Escape from the Hidden Castle
Escape from the Hidden Castle Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Materials
- 30 guest figures
- 8 guest counters in the colours of the guest figures
- 1 round counter for Hugo
- 1 die
- 1 Hugo figure
- 1 game board (double-sided): one side shows the board "Hugo," the other shows the board "Midnight Party"
Aim and Idea of the Game
The guests in the castle are having the time of their lives. But when the clock strikes midnight, the cellar doors creak open and Hugo, the castle's ghost, makes his appearance. He glides up the cellar steps and moves onto the gallery. Now a great commotion is stirred when everybody tries to hide from Hugo in one of the castle's many rooms. A hectic chase for unoccupied hideouts begins.
Players try to bring their own guest figures to safety before Hugo can capture and banish them to the cellar steps. Each of your figures that Hugo captures will earn you spooky points. Players who manage to hide all of their guest figures in the castle's rooms will escape with no more than a fright. The player with the fewest spooky points wins the game.
Note: The game comes with a double-sided game board. The side with the spooky trail is for playing with the new, even spookier "Hugo" rules. The other side of the game board shows the well-known variant of "Midnight Party," the rules to which you will find in the Variant section at the end of these instructions.
Preparation
The game board is placed on the table showing the side with the spooky trail. Hugo is put on the cellar door on the space in front of the "+10" space.
Now every player chooses his or her guest figures:
- In a game with 2 players each player gets 6 figures in red or blue.
- In a game with 3 players each player gets 5 figures in red, blue or turquoise.
- In a game with 4 players each player gets 4 figures in red, blue, turquoise or yellow.
- In a game with 5 players each player gets 3 figures in red, blue, turquoise, yellow or black.
- In a game with 6-8 players each player gets 2 figures in red, blue, turquoise, yellow, black, green, white or purple.
Each player also gets a counter in the colour of his guest figures. The counters are placed on the starting space of the spooky trail on the space with the number "10." The Hugo counter is placed on the time "23:45" of the game turn track.
How to Play
The Party Begins
Each player puts their guests on any free spaces around the gallery. The youngest player begins by placing one of his guests on any unoccupied space on the gallery. Then the next players, clockwise, each place one of their guests and so on until all guests have been placed on the gallery. At the start of the game only one guest per space is allowed.
Tip: Players should avoid placing their guests on one of the 10 spaces after the space with the arrow where Hugo will leave the cellar. Otherwise they run the risk of being caught by Hugo all too quickly.
Note: It is not allowed to place guests on the cellar steps.
The board is laid out, from the cellar outward, as: Spooky Trail, Cellar Steps, Gallery, Game Turn Track.
Rolling the Die and Moving your Guests
The youngest player begins. The player whose turn it is rolls the die and moves his figure the number of spaces indicated. Then the player to his left goes next.
During the game more than one guest may end up on the same space together.
Note: You can only move your guests into the castle's rooms when Hugo has left the cellar and moved onto the gallery.
Look out, Hugo is coming!
Hugo the ghost moves whenever a player rolls the Hugo symbol.
Hugo moves forward three spaces clockwise. First he moves up the cellar steps and then enters the gallery via the space with the arrow symbol. After that Hugo remains haunting the gallery for the rest of the game. A player who has rolled the Hugo symbol may not move any of his guest figures that turn.
Help, where can I hide?
As soon as Hugo enters the gallery via the arrow symbol, tension rises. The players now have to try and help their guest figures escape from Hugo before he can capture them. The castle has nine rooms in which the guests can hide and where Hugo cannot capture them. But a room may hold only one guest at any time.
Guests can enter a room only via the space directly in front of its door. Each space on the gallery plus the room itself count toward the die roll. A guest does not need to enter a room with an exact roll (exception: rooms with a green coat of arms, see Rooms with Coats of Arms below). In this case, any unspent points expire and cannot be used for other guests.
Expelling: If you enter a room by an exact roll you are allowed to expel a guest that is already in the room. The expelled guest is moved to the square directly in front of the room. The owner of that guest figure can "return the favour" by rolling a "1" on his turn and move back into the room.
Example: Barbara has rolled a "2." With this roll she can move her red guest into the room with the fireplace and expel the guest of another player. Barbara moves her guest figure into the room with the fireplace and expels the other guest figure to the space directly in front of that room.
Note: You cannot expel one of your own guest figures from a room.
Hugo captures a guest
When a player rolls the Hugo symbol Hugo has to be moved forward. If, on his way, Hugo passes or comes to stand on the same square with a guest, that guest is captured.
A guest that has been captured is sent to the cellar steps -- i.e. on the next free step with the highest number. So the first guest to be sent to the cellar is put on the "+10" step. The next guest then is put on the "+9" step and so on. At the same time, the counter of that player is moved forward that same number of spaces on the spooky trail. More than one counter may occupy the same space on the spooky trail.
If more than one guest is standing on the same space of the gallery when Hugo captures them, they are also moved to the same space on the cellar steps.
If all spaces of the cellar steps are occupied, the next captured guest is put on the "+10" step with the other guest(s) already on that space. The player of the new captured guest receives 10 spooky points.
