Scooby Doo Games: Escape The Vortex Board Game

by The Beast!

(Boardgame Beast HQ)

Scooby Doo Games: Escape The Vortex Board Game
Board game manufacturer:
Paul Lamond Games
Number of players:
2-5
Ages:
6yrs+

Quick Verdict

As Scooby Doo Games go, Escape The Vortex is unfortunately quite typical of many of them: simplistic, pretty dull, and destined to be played by kids, with reluctant adults joining in only if they have to.

The game and gameplay

The most striking feature of Escape the Vortex is the jigsaw puzzle style board, which slots together, making a very large and brightly colored playing area.

Each player chooses a token and moves around the board, which is covered in pipes. Collect counters (Scooby snacks and keys) and avoid robots, then make your way to the exit.

On your turn, you throw two dice: one for your character, and one to move any visible robots. The idea is to move the robots away from your own token and use them to hamper your opponents’ progress.

As you move past tokens on the pipes, turn them over and reveal them. You can keep beneficial tokens (key or snacks), but any robots revealed ‘go live’ and are now in play.

Robots you move into the enemy tokens move them back, like in the Sorr board game, to their starting places. While it’s fun to bump the opposition, this is about all there is to get excited about. The rest of the game is simple luck.

Scooby Doo CLUE

Pros and Cons

Large jigsaw game board is very appealing.

Playing pieces (cardboard stand ups of the Mystery Machine gang, Scooby, Shaggy etc.) are nicely done.

Ultra-simple gameplay will soon get boring.

Nothing to bring older children back to the game once they outgrow the basic rules. This game has been designed for young children (grade 1 age), so it’s not surprising that things have been kept so basic, but it’s disappointing that the game cannot grow with your children by having advanced rules for later learning.

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The Verdict

Scooby Doo Escape The Vortex Board Game is much too simple to appeal to anybody for very long, and while kids may enjoy it, supervising adults will view it as a chore.

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