Those of you who have experienced their previous title will know what you’re in for here, although in returning to this well, the scribes at Themeborne have not only swapped out the mildewed labyrinth of old for a blinking web of corroded airlocks, they’ve upped the ante in terms of mechanical depth and strategy, adding enough new wrinkles to the formula to engage anew without disturbing the delicate balance of lightweight fun that made the original such an accessible and addictive romp.Ī narrative game predicated on a sense of tension, masterful use of theme and pressing your luck in the face of encroaching doom, EtDS soars in its capacity to elicit wide-eyed player engagement from the most meagre of mechanics. And the darkness was without form, and void. A lovingly camp collage of sinister science-friction, and a fantastic evolution of their 2017 debut Escape the Dark Castle. A 45-minute jaunt of thrills, chills, awesome art and shitloads of dice. Chitinous life-forms, skewed-logic automatons and swarthy freebooters- all straddling the retro-futurist chic of the very best 1970’s analogue imagining of our cold future in the embrace of the depths.Įscape the Dark Sector, the new release from Themeborne Games mines these archetypes as adroitly as the Jupiter Corporation mines planetoidal ores, condensing them into a dense dark matter. It’s enough to make you soil your astro-britches.Īnd into that vast black canvas the projections of men are writ large, plucked from our collective vat of phobias and affixed with terrifying mandibles, diabolical intelligence and so very many legs. The claustrophobic tension of being encapsulated in the fragile tech-womb of suit or station, only the thinnest patina of circuits and fibre separating us from the unyielding vacuum and dizzying expanse of the pin-pricked void. The place that pushes our psychological buttons with the most practiced insistence. The theme that resonates most chillingly with our primal sense of terror when confronted by the unknown. Of all the potential settings for horror, surely the darkest expanses of deep space are the most suffocating in their capacity for cold sweat dread. What a beautiful way to die – as a falling star.