Our friend Graham came round again recently for a game of Escape From New York by Pendragon Game Studio, based on the 1981 John Carpenter film of the same name. Graham has a Kickstarter version with various extras (figures, extra cards etc). The aim of the game follows various parts of the film plot to rescue the president, find "The Tape" and/or escape.
You take the part of one of the 4 main characters in the game.
There are lots of little models with the game including 4 cars, the Gullfire glider, rescue helicopter and the Cabbie player's cab.
The detail is very good - the Cabbie is even leaning out of his window with a Molotov cocktail!
The board features the Library in the centre as the starting point. Above and to the left is the World Trade Centre with the Gullfire Glider on top. The red cards are POI (Points Of Interest) where important items for winning the game might be found. The city is revealed by drawing cards as you explore. Each tile has a single vertical road linking to a tile above and below, and 2 horizontal roads linking to 2 tiles on each side. Some roads are blocked by the barricades. Having the columns of tiles offset works really nicely, a bit like having hexes, but it's much easier for the roads to line up. I might try something like this if I make some terrain tiles of my own some time, it would certainly be far easier to cut out square tiles instead of hexagons, and easier to mark on the terrain features to match up between tiles.
Every player has 2 personal objectives: 1 object and one means of escape. Ways to escape are by helicopter (once it arrives), in the Gullfire glider (assuming it hasn't been destroyed by prisoners), by raft (hidden under 3 or 4 of the question mark markers around the edge of NY) or across a bridge (which requires a diagram of the bridge, found during the game). Objectives include things like "The Tape" and the "President's Bracelet". As you play the game, you can "level up" by killing prisoners and/or collecting equipment. At Level 1, you can choose one of 3 extra-special action cards to add to your hand. At Level 2, you can add an extra card and change one of your personal objectives (can be handy if game events affect your existing objectives). When you reach level 3, you can change a personal objective and are also able to win a "lone victory" by having the object required and the appropriate exit route. Alternatively, you can win a "collective victory" by escaping as a group across one of the bridges, but more on that later...
Many of the roads through the city will have barricades blocking the way. These can be broken through to clear the way, flipping the barricade marker to show this. The detail on these is fantastic!
As you explore, you find equipment (green supply crates), ammunition (piles of bullets) and prisoners (2 varieties of red figure who will attack you during the game).
Our characters were the Cabbie, Snake and Maggie. I started the game in my cab which grants some extra abilities. Cabbie isn't shooty like Maggie or Snake, but can run people over instead. Yay!
You hold a hand of action cards, 2 of which can be played each turn. Actions generate noise, the more noise you make, the faster things happen in the game, the more difficult it will get and the more likely you are to be unable to Escape.
Off I go in my cab. Action cards allow you to do things like attack, or in this instance, to move onto an adjacent tile and reveal another adjacent tile. The tiles contain 2 markers, either a prisoner (place a prisoner on the tile), an event (draw a number of event cards equal to the event level, which increases during the game), an equipment crate (draw an equipment card), a sewer grate (certain cards allow movement between another sewer grate as if in an adjacent tile), a car, or a building which might provide healing, protection, equipment or ammunition. Driving my cab means that when I end the turn in a tile with no prisoners, I can move to another adjacent tile, then reveal a tile adjacent to that.
Snake moves to a Point Of Interest and finds some equipment.
Maggie moves to another POI and discovers Romero. The "Boss" characters often have some important item that gets dropped when they are killed, so you have to eliminate them in order to get some of the items you need to escape. They are much tougher than the ordinary prisoners.
My Cabbie vrooms into another tile, and his action card allows him to swerve into the prisoner and deal 2 damage by running him down. Prisoners usually have only 1 wound, so he is killed.
Action cards allow Maggie to do a lot of damage to Romero and the prisoners in her tile. If you have a gun, you can spend bullets in your turn to do extra damage in addition to any caused by the action cards you have played.. With all opponents killed, Maggie retrieves one of the 4 cases hidden about the board. These cases contain items vital to the heroes' escape. This one contains a "Diagram of Bridge 4" which would allow us to cross it together to score a collective victory, as long as we have the President with us. Now, where is he hiding?
I move into a POI - turns out that I've found the President! But uh-oh, a lot of extra prisoners appear...
