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Stronghold Games Survive Escape From Atlantis 30th Anniversary Edition & Z-Man Games | Carcassonne | Board Game | Ages 7+ | 2-5 Players | 45 Minutes Playing Time

£9.9£99Clearance
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The villagers' journeys are endangered variously by sea serpents, giant squid, sharks, and by whirlpools caused by the sinking land itself, and aided by dolphins and boats. A symbol on the bottom of the removed tile tells which of these appears in the tile's place. Grimhilde Mining Corp found two anomalies when scanning the earth; one could be accessed through a mining tunnel and the other requires you to voyage into the depths of the ocean. 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.

Let me finish by saying that I always only played the game digitally, so I can’t attest to the quality of the components or how the experience changes when you remove physical island tiles and drop “real” meeples into the water, or have a shark meeple gobble up one of your opponent’s survivors. However, I can only imagine it heightens the experience even further, adding to the feeling of evil pleasure and sheer panic. The question on many players’, and particularly enthusiasts’, minds will be “Can I play this as a team of two, or does it really need four?” The answer isn’t quite that straightforward, but practically, you really do need at least three, but the perfect team size is probably four. The challenges throughout Atlantis to some degree all incorporate teamwork, and while the bulk of them could easily be completed by a team of two, the finale… can’t be. Or, maybe it can, but I think it would be far more frustrating than fun with only two. But it is this finale that truly sets Atlantis apart from any other game we have played to date, so it is well worth the effort of finding some friends to drag along under the sea. While not exactly a puzzle, the conclusion to Atlantis was perfectly designed, fast-paced, and above all else – FUN. GM/CLUE SYSTEM

Contents

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 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. Any terrain tiles that you remove that are green-edged must be revealed immediately. Green-edged tiles can reveal anything, from a shark, to a whale, or even a whirl-pool.

In the original version, Survive!, the land pieces are randomly placed in the sinking island area at the start of the game. This results in the island sinking in a less-uniform fashion than the current Escape from Atlantis game. This, paired with other changes, provides significantly different gameplay. American publisher Stronghold Games reprinted a new version of the game under the title Survive: Escape from Atlantis! in February 2011. In June 2012, Stronghold Games launched another new edition, "Survive: Escape From Atlantis! - 30th Anniversary Edition". It included refreshed artwork and a slightly revised theme (Explorers finding and escaping from Atlantis). Simultaneously, French publisher, Asmodee, licensed the EU languages and launched "The Island", which is the same game as Stronghold's version, but with a rebranded name for EU trademark purposely only. In 2012 "The Island" (Survive: Escape from Atlantis) was a '2012 Juego del Ano Finalist'. In 2013, Stronghold Games launched a '5-6 Player Mini Expansion Kit' plus 'Dolphins & Dive Dice Expansion Kit' and 'The Giant Squid Expansion Kit' for "Survive: Escape from Atlantis! - 30th Anniversary Edition". All three expansion kits can also be played with Asmodee's "The Island". A diving sea animal can appear at any sea hexagon that does not have villagers or boats in it. Winning the gameSurvive: Escape from Atlantis pits you as a group of explorers attempting to escape from the sinking remains of Atlantis. You and up to three more players take it in turns moving your meeples to safety on one of the other adjacent islands. Sounds simple right? WRONG!

Although Mica was our captain, Lewis was our GM. If we had needed help, I have no doubt in my mind that it would have been delivered at exactly the right moment to avoid any frustration. I can say this with certainty because although we experienced a bit of glitchy tech, it was handled in such a smooth manner that we actually had no idea that there was a problem until the debrief after our game. In fact, Lewis was paying such close attention to our game that he could remember who did what to solve each puzzle when we received our mission debrief. This attention to detail isn’t unique to Lewis – every member of staff at The Escapement runs their games in the same fashion. It is impressive, and refreshing to have such a thorough explanation following a game not only of what happened but exactly how it happened in your game and really makes a difference to the player experience. ANYTHING ELSEA whale can move up to three spaces and if they end their turn on a space with a ship then the whale will capsize it. The explorers will turn into swimmers and the boat will be removed from the game. Nothing happens if a whale shares a space with a swimmer. Tile Actions 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. Some of the boats are placed in the sea adjacent to the island of Atlantis. In a two-player game, there are two boats. In a three- or four-player game, there are four. Game rounds I feel that this review reflects my own, independent and honest opinion, but the facts below allow you to decide whether you think that I was influenced in any way. 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.

The winner is the player who, at the end of game, has succeeded in saving the most of their own villagers. Rule variations A shark can move up to two spaces, if they end their movement in a space with swimmers then they are removed from the game. If the explorers are in a ship, then nothing happens. Whale 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. 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 each turn, an island tile is removed from the island. The removal starts from the sandy beach on the outer edge, and continues further inland as outer rings are exhausted. A tile with villagers on it may only be sunk if no empty tiles are present in the currently sinking ring. 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.

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