Breakout
Breakout Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
The Game at a Glance
- Type: tactics game
- Number of players: 2
- Age: 6 to 88 years (as printed)
- Duration: 15 to 30 minutes
- Tactics / Chance gauge: the marker is at the Tactics end of a five-point scale running from "Tactics" to "Chance".
Components
- 2 wall supports
- 1 wall
- 6 pawns (characters)
- 26 rope pieces
- 1 rulebook
Translator's note: the French rules use "bouts de corde" and "nœuds de corde" for the same rope pieces; both are rendered here as "rope pieces".
Goal of the Game
The first player to tie a continuous rope for each of his 3 characters, from the bottom of the wall up to its top, wins the game.
Setup
The red wall is installed vertically in its two supports. Each player takes 3 characters and 13 rope pieces of the same colour and places them in front of him. The two players take turns: Yellow begins. Then Blue installs a rope piece, and so on.
Playing the Game
During his turn, each player places a rope piece, from the right or from the left, into one of the 5 slots of the wall, on the first space. If there is already a rope in that slot, whether it belongs to him or to his opponent, he pushes it back by one space.
If a rope piece pushed back in this way passes over the top of the wall, it falls into the wall supports, where its owner takes it back.
If a player has no rope pieces left, he passes his turn until a rope of his colour falls off the wall.
If the wall (or a slot of the wall) no longer has a single place where a rope piece can be placed, the opponent may not counter-attack at the place that has just been occupied.
Example: player A has just placed his last rope piece on the left, in slot 3. Player B is not allowed to introduce, on the right, the rope piece that has just been ejected into the same slot, but may do so in another slot.
A tied rope does not have to be vertical. But knots on the diagonal do not count.
The following paragraphs carry no heading in the printed rules. They appear on the first page, next to the illustration described below, and are placed here after Playing the Game.
Illustration caption: in the drawing, Blue (dark knots) has made the first unbroken link from the foot of the wall to the top. The yellow knots (light) do not form an unbroken link.
The first player to make an unbroken link from the bottom to the top of the wall places his first character on the top. (The other characters may later tie their rope up to the same place: the character at the top is then set aside next to the game.) All rope pieces are removed from the wall and returned to the player of their colour. The next escape may then begin.
If the wall has already been covered 5 times without a character having escaped, the game is void and a new one is started.
End of the Game
The player whose 3 characters manage to climb the wall with their rope wins the game.