Cost: $35 From: Crowhurst Games, 957 31st Ave. E, Vancouver B.C., CANADA V5V 2X3 Players: 3-6 Playing Time: 120-180 minutes Type of game: Family Strategy Complexity: 7 Skill level: 5 Reviewed by: Peter Sarrett, Issue 3.3, Summer 1995
The guard's boots ring with every step upon the flagstones. As the echo of his footsteps fades, I creep from my hiding place in the chapel and steal into the corridor. I press my back to the wall and pause to listen. Hugging the shadows I make my way down the castle hall, skirting the edges of the yard toward the theater. I slip inside and pry loose the trapdoor concealing my homemade uniform. I inspect it carefully— one slip, and it's all over. I don the disguise and walk back to the hall, assuming a confident, purposeful stride. Using a key which cost me dearly, I unlock the gate and find the rope left for me at the castle wall, as promised. I've only got seconds. I leap onto the rope and start climbing. As I reach the top, a guard cries out. I swing over and drop down on the other side of the wall, cutting a hole in the exterior fence and sqeezing through. The guards are close behind me. But in front of me, on the far side of the river bank, is freedom.
The prisoner above is making a desperate attempt to escape from Colditz castle. In Skeddaddle!, up to five players, each representing a different nationality of prisoners, try to evade the German forces controlled by another player and bring two of their people to freedom. The subject matter is the stuff of which wargames are made. Not a fan of such games, I was hesitant to try this one. But happily, despite its daunting hex-laden board, Skedaddle! is not a wargame. It's one-player-against-many motif is reminiscent of Scotland Yard, and the merchanics of play aren't too much more complicated.
According to the game, during World War II the Germans needed somewhere to put prisoners who were continually trying to escape. Theu chose Colditz castle, from which no prisoners had escaped in the previous war. The strung up barbed wire, posted sentries, and designated it a special prison for habitual escapees. But they made a big mistake in putting so many experienced escapees together under one roof. The prisoners coordinated their efforts, and 160 prisoners got away before the place was finally liberated on April 15, 1945.
The game allows players to duplicate these escapes. A number of potential routes and methods are provided— building a tunnel via the clock tower, disguising yourself as the Sergeant of the guard, hiding out beneath a manhole, building a glider— and apparently, are all based on actual escape attempts, the stories of which are provided in an accompanying pamphlet.
The gameboard depicts a floorplan of the castle and the surrounding grounds. The spaces in the center of the castle are marked with hexes. Spaces surrounding these inside the castle are brown circles, outside the castle are green circles, and interspersed are some trees for prisoners to hide in. The prisoners all start in the yard in the center of the castle. The Kommandant stations his men at four key locations throughout the castle, leaving the rest in the barracks. Each round of play begins with the Kommandant, who rolls a pair of dice and moves his men. As in Backgammon, each die can be allocated to a different sentry or one sentry can move the total of both dice. If a guard post is vacated, another sentry can be pulled from the barracks and placed there for free.
Play then proceeds clockwise, with each "Escape Officer" taking a turn and moving his prisoners. Prisoners cannot move through a space occupied by a sentry, and vice versa. But if a sentry lands on a prisoner, that prisoner is captured and is sent back to the yard, while the capturing sentry must return to the barracks. If the prisoner was captured outside the center of the castle (that is, anywhere other than a hex space or loot room), he is placed in Solitary instead. To get his prisoner out of Solitary, a player has to roll doubles. Some cards will also do the trick. Rolling doubles also allows a player to take an extra turn.
If an Escape Officer starts a turn with some of his prisoners is one of the rooms of the castle (as opposed to the halls), he may draw a card from one of the loot decks. There are six different types of loot decks: rope, files/saw, keys, rubble, disguise, and wirecutters/saw. Each is represented by a symbol on the board, and different rooms let you draw from different decks. By accumulating the right set of tools, prisoners may be able to take advantage of loopholes in the castle defenses.
Loopholes are red spaces on the board which can't be entered unless they're first covered by a yellow marker. To do that, you must play a loot card which matches that type of loophole. This allows you, for example, to climb over a wall with rope or saw through a gate. Once a loophole is opened, all prisoners can use it. But the Kommandant can close the loophole by moving a sentry onto it and removing the yellow marker.
