who is best left to drown. First Impressions Survive: Escape from Atlantis: https://strongholdgames. com/ our-games/ survive-escape-from-atlantis/As play progresses the land tiles are incrementally removed, simulating the ongoing sinking of the island. The objective of the game is for players to save their ten Atlanteans from the sinking island by transporting them to the safety of the coral islands. Game pieces Part of what allows players to remain fully immersed in the world created by The Escapement is the way in which they can receive help, should they need it, so I am intentionally going to be rather vague on this point as I would like to leave players to discover the magic of Atlantis for themselves. When teams are struggling, the games master has the ability to adjust the clues accordingly, but it begins with subtle changes that seem to emerge organically from within the game itself, gently guiding players along the correct path with whispered nudges, and things that could be interpreted as perhaps just slightly more blatant signposting. Of course, if subtle cues just aren’t cutting it, there is always the option for the GM to chime in with a more overt “clue,” but even those would be in keeping with the narrative. Each player sets his/her tribe up on the island, in places of his/her own choosing. The only limitation is that sandy beach tiles can start with only one villager per tile. The building that houses The Escapement in Broadstairs is impressive from the outside, but once you’re inside, it becomes truly special. The theming for Atlantis spills out into the reception area, and it’s here that we sat with Lewis, Mica, and Mochi (the most amazing dog on the planet), chatting about all things Escape Rooms and Escapement, before it was time to board the submarine for an underwater adventure. Bonus picture of Mochi – because look at that face! IMMERSION/ROOM DESIGN Gameplay works on an action point allowance system, where you can have three movement actions available to you, so you may opt to move one person three times, or a variety of people once. People will be scrambling to get their people into the limited number of boats that sit on the island’s edge, and then, if they ‘control’ the boat (have the most people in one), they can move the boat towards one of the safe isles, too.

Once the meeples have been moved and the tiles removed, the cutthroat action begins and you roll the sea creature dice. Depending on what it lands on, you can direct the allocated creature to do your bidding against your opponents. Be warned however, if you use a whale to crush an opponent boat one turn, they may well eat you with a shark later in the game. Play a red-edged tile in your hand. At the beginning of the game this action is skipped since no one has any red-edged tiles. Starting with the first player, each player will take turns to place a ship token on an empty sea space that is adjacent to a landscape tile of any type. Gameplay Actions

Rule variations

I'm open to suggestions! If you have something you'd like added or changed, let me know and I will do my best to implement it The winner is the player who, at the end of game, has succeeded in saving the most of their own villagers.

In terms of villagers, each of a player's 10 pieces have a hidden numeric digit from 1 to 6 located on the bottom. This value represents the point value earned for rescuing the given villager. Once placed on the board, players are no longer able to reference which villager token has which number, even if the piece leaves play. As a result, it can become difficult to remember where the most valuable villagers are located, and furthermore, the values of other players pieces are never known. Strategy dictates that the most valuable villagers are often the ones leaving the island first (on boats), so they are typically the most valuable to go after with sea monsters. At the end of a game, the player with the highest surviving point total wins. It was panic stations – everyone for themselves. Even though we had arrived on the island in groups, all of that went out of the window. If you saw a boat, you did all you could to get on it and sail away from the island. There was no time. Bit by bit, the island was sinking. Some poor souls jumped into the water in a desperate attempt to swim to the mainland, but they had to contend with sharks and sea monsters. Nowhere was really safe. All we could do was Survive: Escape from Atlantis by Stronghold Games. Your turn ends with you rolling the sea monster die, and you then move the appropriate creature (away from your stranded swimmers, presumably, and towards your opponents)! The player has a fixed number of three spaces of movement on each turn. This can be freely distributed among the villagers, for example by moving one villager three spaces, or moving three villagers one space each. When swimming, a villager may only move one space per turn, but there are no such restrictions for other methods of movement. It’s this tit-for-tat that I think reduces the meanness of this game. It’s because everyone is expected to be mean to everyone else, it’s as if nobody is actually that mean to anyone. At the same time, you will make uncertain truces with other players, that are likely to fall apart as soon as you get your people to the shore of the mainland and send a sea monster to destroy the remaining people on the boat, along with the boat itself.The simplicity ofSurvive: Escape from Atlantis is that you only ever have three moves to perform per turn, each with the overarching aim to get your meeples off the island and to safety. You could move one of your land-based meeples, you could move a boat, you could even move one of your less fortunate meeples stranded in the sea.