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Escape from Atlantis was a classic 1986 Waddington’s board game, which still survives (geddit?) today, in a slightly different form: SURVIVE Escape from Atlantis. In this episode, I – of course – play the original 1980s version I had as a wee snapper.
Have you ever felt the need to escape from somewhere? Work maybe? Your house? Maybe even an awkward social engagement…. Well how about a fucking sinking island, surrounded by sharks, monsters and octupie….. or is it octupses. I don’t know. But if you were on this island, you’d want to escape right? Because you know that sooner or later, you’re gonna end up in the drink with all those horrible sea bound creatures.
Welcome to the premise of Escape from Atlantis.
You’ve no doubt heard the fable of Atlantis, the ancient Greek city which disappeared below the murky depths, lost to time and, erm.. water. BUT, have you heard of the Waddington’s classic board game, published in 1986 offering the chance to be on that very island?
Well, here it is. A game for up to 4 players with an estimated running time of 1 hour.
The premise is remarkably simple. Each player picks a hoarde of people, either red, blue, yellow or green, and places them anywhere they like on the said island. Play then moves clockwise around the board with each player taking a piece of island away on their turn. Each island piece then reveals an item to place in the water. It could be a boat, a shark, a dolphin, an octopus or the dreaded SEA MONSTER. Each player can then move up to 3 spaces, with any member of their people, in an attempt to either board a boat or swim to the safety of a surrounding island.
Once your people have moved, it’s time for the sea creatures to move. This is enabled by the spinning of this round, spinny contraption. The ball bearing inside lands on a creature, and a number of spaces to move, with D for Dive, meaning it can move ANYWHEREEEEEE. The player whose turn it is, can move a creature to destroy a boat, eat a person or in the case of a dolphin, help a stranded swimmer get to shore. Because dolphins, are nice like that… SO DON’T FUCKING TAKE SELFIES WITH A BABY ONE AND KILL IT. DICKHEADS.
Play continues like this, with more and more island disappearing on each turn.
Once everyone is either on and island or dead, the player with the most people is declared the winner, and everyone forgets about the sunken city and goes home to Athens, for a good old fashioned orgy, or something like that.
Well done, you’ve escaped from Atlantis.
Nostalgia Nerd is also known by the name Peter Leigh. They routinely make YouTube videos and then publish the scripts to those videos here. You can follow Nostalgia Nerd using the social links below.
