The Inside Scoop on Gaming

Escape from Elba

A Cheapass board game for 3-6 players.

We'd picked up this game ages ago. I'd skimmed the rules and thought that it looked stupid, so we never actually played it. But just recently we broke it out and gave it a try, and it turned out to be pretty cute.

Elba is a sanitarium inhabited entirely by people who are convinced that they are Napoleon. The object is to be the first Napoleon to escape from the asylum and go reclaim your throne.

The sanitarium is a large board that you assemble, consisting of a bunch of named rooms (like the Caesar Room, the Spa, or the Lab). There's also a safe room in the center, where fights cannot occur.

First, you place 13 six-sided on the board, representing the people in the asylum. Each player gets one that represents them, so at least a few of them have to be unique. But this is hardly a problem for most gamers, as we tend to have dozens of six-sided dice of various sizes and colors readily available.

Each character starts with a rating of 1. Whenever you lose a fight, it goes up by one (as the rules say, experience is what you get when you don't get what you want) and you get teleported to a random location.

Each turn, you get to draw cards up to a hand size of 7, but you'll usually want to take fewer than that. Your action points for the turn are determined by 7 minus the number of cards in your hand, so you'll often want to just draw up to 4-5 cards and get 2-3 actions.

For an action you can move to an adjacent room, move an NPC to an adjacent room, teleport to a room whose name you can spell out with the letters in your bag, or try to escape.

Whenever two people end up in the same room, they fight. In the beginning, you'll want to try and lose fights as often as possible, to build up strength. You get a card when you win and lose a card when you lose, so there's actually some benefit to both. As you get stronger, you'll have a harder time losing fights, so advancing in strength is easy when your rating is low.

The "bag" is probably the most interesting and original part of the game. At the end of each turn, you can reduce your hand size by putting cards from your hand into your bag. Each card will have a letter on it (ie- A, R, E, O, etc.), so you'll be putting a bunch of individual letters into your bag. Then you have to arrange the letters in your bag to spell an english word; any letters you can't use this way have to be discarded.

Forming useful words is the most difficult part. In order to make an escape attempt, you have to go to the proper room AND be able to spell the proper word with the letters in your bag. The "escape words" for the four corners of the map are ESCAPE, FROM, ELBA, and PEACE. If you manage to spell CAMPBELL or EMPEROR you can attempt to escape from any room. Note that you can mix and match when trying to escape... so if your bag contains the word CABLE, you can still try and escape by spelling ELBA.

The letters in your bag have other uses, though... if you can spell a weapon, you can claim a plus 1 bonus in a fight. That's important once you've got an escape word ready, and you desperately don't want to lose any cards.

You can also teleport to a room as an action, provided that you can spell any word in its name. So if you're carrying SPAM in your bag, you can teleport to the SPA as an action. You could also hit people with a SAP. But if someone steals your P, you'll have to try and form a new word on your turn, since SAM is a proper name and doesn't count.

When you do finally try to escape, you have to roll a d6 and roll under your current strength. So until you built up a decent strength score, you'll tend to fail a lot.

All in all, it's a pretty amusing game, with a surprising amount of strategy involved. I missed my chance to win our third game when someone attacked me and lost, forcing me to draw one of their cards... and leaving me with 3 cards in my hand when I'd intended to only have 2. Since I needed 5 action points to take a shot at the victory, ending up with 3 cards left me unable to do it (even if I drew zero cards, I'd still only get 4 action points). And the constant struggle to spell something that uses as many of your letters as possible is a big part of the fun.

The replay value is at least moderate. We've played 3 times now; we aren't likely to play again any time soon, but considering how much the game costs that's not a big deal. The art is cute (John Kovalic did it, and there are a couple of inside jokes in it) and the cards are funny... while only the first letter of each card actually matters in play, it's amusing when your 'E' is actually a pet 'Ermine'. So you use some pretty wacked out items in your bid to escape Elba.

We've played 3 games... one with 3 players and two games with 4, and all of the games were pretty enjoyable. My gaming group gave it a 2-3 in substance and a 4 in style.

