The Night Cage is a horror genre co-op game involving an escape from the maze play style. The narrative is centered around a group(the players) waking in a secluded and dark labyrinth with nothing but dim candles lighting their view. This story progresses as you and your team wander through the labyrinth encountering trials and tribulations of a constantly rearranging maze filled with monsters, traps, and the possibility of eventual death. The need to escape and the tight restrictions given for movement through the maze, whether it be by the dim candlelight, or the presence of monsters, is what drives the tension and fear to bring this game into the genre of horror. Candle lights flickering, danger at every corner, and the knowledge that eventually, you and your group will run out of options but to gather together as the tiles you could once reliably stand on crumble and fall apart underneath.
The goal of the game is for all players to escape the prison together, before their candles die. In the process, monsters and other bad guys may catch/kill them, the players may walk on crumbling tiles and fall to the pit; the players may run out of cards before all players get a key or before all players can get to the same gate; and the board is unknown to the players until they “illuminate” it using their candlelight. The game has various lose states to build conflict and make the game horrific.
Mechanics in The Night Cage are based on player movement and navigation across the board.
To navigate the board, you will be placing down tiles drawn from a tile stack. There are 100 tiles; 5 start tiles, 8 keys, 4 gates, 13 Wax Eaters, 10 straight passages, 32 T passages, and 12 4-way passages. On the back side of every tile is a pit. When beginning the game, you will put down your start tile anywhere on the board. You will then draw a tile to connect to one of the two passages. From there on, whenever you step on a new tile, you will draw tiles equal to the amount of passages on your current tile. Tiles must connect to one another to be able to move across them. Some of the tiles are crumbling tiles. You’re allowed to walk onto a crumbling tile. If you choose to stay on it, or once you move off of it, it will turn into a pit. If you fall into a pit, you will move your prisoner token onto the edge of the board, either by the edge of the row or column you last occupied. You must discard all tiles no longer illuminated by your light. At the start of your next turn, you may choose any empty, unlit space along the row or column you chose. You draw a tile to land on, put your token on it, illuminate any unlit connected spaces around you, and then perform your turn as normal. When drawing a tile to land on, if you land on a monster, the monster attacks you before you illuminate. After the attack and penalties, move onto an adjacent tile or, if none, draw a tile to move into an unlit space. If you fall and there are no more tiles to draw, you are lost to the darkness and the game is over.
The most integral rule to movement in The Night Cage is the integration of artificial darkness to create an ever-changing maze. When a player moves forward they illuminate the spaces immediately next to them in a cross-section and place drawn tiles strategically to create a path. However, when a player moves again, the tiles are no longer illuminated by that cross-section. These tiles are discarded so that when the player moves back, their path choices will be different. This simulation of darkness and confusion allowed players to both retain agency in the choice of which tiles to keep illuminated and lose agency by losing tiles to the darkness. This creates a constant strategic struggle between the players and the environment and emphasizes the player’s need to work together to keep certain areas lit and plunge others into darkness.
Which areas to keep lit or in the dark is a constantly changing risk factor based on the tiles players draw and place every turn. At any given time a player can draw a monster, or “Wax Eater,” tile which they have to place in one of their illuminated spaces. The monster can attack any player in its row or column as long as there is a connecting path. Plunging a path into darkness can interrupt a monster’s line of sight to attack. A player can also choose to create a pit to block a monster. However, there are also tiles a player must be cautious to keep lit. To escape the Prison, each player must collect a key and meet the other players at the gate. If a Monster is positioned near a Key or Gate Tile, it may not be in the player’s best interest to plunge those tiles into darkness because both tiles are limited. These obstacles and goals raise the stakes of player movement and provide consequences to the tension between light and darkness.
When attacked by a monster, a player will go “Lights Out.” They will flip their Prisoner Status card to the other side. You no longer illuminate the tiles adjacent to you, and must remove all tiles being lit by you when entering Lights Out. You must move every turn, draw a tile for that new movement, and discard the tile you were previously standing on. If you land on a monster tile, you will immediately get hit alongside any other connected players. To be relit, you must pass a player who’s candle is lit, or vice versa.
