Game Closet: Survive: Escape from Atlantis!

Wish Fulfillment: Compliments of Stronghold Games

In the faintest recesses of my mind, back where all the cobwebs are, where distant experiences and imagination blend to form childhood memories, I remember seeing a commercial for a game that involved boats, sharks, whirlpools, sea monsters.

In my mind, this game moved all on its own with boats narrowly avoiding a real whirlpool that would suck the boat down into the table, and shark fins that would dart around the board in search of chum. 

So fuzzy is this memory that for years I chalked it up to imagination, it was a personal legend - A game like this simply can't exist.  I must have made it up.  Though I let go of the thought of physically possessing this game, that fever-dreamlike memory has stayed with me for well over 20+ years.

But one day, I stumbled across a game on BoardGameGeek that triggered this memory.  It was undeniable, it wasn't a dream, this game existed and it was known as "Survive!" Even more unbelievable to me: it was a critically-loved game, and it was getting a re-release!


A small, independent company named Stronghold Games acquired the publishing rights to this early-80s game and has reprinted an edition that far surpasses my hopes for what this game would be.  No, there are no magical moving components, nor do the whirlpools defy physics, but under the newly-branded "Survive: Escape from Atlantis!" every critical aspect of the original game, "Survive!" and its European brother "Escape from Atlantis" has been lovingly recreated and improved.

The object of the game is simple: each player has 10 wooden meeples with a value of 1-6; each player attempts to move his meeples off of a sinking island in the middle of the board to any of four islands on the corners of the board; play continues until the volcano on the center island explodes; the player with the highest value of meeples on the corner islands is the winner.

Standing in between meeples and sweet, sweet freedom are sea creatures that seem to have an axe to grind: sharks eat any meeples that is swimming in the water, whales destroy manned lifeboats, and Sea Monsters destroy both man and watercraft alike.  Add in the Giant Squid expansion that can pluck seemingly secure wood-folk off of island tiles or boats and you have a whole lot of seafood seeking revenge.

Falling right into shark-infested waters.

On each turn, players will take three action turns, moving either their pieces or boats and then "sink" an island tile by flipping it over.  Any meeples that are on a tile that is sunk are plunged into the water and can't get back onto land - they either have to swim their way to the corner islands or hope to maneuver a rescue boat to pick them up.  Under each tile is a particular effect that effects the game: some tiles require a sea creature or boat to be placed in the newly-sunk space, some tiles can be taken into the player's hand to use at a strategic moment - say, to either block an opponent's path or to stop an opponent from sending a hungry creature your way.

Then there's the dreaded whirlpool, to which I have fallen victim several times, which wipes out all people, boats, and creatures on and adjacent to it.  One game, as I was attempting to navigate through a fjord to safety, Lady Rad revealed a whirlpool tile, sucking my boat of innocent wood-folk into the abyss and ending my game.

At the end of a player's turn, they'll roll a die that will determine which type of creature will move and devour opponents.  Each creature has a set number of spaces it can move in the base game which make the rules simple for family members of all ages, but the "Escape from Atlantis" rules ratchets the tension up a bit by adding two dice which determines both which creature will move and how far. Several more variants of the game are detailed in the rulebook which encourage players to change up a game of "Survive" to keep it feeling fresh.

And, you know, that also says a lot about Stronghold Games as a company and their devotion to their customer's satisfaction. They could have easily reprinted "Survive!" in its original US release, and then later released the "Escape From Atlantis!" ruleset and components as a first-expansion, following up with the Giant Squid as a second expansion in order to maximize their profits. That's how I would have done it, because the base game is satisfying enough, but I find myself having more fun now playing with the "Escape" rules. But they didn't monetize that road, and I commend them for it. They gave us a whole lot of fun, right out of the box, and supplied an affordable mini-expansion right away to add to the fun.

Mmmmmm, tasty humans.

Even without the variants, though, I can't get enough of this game.  The light strategy of where, what, and when to move is balanced perfectly with the light randomness of the tile-flips and dice rolls.  Never does the game feel too much left to chance nor does it stall out from over analyzing one's options.  Likely, the greatest challenge in a whole game is keeping track of the highest-value meeples and ensuring their safe passage, but make too much effort and you run the risk of telegraphing a high-value boat, leaving your opponents to mercilessly see to your destruction.  In a four-player game, the chaotic "take-that" aspect of meeples fleeing, land sinking, and creatures on the prowl means that no one is safe for very long, it seems that someone is constantly in peril.  But because the games move so quickly (30-40 minutes max), it's easy to set it all up and play again without feeling burnt by losing. 

Which is what makes this game so much darn fun to play and perfect for families and non-gamers.  This game has definitely made its way into my Top 5 favorite games and better yet: Lady Rad has seen fit to allow it to remain in a permanent spot on our bookshelf.

You can't get higher praise than that; "Survive: Escape from Atlantis!" deserves to be in every family's collection.