Survive: Escape From Atlantis!

Survive: Escape From Atlantis!

Survive: Escape from Atlantis! is a popular family game that’s been around for 30 years. Players all start off on an island in the middle of the board and need to escape to safety, either by boat or just swimming.

Each turn a player gets three actions where they can move either an empty boat or a boat they control (by having equal or the majority of people in it), people on the island or swimmers in the sea. Boats and people on land can use all three actions to move three times in a turn. Any swimmers in the sea can only move one space each turn. After moving the player then selects one of lowest elevation land tiles (first sand, then forest and finally rock) and removes it from the game. If anyone had a man on the tile they end up being dunked straight into the sea.

The reverse of the tile then has a picture on it, with either an useful ability to be used in a later turn or something that requires being down right away. This will be either placing a boat, shark or whale in that space, though later on whirlpools can show up. Then the player rolls the monster die and moves the relevant monster if there is one on the board. Whales can destroy boats, sharks eat swimmers, while seas monsters destroy boats and eat swimmers.

Whoever gets the most people to safety is the winner! Each of the little men also have a number on the bottom, you can also play where whoever has the highest value of men is the winner, though with younger children that may be too complicated. Either way Survive Escape from Atlantis is a brilliant family favourite and even great fun for a group of adults. When playing with younger children you may also want to avoid actively eating their people with the sea creatures, though for some of them this can be the best part!

There are also some expansions available, I recommend at least getting the 5-6 player one which adds up to 2 more players and you can also add either the dolphin or giant squid packs as well.