Escape Tales: The Awakening
Escape Tales: The Awakening Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
About Game
Escape Tales: The Awakening is an escape room card game, for 1 to 4 players, with a strong emphasis on the story. Samuel - the main protagonist, whose story you are going to follow, starts an unusual journey in order to find and save his own daughter. During this trip you will face many puzzles that you will have to solve in order to continue the adventure.
Components
- 18 Action tokens
- 122 Game cards
- 9 Doom cards
- 18 Location cards
- 1 Game board
- 1 Story Book
Setup
Remember! Never check what's on the front of the cards during setup!
- Place the game board in such a way that all players have access.
- Place the following in a convenient and easily accessible space for all players:
- A. Action tokens.
- B. Game cards, in ascending order (from C001 to C122).
- C. Doom cards, in ascending order (from D0 to D8).
- D. Location cards, in ascending order (from L01 to L18).
- E. Story Book.
- Prepare a mobile device or a computer in order to check puzzle resolutions (you can learn more about the app on page 5).
Important! Each copy of the game is prepared with great care. Unfortunately, mistakes can happen. Therefore, during setup, please make sure that you are not missing any of the cards. This will ensure that you will not spoil your experience with the game. Remember to check only the back of the cards. In case of any missing cards or mistakes, please contact [email protected]
Goal of the Game
Escape Tales: The Awakening is a cooperative game. You decide together the areas that you want to check and you discuss the puzzles out loud. The goal of the game is to find Lizzy, the daughter of our protagonist - Samuel. Make your decisions carefully as the game has many endings and not all of them are happy.
Course of the Game
Start the game by reading the prologue out loud, you can find it on the front cover of the Story Book. There you will find the information on how to begin your adventure.
From now on the game will progress in the following way:
- Read the indicated paragraph from the Story Book and follow all the given instructions.
- Do any of the following actions until one of the game components tells you to go to the Story Book (in this case, go straight to point 1):
- a. Exploration - place one of the available action tokens on an unexplored field on a map card and go to the indicated paragraph in the Story Book.
- b. Doom - If you don't have any of the action tokens AND you want to explore the location - take the top doom card, then read it and do all the indicated actions.
- c. Solving the puzzles - open the chosen puzzle in the app and do any of the available actions (giving answers/checking required cards/asking for clues).
- d. Leaving a location - if you have an exit card you can leave a location. In order to do that, go to the given paragraph in the Story Book.
- e. Fulfilling a condition - if you have any condition cards and you can fulfill the given criteria - go to the given paragraphs in the Story Book.
- If you are doing everything correctly then you will never reach this point :)
Story Book and Paragraphs
At the end of the prologue you will be sent to the "starting paragraph". Each paragraph is marked with a number and a preceding letter P, e.g. P854. They describe events that happen to our hero during game play, their distribution in the book is random.
Do not look at other paragraphs on the same page of the Story Book as the paragraph you are currently reading!
All the paragraphs look similar and are divided into 3 sections: Number, Story text, and Actions. Every time that a game effect tells you to go to a paragraph, find it according to its number. Always read the Story Text first as it contains important events that can influence your future decisions as well as contain hidden clues. Then read and do all Actions presented in the last section, in the given order. Sometimes, a section can be empty. This means that you haven't found anything, however the Story section can still contain information that can be key to your future actions.
Example paragraph card (P093):
You turn more pages of the Book. You will need a few things for the ritual: something to draw the circle on the floor, candles, and an item of great importance to the person you want to find. The first two things are not a problem for you. The chalk should be somewhere around the desk. The candles should be in the safe. But the last item... What would Lizzy have that is so important to her?
Take card C017. Decide where you want to go - place an action token on the chosen field and read the corresponding paragraph.
To make your search easy, you can find all paragraph numbers on the side of each Story Book page.
Game Board
You will use it to place new location cards and explore their particular parts. Only location cards will be placed on the board and they will be placed according to map cards (see the Map Cards section).
Locations
Locations are built from location cards and will let you discover new puzzles and objects as well as learn the story.
In the action section of the paragraph beginning the location, you will be instructed to take 2 location cards together with the map card and a few of the action tokens (detailed in later sections).
Take all of the required cards from the corresponding decks and flip them immediately.
Next, following the instructions given in the paragraph, place the location cards according to the picture on the map card presenting the outline of the location. It's divided into 12 squares, called the "areas". Place the card with the map next to the board in such a way that the orientation of the grids on both the cards are the same. You have now prepared a location and are ready for exploration.
It's possible, due to your decisions, you will not visit all of the locations during the game.
Location Exploration
It's worth it to look carefully at the location cards when discussing the next step.
When you decide to explore a given area, place one of the available action tokens on that area of the map card and read the paragraph assigned to the area. During exploration you can receive one or more game cards.
The number of action tokens is not sufficient to easily explore every nook of the location. That is why it's important to choose the areas you are going to. If you run out of action tokens, grab doom cards.
Doom Cards
Doom cards will allow you to continue the game if you run out of action tokens. Every time you would like to explore another area but you don't have any more action tokens, you must take the top doom card from the doom card deck and read everything that is on the card.