Escape from Elba
Escape from Elba Playtest Review by Frank Sronce on 25/04/02 Style: 4 (Classy and well done) Substance: 3 (Average) more amusing than I expected Product: Escape from Elba Author: James Ernest Category: Board/Tactical Game Company/Publisher: Cheapass Games Line: Cost: cost me $4.25 Page count: 4 Year published: 1999 ISBN: SKU: CAG 024 Comp copy?: no Playtest Review by Frank Sronce on 25/04/02 Genre tags:	Escape from Elba A Cheapass board game for 3-6 players. We'd picked up this game ages ago. I'd skimmed the rules and thought that it looked stupid, so we never actually played it. But just recently we broke it out and gave it a try, and it turned out to be pretty cute. Elba is a sanitarium inhabited entirely by people who are convinced that they are Napoleon. The object is to be the first Napoleon to escape from the asylum and go reclaim your throne. The sanitarium is a large board that you assemble, consisting of a bunch of named rooms (like the Caesar Room, the Spa, or the Lab). There's also a safe room in the center, where fights cannot occur. First, you place 13 six-sided on the board, representing the people in the asylum. Each player gets one that represents them, so at least a few of them have to be unique. But this is hardly a problem for most gamers, as we tend to have dozens of six-sided dice of various sizes and colors readily available. Each character starts with a rating of 1. Whenever you lose a fight, it goes up by one (as the rules say, experience is what you get when you don't get what you want) and you get teleported to a random location. Each turn, you get to draw cards up to a hand size of 7, but you'll usually want to take fewer than that. Your action points for the turn are determined by 7 minus the number of cards in your hand, so you'll often want to just draw up to 4-5 cards and get 2-3 actions. For an action you can move to an adjacent room, move an NPC to an adjacent room, teleport to a room whose name you can spell out with the letters in your bag, or try to escape. Whenever two people end up in the same room, they fight. In the beginning, you'll want to try and lose fights as often as possible, to build up strength. You get a card when you win and lose a card when you lose, so there's actually some benefit to both. As you get stronger, you'll have a harder time losing fights, so advancing in strength is easy when your rating is low. The "bag" is probably the most interesting and original part of the game. At the end of each turn, you can reduce your hand size by putting cards from your hand into your bag. Each card will have a letter on it (ie- A, R, E, O, etc.), so you'll be putting a bunch of individual letters into your bag. Then you have to arrange the letters in your bag to spell an english word; any letters you can't use this way have to be discarded. Forming useful words is the most difficult part. In order to make an escape attempt, you have to go to the proper room AND be able to spell the proper word with the letters in your bag. The "escape words" for the four corners of the map are ESCAPE, FROM, ELBA, and PEACE. If you manage to spell CAMPBELL or EMPEROR you can attempt to escape from any room. Note that you can mix and match when trying to escape... so if your bag contains the word CABLE, you can still try and escape by spelling ELBA. The letters in your bag have other uses, though... if you can spell a weapon, you can claim a plus 1 bonus in a fight. That's important once you've got an escape word ready, and you desperately don't want to lose any cards. You can also teleport to a room as an action, provided that you can spell any word in its name. So if you're carrying SPAM in your bag, you can teleport to the SPA as an action. You could also hit people with a SAP. But if someone steals your P, you'll have to try and form a new word on your turn, since SAM is a proper name and doesn't count. When you do finally try to escape, you have to roll a d6 and roll under your current strength. So until you built up a decent strength score, you'll tend to fail a lot. All in all, it's a pretty amusing game, with a surprising amount of strategy involved. I missed my chance to win our third game when someone attacked me and lost, forcing me to draw one of their cards... and leaving me with 3 cards in my hand when I'd intended to only have 2. Since I needed 5 action points to take a shot at the victory, ending up with 3 cards left me unable to do it (even if I drew zero cards, I'd still only get 4 action points). And the constant struggle to spell something that uses as many of your letters as possible is a big part of the fun. The replay value is at least moderate. We've played 3 times now; we aren't likely to play again any time soon, but considering how much the game costs that's not a big deal. The art is cute (John Kovalic did it, and there are a couple of inside jokes in it) and the cards are funny... while only the first letter of each card actually matters in play, it's amusing when your 'E' is actually a pet 'Ermine'. So you use some pretty wacked out items in your bid to escape Elba. We've played 3 games... one with 3 players and two games with 4, and all of the games were pretty enjoyable. My gaming group gave it a 2-3 in substance and a 4 in style.