Escape Plan
Players: 1-5
Playing Time: 60-120 minutes
Designer: Vital Lacerda
Publisher: Eagle-Gryphon Games
Escape Plan is a premium board game experience with a hefty price tag. Unfortunately, while it looks great, the mechanisms within the game don’t align creating a mish-mashed experience that fails to live up to expectations.
Pros
- Incredible component quality and visual appeal
- Moving around the city is fun and slick, combining movement with free actions
- A deep variety of moves you can make each turn
Cons
- The game’s heaviness is at ends with its wants to be a quick game
- Feels like another one of the designer’s games squashed into this format, rather than a new design
- Not all mechanics work as expected, and feel tacked on or janky
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In Escape Plan, you’ve just scored the big one. After this, you’re going to disappear to a beach on an island somewhere with no extradition. And yes, Pina Coladas.
But that has to wait.
Right now, you need to escape; quickly. The cops have your identity and they’re closing in. It’s only a matter of time before they throw you in the slammer, and you can kiss that island life goodbye.
This is the story behind Vital Lacerda’s latest game.
While known for his heavy and complex yet deeply interconnected Euro games like CO2: Second Chance. Vital’s latest endeavour is a simpler, faster, and more welcoming game: Escape Plan.
Be warned though, this is still a heavy game.
Your goal is to visit your different stashes around town, collect as much money as possible, and then escape before the end of the third day. If you can’t escape, you’re eliminated from the game. This puts a lot of pressure on you to make sure you get out, but then also make sure to get out with the most money.
It’s the second part that gets you.
Overstuffed and Unorganized
Like all of Lacerda’s games, the core mechanic is kept simple. On your turn, your main action is to move from one location to the next, doing your best to avoid the police or taking a gunshot wound if you can’t.
The complexity of Escape Plan comes from what happens after you enter the new location.
There are 8 unique types of locations, and each with 3-5 actions you need to take. For example, if you go to church, you:
- Gain 1 Notoriety for each other player at your location
- Unlock an asset tile
- Heal 1 wound
- Take a contact card
Whereas, going to a safe house is completely different. For us, it was too much to remember, meaning we spent A LOT of time diving into the rulebook, or player sheets trying to figure out what we needed to do within each location. It wasn’t until our third or fourth play that we could start piecing together a strategy.
However, this is a symptom of a larger problem with Escape Plan‘s design. Which is it’s too full of ideas and loses focus on what it’s trying to be. Instead of feeling like a brand-new design, it more feels like Lacerda’s other games. But squished down like it took a guest spot on the Hydraulic Press Youtube channel.
The thing that stands out most in this game is the randomness, there’s an element of chaos in Escape Plan that you don’t see in Lacerda’s other offerings.
Escape Plan Sits on the Fence
The unfortunate thing about Escape Plan is that it doesn’t embrace this chaos. So instead of being this board game that leans into the unpredictability and racing aspect of the game, it falls back on that strategic interconnectedness. Or at least it tries to. So instead of being a great one of these genres, it fails at creating an overall muddled experience.
A good example is the notoriety tracker. If you have high notoriety, the police chase you like a dog after a bone. Which you wouldn’t think you’d want, but it also nets you amazing upgrades. However, high notoriety punishes you at the end of the game by reducing the money you earn.
You would think manipulating your notoriety throughout Escape Plan would be a great point of interest. It feels very in keeping with a fast and fluid game.
However, you can neither gain nor lose notoriety fast enough for it to be manipulated. This slowness is par for the course in a Euro game but completely ruins this mechanic.
Another mechanic caught in the crossfire between these two genres is the closing of businesses around the board. If several people visit the same business location, it closes down. Like notoriety, this mechanic fits the theme of racing and putting pressure on people to act.
In reality, this rule is another misfire.
People rarely had reason to go to the same location as another player, remembering everyone gets different amounts of money for each location. So, this mechanic, and the pressure it was meant to put people under became a non-factor.
Is Escape Plan Worth the Price?
Out of all the Lacerda games I’ve played, it’s an absolute shame that Escape Plan is the least cohesive. Because I love the theme, and how it’s presented both on the board and throughout the rulebook. Where you can find plenty of quotes from some of my favourite heist movies.
Escape Plan is not without its merits. The movement is slick, and the stringing together items and contacts to avoid cops is punchy and fun. But with everything else going on, it’s hard to recommend this game with its hefty price tag.
Even though much of that cost is going into the excellent production of double-layered player boards, large thick cardboard map tiles, metal keys, and beautiful art and graphics by Ian O’Toole.
However, the thing about amazing components is that they’re a multiplier. If you enjoy a game, excellent components enhance your experience. On the other hand, if you don’t enjoy the game then you are more judgemental of the game because it doesn’t live up to the cost.
Unfortunately, Escape Plan falls into the latter.
Jailbreak: Games that let you escape reality
Looking for a quick getaway from reality? These three board games are great for when you need an escape plan.
How does it compare?
A score tells you if it’s good, but the leaderboard tells you if it’s worth the shelf space. See the full board game rankings to see the true pecking order.
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Dave, I’ve never played the game with others — only solo online which makes it take much longer and is harder to interact with the parts. I do love the many themes of the game — money stashed in various places where you have to go grab it, avoiding the police, paying some hardcore motorbike gangs to distract the police from you, the movement as you said (including grabbing a helicopter to move quickly across the board). There are a lot of fun things involved in the game, but it is not a simple game because all of these things interact. I think some more streamlining could have been done, but I would love to see how it plays on the table with other people. I think it would really ramp up the tension and racing feeling. I do like Lisboa and On Mars better, but I think this is also a fun game that groups could really emerge from with some great stories.
Despite my opinion, I’m glad you enjoyed the game!
So far I’ve only played CO2, On Mars, and Escape Plan of Vital’s designs. But of the three Escape Plan seemed the most disjointed.
One thing I’m curious of, is how often do you go for the extra turn in Escape Plan? I found that we had trouble getting to that point, because the locations were usually too spread out.
That is a good question. I haven’t played it enough to have a fully developed strategy, but I remember trying to work towards that extra turn just to give me a bit more of an edge.
From what I remember when I played, I subconsciously avoided the extra turn because it meant I had to do another run in with the cops. And I’d already planned my run to perfection!
Let me know how you get on with more games under your belt. You’re a heavier gamer than I am, so keen for your insight.