Escape the Dark Castle - Game Review

Escape the Dark Castle is a cooperative card game for one to four players. The setup is easy and the rules are simple. A game takes about thirty to forty-five minutes. It is recommended for players fourteen and older, but I believe a mature ten or twelve year old could play.
The rule book is written well and we had no problems with poorly written rules or misunderstandings. The artwork is decent and all black and white. Escape the Dark Castle is a substance over style game, which I greatly prefer to the alternative.
Escape the Dark castle is a dungeon crawling card game that changes every time you play. It comes with a stack of forty-five cards, called chapter cards, that represent the areas of the castle your team is trudging through. The cards could be monsters to fight, NPCs to make deals with, options to steal items, or wonderful cards that allow you to find an item, with no combat.

A standard game uses fifteen chapter cards and then a big bad at the end, that you must fight. There are three big bad guy cards, in the base game. The big bad is no joke and can easily kill an entire party, if the party rolls poorly. In three of the five games I played, the result was the group getting to the big bad and dying. You could use more than fifteen chapter cards, but this would increase the difficulty of the game.
Setting up the game is simple. Everyone chooses a role to play and each role has strengths and weaknesses. Each role has three stats: wisdom, cunning, and might. In my experience the two most important stats are might and cunning, so in a four player game, I would suggest three players take characters with maximum of each stat, but the final character take either a might character, with secondary cunning, or a cunning character with secondary might.

In addition to a character card, the character chosen comes with a special white d6 that they roll to determine success, in any situation. Some items will allow a player to roll an additional black die, called a chapter die, during certain situations. The chapter card will inform the players what symbol, might, cunning, or wisdom, that they are trying to roll on their d6.
The game comes with slips of paper and pencils to track hit points. You can, alternatively, use an app for this, that the game developers have made. However, the app costs extra and isn't really needed to play the game. So, in my humble opinion, put your phone down and interact with actual people. I suppose if you attempted to play the game online, it would be useful, but I have no experience attempting to do so.

The most exciting cards to draw during the game are the item cards. Most of the item cards are one use items that allow a re-roll or heal your character. However, there are some permanent items that are extremely useful and payers will drool over.
Everyone starts with an item card and more item cards are acquired after defeating monsters. Sometimes the players will have an option to run away, but will choose to fight to get more item cards.
All in all, I really enjoyed playing Escape the Dark Castle with my wife and another couple. The first time we played, we got to the big bad and died. The second time we played, we got to the big bad and died. The third time we played, we died before getting to the big bad. The fourth time we played, we got to the big bad and died. The fifth time we played, we finally escaped the dark castle.
Yes, the game is difficult. Yes, you will likely fail more than you succeed, but we will had fun doing it. I would recommend this game for anyone who would want to play a challenging game with monsters and treasure. I enjoyed the game and I think you will too.
If you chose to purchase Escape the Dark Castle, I would encourage you to go to your friendly local game store.