Some loot cards provide other benefits as well. A disguise can be used in the brown spaces. There are three levels of disguises. The most basic allows a prisoner to move through spaces occupied by sentries. A disguised prisoner may only be captured by two sentries working in concert. The next best disguise allows a prisoner to occupy vacant sentry posts, preventing the Kommandant from bringing new guards in to that spot from the barracks. The best disguise allows a prisoner to impersonate the Sergeant of the guard. Such a prisoner can send any sentry back to the barracks by moving into his space.
100 Reischsmark cards let prisoners bribe a sentry by moving into his space and sending the sentry back to the barracks. The Kommandant might have an Order card to prevent this (see below). A Sick Prisoner card lets a player move one prisoner from anywhere on the board to the Sick Bay. This can be useful if the Sick Bay loopholes have been opened or if a prisoner is in Solitary, or it can snatch an opponent from the brink of freedom.
The Kommandant has some cards at his disposal, too. He draws one card from a special deck of nine each turn, and may play only one per turn. These Order cards allow him to round up prisoners more quickly, take bonus die rolls, take away players' loot cards, etc. The wise and timely use of these cards makes all the difference in the Kommandant's job, which is quite a challenging one. They can't be saved forever, either. Once all nine have been drawn, the Kommandant must discard any he's still holding at the start of the next turn and reshuffle them. If the Kommandant can maintain order for 27 turns without letting two of any player's prisoners escape, the Kommandant wins.
And you thought being Mr. X was tough in Scotland Yard... The Kommandant does not have an easy time of it. Every time he captures a prisoner, his sentry is sent back to the barracks and he must spend time redeploying his forces. Meanwhile, other prisoners are gathering loot and punching through the walls. The Kommandant quickly realizes his best strategy isn't to capture everyone he can, but to blockade as many loot rooms and exit pathways as possible by stationing sentries at the bottlenecks. This minimizes the number of places his sentries have to be.
I've never seen the Kommandant win, but I have my strategy worked out. There are only two rooms where disguises can be picked up, and I'd block them first. Keeping disguises away from the prisoners ensures that I can capture them, and prevents them from impersonating the Sergeant and sending my sentries back to the barracks. Next I'd block the only two rooms where prisoners can draw from the Key deck, which contains (among other goodies) the 100 Reichsmark card— the only other way an Escape Officer could get rid of my sentries. If I can put these four blockades in place (which, granted, is not as easy as it sounds), I've taken away some powerful weapons in the escapees' arsenal.
Now, there are some things which can throw a wrench in the works. For example, three vehicles are stationed on the castle grounds. They start off on the castle's perimeter, but whenever doubles are rolled one of them comes into the central hub near the prisoners. Unless sentries are blocking the way, there is an unobstructed path to these vehicles. If the right set of doubles are rolled again, the vehicle goes back outside with the prisoner along for the ride, and from there it's only a short hop to freedom.
Prisoners escaping in groups is also a problem. Each sentry can only capture one prisoner at a time (except in loot rooms, when a single sentry can clear the entire room). If three players escape through the same loophole, the Kommandant has to use three different sentries to stop them. And that just isn't likely to happen.
Skedaddle! takes a while to play, and your first game will go slowly as you grapple with the mechanics and strategies. Unfortunately, the cards depict images only— you'll frequently consult the rule book to determine what they mean. The rules are ambiguous on a couple of points, but a little common sense can solve the problems. Skedaddle! is an odd hybrid of a wargaming theme with family game mechanics. It may prove too dice-dependent and simple for wargamers and too complex and heavy for the family crowd. I'm not quite sure who I'd recommend it to. I'd not try it again with 5 or 6 players— our last such game took forever— but it keeps moving at a decent clip with four. I don't mind long games per se, but Skedaddle! seems to take more time than it warrants. I'm left feeling ambivalent. I'd play it again, but it's not the first thing I'd suggest pulling from the shelf. On the other hand, others in my group really liked it and are eager to try it again, so perhaps it just didn't push the same buttons for me. For players accustomed to lengthy sessions of Titan and 1830, Skedaddle! may make a welcome addition to their repetoire.