Rooms with Coats of Arms
If you move one of your guest figures into the "armory" where Hugo junior dwells, you receive one spooky point -- move your counter on the spooky trail forward one space.
If you move one of your guests into the "ballroom" or the "banqueting hall," you are lucky and can relax with some lovely music and a scrumptious meal -- move your counter on the spooky trail backwards three spaces, but not beyond the "0" space.
Note: You need a direct roll to move a guest to the "ballroom" or the "banqueting hall."
Rules for moving guest figures
Guest figures always have to be moved -- you cannot choose to pass a turn. Guests always move forward (clockwise) on the gallery. But you can always decide to move one of your guests from a room or from the cellar steps onto the gallery.
You can rush by Hugo (overtake him). If, though, your guest comes to stand on the same space with Hugo, that guest is captured and sent to the cellar steps.
If all of a player's guests have either taken refuge in a room and/or are standing on the cellar steps, he/she must move one of his/her guests from a room or up the cellar steps.
If you have more than one guest figure on the cellar steps and want to leave the steps with one of them, you have to move your guest on the space with the highest number first. When leaving the cellar steps start counting spaces beginning with the space with the arrow symbol by the cellar door, no matter which step in the cellar your guest was standing on.
Example: Peter has two guests on the cellar steps, one on the "+9" space, the other on the "+6" space. He has rolled a "2" and must move his guest standing on the "+9" space, starting the count with the arrow symbol space on the gallery.
Tip: If you roll a "4" or "5," you can move your guest from the cellar steps straight to one of the first two rooms. You can also directly move from one room to another if your die roll allows it.
Hugo's movement range -- Game turn track
At the beginning of the game Hugo moves three spaces whenever the die shows his symbol. When he leaves the cellar and moves onto the gallery his counter is moved to "24:00" on the game turn track. Every time Hugo moves onto or over the space with the arrow symbol, his counter is moved to the next time indicated on the game turn track. The later the evening the faster Hugo moves on the gallery.
| Time | 23:45 | 24:00 | 1:00 | 2:00 | 3:00 | 4:00 | 5:00 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hugo moves | -- | 3 spaces | 3 spaces | 4 spaces | 5 spaces | 6 spaces | 7 spaces / game ends |
Game End
Whenever Hugo moves onto or over the space with the arrow symbol, his counter is moved to the next time on the game turn track. When Hugo's counter is moved to 5 o'clock, Hugo has haunted the castle enough for one night and the game ends immediately.
The game ends earlier than that if a player's counter moves onto or over the "46" space of the spooky trail.
In both cases the player with the fewest spooky points wins the game, i.e. the player whose counter is lowest on the spooky trail.
Variant: "Midnight Party"
The variant "Midnight Party" is played to the rules of the earlier version of the game -- the original 1989 edition (also published as Escape from the Hidden Castle). The game is played on the side of the game board without the spooky trail. Hugo's counter and the counters for each player remain in the box.
The Hugo figure is put on the "-10" space of the cellar steps. As before, each player chooses his guest figures. In addition you will now need a pen and paper. Now, let's get spooked.
To celebrate a Midnight Party the game is played three times (three "spooky rounds"). The game is played with the following changes to the rules:
- Hugo always moves three spaces. In a game with 7 or 8 players he only moves two spaces.
- When a guest is moved into a room, it remains there until the end of that spooky round. Guests cannot be expelled from a room.
- Captured guests also remain on the cellar steps until the end of the spooky round.
- If a player only has one guest left on the gallery, he does roll the die but can choose not to move his guest. If a player has no more guests left on the gallery, he still has to roll the die since he might still roll the Hugo symbol.
- A spooky round is over, when either no guests are left on the gallery or when there are still guests on the gallery but all rooms are occupied. The guests still on the gallery at this point are moved to the "-2" cellar step.
- A player receives spooky points corresponding to each of his guests on the cellar steps. Guests standing in rooms where Hugo junior is haunting (the "abandoned room" and the "armory") receive one spooky point each. The guests in the "ballroom" and the "banqueting hall" each receive three lucky points (subtracted from spooky points). The points for each player are noted on a piece of paper.
- After taking scores the next spooky round begins. All guests in the rooms are moved to the spaces directly in front of the respective rooms.
- Then every player removes his guests from the cellar steps and puts them on gallery spaces of his choice, beginning with the guest on the "-10" space, then the guest on the "-9" space and so on. If there is more than one guest on a cellar step, the player who has more spooky points goes first.
- Finally, Hugo is placed on the "-10" space of the cellar steps and the second spooky round begins. The player with the most spooky points rolls the die, the other players follow clockwise.
- After the third spooky round the midnight party ends. Once more scores are taken: the player with the fewest spooky points after the last round wins the midnight party.
Scoring Example
A worked example of a scoresheet across the three spooky rounds, for six players (round scores, then the running total):
| Peter | Fiona | Hannah | Jacob | Emily | William | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Round 1 | -6 | -13 | -14 | -8 | -3 | -13 |
| Round 2 | -5 | -9 | -17 | -10 | -3 | 0 |
| Round 3 | +3 | -17 | -10 | -5 | -6 | -7 |
| Total | -8 | -39 | -41 | -23 | -12 | -20 |