Escape: The Curse of the Temple – Queenie 8: The Maya Calendar

About this expansion

Escape: The Curse of the Temple – Queenie 8: The Maya Calendar is an expansion for 1–5 players that adds a double-sided calendar board and a tense new challenge to the Escape base game, with games lasting about 10 minutes.

Choose between the Eternal Calendar and the Doomed Calendar, then place the calendar board beside the table and set the standee on the arrow space. The track alternates Sun, Moon, and Star symbols. Whenever you discover a room with a gem spot, place a calendar tile face up in that chamber.

• Eternal Calendar: a gem can be activated only when its tile matches the next symbol on the track. Move the standee one space and remove the tile when the activation succeeds.
• Doomed Calendar: a matching tile advances the standee and is removed; a mismatch sends the tile to the bottom of the pile without advancing the standee.
• In the calendar chamber, any player may swap two tiles in the temple by rolling three keys.

The Doomed Calendar adds further pressure. At specified countdown checkpoints, players may have to place one die on the calendar board, where it remains until that player visits the calendar chamber. Near the final bar, the calendar space can also require additional keys to escape the temple.

In the Eternal mode, once there are no more calendar tiles to place, gems in those chambers cannot be activated until the calendar is finished. The Maya Calendar module was a Kickstarter reward for backers of the Escape: The Curse of the Temple Big Box, offering a compact way to add sequence-based decisions and escalating consequences to the base game.