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Dig Your Way Out box art
2019 Ranked #2,792

Dig Your Way Out

Prison-escape strategy game where inmates search for materials, craft tools, trade cigarettes, and extend tunnels. Rival prisoners can steal or extort what you need, so every action must move your escape forward while protecting the means to finish it.

Bluffing Deduction Action Points Area Movement

Players

2-6

Play time

40-45 min

Age

14+

Complexity

2.13/5

Rating

7.25

Harder to teach Highly interactive Deep strategy

Overview

At a glance

Is this game right for my group?

ABG editorial scores on a 1–5 scale.

Teachability 2.4/5

Harder to teach

Replay value 4.1/5

High replayability

Interaction 3.7/5

Highly interactive

Player scaling 4.0/5

Scales well

Strategic depth 4.5/5

Deep strategy

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How it plays

How does it play?

Dig Your Way Out is a game created by David Simide in which you play the role of an inmates trying to escape from prison. Be the first prisoner to dig your hole.

Core mechanisms

Key systems that shape the decisions players make.

Read the full game description

Dig Your Way Out is a game created by David Simide in which you play the role of an inmates trying to escape from prison. Be the first prisoner to dig your hole. Craft tools with salvaged materials, buy them with cigarettes, or extort them from other players, the end justifies the means! The main goal is to reach the required tunnel points (which can change according to the number of player) representing the progress of your tunnel. On his turn, a player has 2 actions, which he can choose to spend in: Searching: he draws the number of Search cards indicated on the place he's in Moving: he rolls the die to determine where he can go Joining a gang if he has the matching accessories, and get their passive buff Crafting if he has the corresponding cards Playing an action card Extorting another inmate (extortion is divided into 2 stages: Intimidation in which the attacking player names the tools he wants to extort (a shovel, a pick or a spoon). The targeted player may then cooperate and give it right away, avoiding combat. Or defend himself, launching combat. Combat: Taking turns, the two players play before them Weapon cards form their hand, beginning by the defender. Once a player can’t or won’t play a Weapon card, they loose the combat. If the defender looses, they have to give to the attacker the Tool they ask for. If the defender doesn’t have this card in hand or if the loser is the attacker, the winner picks one card, randomly chosen, from the loser’s hand. The loser takes 1 Beating. Some actions can only be performed in certain locations: cell block: dig, place one and only one Tool card (Spoon, Pick or Shovel from your hand on your Prisoner board. You immediately score the number of Tunnel points indicated on the card. recreation area: Buy and sell, the local currency is cigarettes. infirmary: Heal, remove 1 beating.(a player with 1 beating can't perform the craft action, a player with 2 beating can't perform neither the craft nor the dig action.) cafeteria: steal a spoon. Dig your way out requires to permanently be aware of what other players have in their hand. Thus you can know who to extort and who is a threat for you. Although picking up tools or weapon is visible to everyone, there are plenty of ways to prevent other inmates from being too pushy: action cards, gang passives and above all your background card. Background cards are powerful one-shot abilities, which can change the game when used at the right time. And this is even more true when you belong to the relevant gang.

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Editions

Language and publisher variants currently recorded in the catalog.

Edition Year Language Publisher / Region
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Player resources

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Game and edition data

All specifications (5)

Play and group

Players
2–6
Best with
3–6
Play time
40–45 min
Age
14+
Complexity
2.1/5
Credits and catalog connections

Credits

Designers

1
David Simide

Artists

1
Mihajlo Dimitrievski

Publishers

1
Borderline Editions

Linked items

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