There are two difficulty modes in The Night Cage; beginner and advanced. In beginner mode, you are dealing with one monster; the Wax Eater. In the advanced mode, you are dealing with two new monsters; the Keepers and Pit Fiends. You will replace your key tiles with Keeper tiles and add two Pit Fiends to your tile stack. The Keepers are now holders of the keys, and you must obtain the key from them by stepping on them and grabbing it OR grabbing it from behind. Keepers attack similarly to Wax Eaters, but they cannot attack behind them; grabbing the key from behind them is the only safe way to obtain the key. Keeper tiles will remain, even if not illuminated, until the key has been obtained. You cannot block Keeper attacks using Nerve if ranged, but you can if you are adjacent to a Keeper. If you fall onto a Keeper and grab a key, the Keeper immediately becomes a pit, and you must scramble onto an existing or newly-drawn adjacent piece. Pit Fiends are monsters that do not attack directly, but can change your board in devastating ways. When placed, they will automatically change all tiles diagonal to them (in all directions) to pits, including keys, gates, and monsters. If a Pit Fiend changes a tile that a player is on, the player immediately falls, even if it is not their turn. After a Pit Fiend performs this, it will also turn into a pit.
Additionally, you can tweak your games in many ways to adjust difficulty. For example, you can add or remove key and gate tiles to adjust the difficulty whichever way you prefer. There are also boss monsters you can add in for extra difficulty. First is the Pathless, who you can incorporate by adding 2-3 of its tiles to the draw stack. The Pathless attacks similar to Wax Eaters, except that it can attack over walls, pits, and gaps, and that it causes 5 cards to be discarded. Their attack cannot be blocked using Nerve. Finally, there is the Dirge, who covers 9 tiles worth of space and impacts over a quarter of the board when it arrives. To include the Dirge, incorporate two Omen tiles into the draw stack. When you find the first Omen, place it alongside the board and choose a new tile to replace it. When the second Omen tile is drawn, place it onto the board as you would any other tile, as it serves as an anchorpoint for the Dirge token. You must place the Dirge onto the board so that it overlaps the Omen you placed. It cannot hang off the board (it must fit within the board edges), and you can experiment with placement before deciding a final placement. When placed, everything beneath it is swallowed in darkness. Any players underneath the Dirge will go Lights Out, discard 3 tiles, and fall into a Pit. You can block using Nerve to only discard 2 tiles. All other tiles beneath the Dirge are taken off and discarded. After resolving all these effects, flip the Dirge token to the other side, and it becomes a massive pit. This pit will stay until no longer lit by any player candles.
The Rule Book contains an Overview, Contents, Set up, Light and Darkness, Playing the Game, Nerve, and Final Flicker sections which walk you through the different mechanics of the game. The rules have diagrams that illustrate how to place tiles and how movement works across the map. As the tiles make up a majority of the gameplay a lot of the rules revolve around how to interpret and interface with the tiles themselves. The rules also help build the world of Nightcage with titles like ‘A Cage Without Bars’ adding a spooky atmosphere to the rules. The rules also separate out advance play from casual play leaving the rules simplified for a more casual audience. The game itself is the enemy and the players have to survive. The game creates a fantastic environment for suspense and tension as you try to navigate the game with your teammates. In horror games like The Night Cage, the game’s difficulty creates a collaborative environment that encourages communication between players. Rules that make players dependent on each other, like a win state that requires all the players to have a certain item, make social engagement necessary for a successful game. Additionally, gameplay that directly impacts the board forces players to interact. For example, Nightcage has limited tiles so there is a sense of scarcity and the threat of not optimizing a tile placement.
Because the game has multiple lose states, the players’ goal is to play against the game in order to win, the game elicits a constant sense of worry in the players. As the number of tiles players could draw decreased, the player experience, and there was urgency, the lore felt real, and whether it’s monsters catching up to kill a player or a player not finding a key, the consequences feel sharp and large. Since all players must collaborate for the win state, the player experience was shared and no one player was enjoying/ feeling left out of the game more than any others. The game ensured that everyone was relatively at the same baseline— if not, this would be a strategic disadvantage because the players would almost certainly lose.
The Night Cage balances cooperation with the threat of limited resources. The game has a single player and up to five player gameplay options allowing for a breadth of player options. The erratic and unpredictable nature of the game’s maze and the constant decrease in tiles gave everyone a sense of fear as the game progressed and the available tiles dwindled. Nightcage successfully uses its aesthetics and theming to create tension between the players while also providing options and bosses for players who want an even more terrifying experience. The game itself requires tactful collaboration to win which puts pressure on the players to aid each other. We were unable to win on our first play through, though through working together losing still remained a rewarding experience as we were able to reflect on different ways we could have optimized our plays. The Night Cage’s basic and more complex rules depending on what level of difficulty the players want which also makes the game more replayable and adds a layer of even more fear at the threat of an even more difficult gameplay experience. Overall, The Night Cage is a collaborative game that highlights its labyrinthian premise to create an ever-changing map that keeps its players on their toes. The dark gritty color scheme paired with the ominous tendriled monsters and mechanics like “the pit” combine to create a stressful experience that leaves you wishing you just had one more tile to escape a plummet to the abyss.
Stay swag – Shayla, Elle, Nora, Antrita, Joe
