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Exquisite Escape
PACKAGING DESIGN | GAME DESIGN | CASE STUDY
Exquisite Escape is a horror-themed escape card game.
You are a newly awoken product of The Creator, a mad scientist whose inhumane experiments combined animal parts in an effort to create a new species. Freshly endowed with sentience, you and your fellow players must resolve each card to escape The Creator’s wretched lair and the woods beyond.
Players: 2-4
Ages: 12+
Average play time: <60 minutes
COLLATERAL
GAME MECHANICS
- Instruction Manual
- 3 Chapter Decks
- 12 Item Cards
- 1 Creator Card
- 1 Ally Card
- 22 character pieces (4 cards, 6 Heads, 6 Torsos, 6 Feet)
- 6 Dice (10-sided, 12-sided, 20-sided)
2. To play the game, shuffle the cards within the chapter, then place the shuffled pile face down on the table. Place the chapter card on top.
3. Players will each take turns drawing cards. Resolve each card to escape.
Process
To generate ideas for this project, I did “Play” activities. I took apart a laptop, went to a soccer game, and watched a docuseries, but two activities that led to the wider project concept were playing Exquisite Corpse with my friends, and watching Dropout TV’s Game Changer.
Exquisite corpse is a fairly simple analog or digital surrealist game in which you take a piece of paper in thirds and draw the head, then pass it to another person who must draw the torso without seeing the head. Then, pass it to the last person to draw the feet, without seeing the head or torso. Then, unfold the paper to reveal the being created. I played a digital version of this with some friends.
Game Changer is a game show where the game changes every show, and contestants must deduce what the game is while playing. In the episode I watched, the players were surprised by an escape-room themed game that began in the green room.
I decided to combine these two concepts to create a horror escape card game that allows you to make your own exquisite corpse player character. You are tasked with escaping from three different areas in order to win the game.
First Concepts
Research + Prototyping
I began my research by looking at pre-existing games with unique mechanics, or ones that center escaping as the goal of the game. As I narrowed down what I wanted the game to do (Cycle through a random order of obstacle/enemy cards to resolve to create a new playing experience every time; Utilize dice rolls and skills to bypass obstacles and enemies, and encourage teamwork) and what I didn’t want the game to do (be played on a board, encourage individual success, last too long), I began to study two different game’s mechanics to help me understand how to achieve my game’s goals.
The first was Dungeons & Dragons, a fantasy table-top role-playing game that primarily utilizes a set of skills and corresponding dice rolls to determine outcomes and advance the story. The second was Escape the Dark Castle, an escape-themed card game by Themeborne Ltd. that uses a random order of cards to tell a different story each time the game is played. I watched playthroughs of each game to get a good feel for the mechanics in action.
I also consulted Game Design Workshop by Tracy Fullerton.
Originally, I wanted the player pieces to be stackable magnetized clay pieces that could easily be rearranged. In between the conceptualization and testing, I’d made paper prototypes of my clay figures, however I got some feedback that my original idea of using clay stackable magnetized character pieces felt less congruous with the concept than the paper prototypes did, so I ended up making the final pieces out of paper, card stock, and magnets. I then made character cards out of card stock and magnets so that players can rearrange their pieces to make new characters.
My final revision was the change the backs of the cards so that one can tell where they go without turning them over, making the set more organized and intuitive to set up and play.