1 extra prisoner is added to each surrounding space once this card is revealed. But at leats a get a model of the President to put next to my character card! I also reveal all the other red POI tiles, land the helicopter on the helipad marker in the park. Now that we have the president, we can try to complete a collective victory. You may recall that my means of escape for a Lone Victory was the helicopter, so it's useful that it has arrived. One of the action cards in your hand allows you to steal an item from another player (the card is then discarded, so it's a once-only chance) which might be useful for securing a Lone Victory!
I haven't mentioned yet, but after each individual player's turn, "The City" has a turn where you track how much noise they have just made (marked on the action cards) and either discard or draw a card from the City deck to find out what happens. Prisoners in adjacent tiles might move into the tile where the player has finished their turn, indicated by arrows showing the directions from which they arrive. Roadblocks prevent the prisoners moving from certain directions. In this case, they all pile into me! When you take injuries, you lose random action cards from your hand. When your hand runs out, you reveal the top card from the "Master Life Clock" deck which moves the game forward in various ways, eg increasing the number of event cards drawn when an event occurs. When the Master Life Clock cards run out, you lose the game. The Master Life Clock cards also get turned over when you have made enough noise to move The City noise tracker far enough, so the more you try and do, the faster time runs out for you.
Maggie uses one of her action cards to enter the sewer grating on her tile and re-emerge from the grating next to mine, then shoots several of the prisoners.
On my next turn, I use a special action card that lets me move from one POI tile to any other POI tile on the board that has already been revealed. Because they were all revealed when I found the president, that gives me a good choice, so I flee across the board. Unfortunately, 2 Boss characters have also ended up nearby...
Snake has killed the prisoner driving one of the cars. He can now jump in the empty car and take advantage of the advantages it brings. You can drive a car into a roadblock to destroy it (though Snake has an action card that lets him move through roadblocks, which is very handy), take a willing passenger with you on your move, or at the end of your turn, if in a tile with no enemies, you can take an extra move and reveal another tile.
Maggie returns through the sewers and emerged next to Slag, then attacked him. Luckily she's on a tile containing a Police station which stops her taking any damage while she occupies it. Boss prisoners can take varying amounts of damage, so Slag is still alive.
Earlier in the game I found a baseball bat with nails in it from an equipment marker. This will add 4 to any damage that I do using an action card. I select the action card that allows me to swerve into the tile and crash into Slag, doing a total of 2 + 4 for 6 damage which is enough to finish him off.
With Slag dead, I get to pick up the briefcase he has dropped. Next turn, I swerved into Duke's tile and eliminated him too, though he never dies, just re-spawns on his home POI tile.
Snake suddenly finds himself outnumbered as he explores the far left side of the board. We need that last briefcase!
My Cabbie uses his special card to travel to another POI on the far right of the board to get the final briefcase.
In the briefcases I've just collected, I have the President's bracelet and a diagram of bridge 2.
I've got enough to level up to Level 3. I choose to change my personal objective object from "The Tape" to the "President's Bracelet". This POI is quite close to the helicopter, if I can make it there, I can score a lone victory and escape! No need to wait for the others to make a Collective Victory.
Snake makes a break for it to get away from the prisoners.
He makes it to the roof of the World Trade Centre, eliminates the prisoner there and because he has the right object and means of escape available, he uses the Gullfire to escape for a Lone Victory! It was lucky that we only drew a single card adding a prisoner to the roof of the WTC, when you have enough there (4 or 5 I think it was), the Gullfire is destroyed and lost as a means of escape.
The game was really fun, lots of neat mechanisms that ratchet up the tension and replicate various events from the film. Using your hand of cards as your "life force" provides a great way of ensuring everyone stays in the game the whole time, but penalises you by reducing your options during your next turn or forcing you to refresh your hand by accelerating the game timer. I've already mentioned that the offset column layout of game tiles is very ingenious. Some of the game cards have multiple uses, for instance the action cards that "The City" plays when you've made noise are marked on the reverse with a picture of a city tile with arrows showing which direction prisoners move from into your tile. This random movement means you never know quite which of the 6 adjacent tiles someone will come from - if unlucky, it could be most of them!
There are extra game options in the Kickstarter expension pack, including Police objectives and Police figures that are used to carry them out. Apparently there are other expansions that incorporate other John Carpenter films such as They Live! (collect spectacles etc as you go round the map) and Hallowe'en!
