My first post to BGG being this review, it should be interpreted as a voucher of my appreciation to Escape: The Curse of the Temple this is not a throw away account, I've been lurking for quite a while, but never felt the need to post a review before.
The context
My wife and I are in our early thirties and we enjoy a board game night once in a while. This usually includes a nice meal, a long 2-3 hours game, and plenty of liquid sustenance...
But my wife is Czech, and we spend every Christmas with her family, which includes her younger siblings of 14 and 17 years old. For a few weeks each year, I'm immersed in a Czech-only environment, and no matter how many hundreds of hours I spend trying to learn the language, I can't understand more then 5% of what is said around me.
For the past 5 years, my wife's siblings and I have played a few board games with my wife playing the role of sole translator in all our communications. Although her siblings have learned enough English in school to be able to communicate with me, they are understandably shy to do so, considering their ages and up-bringing...
...until...
Until we brought Escape on our Christmas visit this year! Within five minutes of our first game, I was stuck and exclaimed myself : "I have five black masks!" To which our 14 years old shouted : "Take my golden mask !"
These were the first 4 English words that he ever spoke to me. 504
And they certainly weren't the last uttered in the following days...
Conclusion
Escape: The Curse of the Temple is a good game, or maybe even a great game. It is the only game I own that meets the estimated time needed to complete a game. It is also the only game I've played that was able to break the boundaries with my extended family. It might not be a game I'll often play with my regular gaming crowd, but praises are due where it excels : this is a fun game to play with people spanning 3 generations and it is an excellent ice-breaker. For this reason alone, it gets my first 10 stars ever awarded. 211