Escape the Dark Sector - A Solo Review

Image: Themeborne

INTRODUCTION

There are three things in life that I love, apart from my children of course: science-fiction, evocative art, and solitaire games. The idea then to be able to combine these individual elements into a holy trinity is an alluring proposition to say the least. This is the premise for Escape the Dark Sector, the spiritual sequel to Escape the Dark Castle from publisher Themeborne. Designed by Alex Crispin, Thomas Pike, and James Shelton this space themed game design caught my interest for two reasons: the artwork and the promise of a heavy emphasis on story, two things that makes me purr like a kitten. Let us take a closer look to see if Escape the Dark Sector manages to deliver on these vows.

Full disclosure: a review copy of Escape the Dark Sector along with the official playmat was kindly provided by publisher Themeborne

COMPONENTS

From an aesthetic point of view there are definitely many things to like about Escape the Dark Sector, especially the evocative artwork penned by Alex Crispin which in my eyes is the undisputable pièce de résistance of this particular Themeborne production. The art style, reminiscent of 1980’s sci-fi comics, lends itself exceptionally well to differentiating Escape the Dark Sector as a unique board game experience. The world created by Crispin is one filled with dread, where cybernetically enhanced punk gangs roam the seedy underworld of the aforementioned space station and corrupt prison guards will execute innocent bystanders without hesitation or remorse. The main mechanism in Escape the Dark Sector is centred around rolling dice for performing skill checks and they are absolutely amazing, anyone who has played and enjoyed the dice featured in Seasons will feel right at home with these custom printed instruments of fate.

The artwork is absolutely amazing. Photo: Fredrik Schulz

THE SOLO MODE

In the darkest regions of the known galaxy, a massive space station slowly orbits the neighbouring celestial body; a decaying monument made of steel and titanium heralding mankind’s desire to reach beyond the stars. For reasons unknown you and your fellow crew members of the Galactic Alliance find yourself confined to the holding cells of the prison complex, located deep within the hallways of the vast titular space station. Having spent several days planning a daring escape a window of opportunity suddenly presents itself, allowing you to seize the opportunity to embark on a perilous mission with the goal of locating and reclaiming your interstellar vessel in order to Escape the Dark Sector.

The game is played over a series of chapters, each chronicling an event or encounter that you and your fellow crew members must overcome in order to progress through the story that unfolds. The narrative arc is divided into three acts of escalating difficulty which represents your progression through the space station whilst facing increasingly more dangerous threats. Similar to games like Arkham Noir or The Lost Expedition, the obstacles that Escape the Dark Sector presents to the player are resolved by performing skill checks relating to character traits of which there are three: might, cunning and wisdom. As you might have guessed, each crew member is to a varying degree more proficient in one of the three attributes making them ideal in certain situations that call upon their unique talents. These individual strengths and weakness are represented by the crew dice where each side of the die contains a certain number of symbol(s) which corresponds to the aforementioned trait. Whether engaged in hand-to-hand combat or trying to hack a security terminal the crew dice are used to determine the outcome of the current obstacle. Which leads us to the experience of playing Escape the Dark Sector solitaire. In short: it is great.

Encounters requires you to roll matching chapter symbols in order to overcome the obstacle. Photo: Fredrik Schulz

Escape the Dark Sector is designed to be a cooperative experience and as such it lends itself exceptionally well to solitaire play, especially when considering the fact that the solo mode manages to preserve the core game mechanisms without any additional or alternative rules to learn. There is no neutral player to keep track of nor a deck of Automa cards to interpret. You simply choose which two crew members that are going to attempt escaping the space station and off you go. One reason for Escape the Dark Sector being such an enjoyable solo experience is how the game scales in difficulty depending on player count or rather the number of crew members. In addition to having a fixed number of attributes that needs to be fulfilled by skill checks, many of the chapter cards also requires you to roll an additional chapter die for each member of the crew. This is a simple yet effective way of balancing the difficulty curve to accommodate to fewer crew members. That being said, Escape the Dark Sector is not an easy game by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, more often than not you will find yourself succumbing to the dangers and terrors spawned from the depths of space. But because the game is upfront with its difficulty, as stated in the very first paragraph of the rule book, Escape the Dark Sector never comes off as unfair for the sake of being obtuse.

One word of advice: stim packs are meant to be discarded after usage! Due to the fact that the stim item cards in the current printing are lacking the discard key word publisher Themeborn has issued an erratum. Which explains why my brute of a lieutenant suddenly become the equivalent of Charles Xavier, constantly turning every skill check requiring Wisdom to a success over and over again thanks to the magical wonders of a brain stim…

FINAL THOUGHTS

You might have noticed that this particular review is a little sparse in terms of photographs and that is simply because I want you to experience the rich narrative that defines Escape the Dark Sector first-hand. As someone who grew up on a steady diet of choose your own adventure books like the Lone Wolf series it is difficult not to be smitten by the premise of playing a darker, grittier science fiction themed game that focuses on story and ambience. From a game design point of view Escape the Dark Sector manages to strike a near perfect balance between providing the solo player a tactical decision space and being subjugated to the whims of Lady Luck. As a solitaire board game experience, I highly recommend Escape the Dark Sector.