The Night Cage

Game 6 of our “Halloween Half-term Spooktacular” is…

“The Night Cage” played by myself, Jack (.8.), and Toby (5).

Firstly it’s worth mentioning that Jack(.8.) and Toby(5) have both been brought up playing games and as such can play games usually beyond their years. The Night Cage is stated as 14+ (mainly for theme) and while the theme is horror the visuals are pretty abstract, neither boy finds it that scary and my boys have been playing this happily since they were 3 and 6 and it is a family favourite.

Night Cage is a cooperative game where you are trapped in a pitch-black dungeon with only a candle for light. Each player has to find a key and then make it to the game exit. It is played on a 6×6 grid (which never endingly wraps) and due to the candle theme can only see the tiles directly next to you. As you move through the maze tiles behind you disappear for good and new ones are drawn.

Whilst trying to find the keys you encounter monsters. If you are caught by a monster your candle goes out meaning you lose 3 tiles from the pile (with the end of the pile spelling game over) and lose the ability to see tiles next to you meaning every step is a step of faith. You can relight your candle by going next to another player who has a lit candle.

you also have a nerve token that can be used to mitigate some of the negatives.

And that’s the general concept. Get through the dungeon without accidentally shredding your deck so quickly that you lose the keys and the gate.

Both the boys love this game and it really gets their strategy bones flowing. On the surface, it seems simple with Jack suggesting once he had a key he hung around keeping a gate visible. This then falls apart when monsters with the line of sight appear. We played 3 games narrowly finishing one and losing the other one badly after the candle losses snowballed and we ended up shredding through our keys. In the final game, everything fell into place and we finished quickly without encountering a single monster. There is definitely luck involved but it can be mitigated by strategy.

There are also more advanced rules that we did not play here that we have played in the past including monsters who guard the keys and have to be approached from behind and huge pits.

Component quality is high and the artwork style is very appealing (although obviously could scare a small child). The game doesn’t have any kind of insert which is a bit annoying but the cardboard candle that acts as a tile tower more than makes up for it.

I really recommend this game if you are ok with the theme. There has just been a Kickstarter for the reprint of it and a new expansion so hopefully, there will be late backers going up for it soon as it seems pretty tricky to get at the moment although it does crop up on eBay from time to time.

When the kids are a little older I cannot wait to play this using tea lights instead of the candle meeples