The top part of the doom card contains the story, and the bottom contains effects that have to be considered.
Be careful with the doom cards, using them to extreme effect might have an influence on the game play and ending!
Remember! You cannot take another doom card if you have unused action tokens!
Game Cards
During play, game effects and paragraphs will tell you to draw game cards (marked with the letter "C"). After drawing you can immediately turn them face up and place them in a spot that is easily available to all players, discarding them only when the Story Book action requires it (usually after use).
The game card deck contains a few types of cards:
Puzzle Cards
These contain an icon on a red background in the bottom right corner. Each puzzle can consist of one or more cards. It's best to group the cards according to the icons so the elements of a given puzzle are close to each other.
You won't always find all of the cards necessary to solve a puzzle in one location.
Important! To solve a puzzle, you always need all of the cards with a given puzzle symbol (information about the required number of cards for a puzzle can be found in the app).
Item Cards
These are characterized by a gray background with a picture of the item. Sometimes, the item cards can have an icon on a brown background in the bottom left corner. Cards with items are elements that can be useful later in the game.
Exit Cards
These don't have any marking, instead they have a black area placed in the central part of the graphics. Such areas are called passages and allow you to leave the current location.
Remember that after leaving a location you won't be able to come back!
Condition Cards
These contain an effect (e.g. the possibility to read a given paragraph), that can be considered only if you have the proper card(s) with symbol(s) in your play area.
All of the conditions presented on the condition card found in the current location can always be solved in the area of the same location.
Map Cards
These have a grid like the one visible on the game board and present a smaller picture taken from the location cards. You will place your action tokens on these cards in order to explore. Map cards are always drawn with the location cards. The location cards should always be placed on the game board according to the map cards.
Important! One card can belong to a few categories. For example, an item card can be a puzzle and condition card at the same time. Such cards combine the features described for each of the card types.
Puzzles and App
The puzzles in the game consist mainly of the game cards, but they can also use other elements. Each puzzle contains at least one puzzle card (marked with an icon in the bottom right corner). An answer to each of the puzzles should be input in the app.
The game contains puzzles required to progress and puzzles that will help you in a different way. Therefore, don't be afraid to leave a puzzle unsolved if you want to go forward - the game will not let you progress if you do not solve the puzzles required by the story.
The app for Escape Tales: The Awakening is presented in the form of a website that the players can add to the Main Screen of a mobile device and use as an app. It works offline as well, so after visiting the app page once, you will be able to use it without access to the Internet.
You can find the app by following this address: https://app.escape-tales.com
When starting the website/app, choose the language corresponding to the game language version. The puzzle solutions may differ depending on the language versions of the game.
The main menu of the app includes symbols for all of the puzzles, you can maneuver between them freely. Every time you discover a new symbol for a puzzle, you should open the puzzle and read its menu.
Important! All actions done in the app do not require the action tokens and do not have a negative influence on the game play, so you can do them as you like.
The puzzle menu contains 3 main areas: Answer space, Required cards and Hints.
-
A. Answer space - The space that you will use to input a password or a code as an answer for a given puzzle. The number of symbol slots is unique for each puzzle - this means that if one puzzle presents 3 slots for an answer then it consists of exactly three symbols (numbers and/or letters). After inputting a correct answer, the app will direct you to a paragraph in the Story Book.
There can be a tip next to the answer space concerning the format of the answer. This tip does not influence the solution of the puzzle, it only gives direction how its answer should be input in the app.
-
B. Required cards - This option allows you to learn how many cards and what game elements are required to solve a given puzzle. You can ignore it and try to follow the story and logic to gather all of the clues but you can always check here.
-
C. Hints - A button opening a new menu that allows you to get hints. You will find a button "Take a hint" that will in time turn into "See the answer". Pressing this button will allow you to get an answer. You should reach for it as the last resort if you are not able to solve a given puzzle. Using this button does not have a negative influence on the game play.
End of Game
The game has several various endings in the Story Book. Your decisions and actions will lead you to one of them and will mean an end of the game.
Another Game
You can play the game again in order to follow new paths, make different decisions, and reach other puzzles and endings.
In this case you can start the game by omitting the first location and starting from P015.
Saving the Game
You can stop the game of Escape Tales: The Awakening at any moment and continue on another day. To do so, just fill out the table on the last page of this rulebook. The next time you play, set up the game in accordance with the table and continue your game.
We recommend, however, to save the game as soon as you leave a location. Then you won't forget details connected with unfinished puzzles.
The save table (last page) records, for each saved game, per location: placed actions on the map card (areas A/B/C/D across rows 1/2/3), unused action tokens, top doom card, location cards, last read paragraph, and collected game cards - with six blank save slots provided.
Credits
Game designers: Jakub Caban, Bartosz Idzikowski, Matt Dembek Art design: Magdalena Klepacz, Paweł Niziołek, Jakub Fajtanowski Story Book: Szymon Stoczek, Matt Dembek English translation and proofreading: Tabletop Polish
Published by Board&Dice, in cooperation with Lockme.