Flee is the third game in the Fast Forward Series from designer Friedemann Freise, with the English edition published by Stronghold Games. Friedemann Freise always designs games beginning with the letter ‘F’, in green boxes, and with really revolutionary concepts in game design. His new games are almost experiments and the Fast Forward Series is an evolution of the fabled game system, first seen in Fabled Fruit.
The Gameplay
When you open the box for Flee, one player will find a deck of cards, in a specific order. One player will read out loud the first card of the deck, which details the rules of the game. These rules will only last so long, before you discover more rule cards lower down the deck, which change the rules, add complexity or add a new objective in the game.
Flee is a co-operative game for 1-4 players in which you are all trying to escape a monster. The game includes four characters, all from the Lewis Carroll/ Alice in Wonderland theme. Each turn, you will simply pick a card from in front of you, discard it and take its action. Your goal is to ensure that the character with the monster card never has a turn. You might do this by skipping the character in the turn order, moving the monster card or taking different actions to manipulate the game to ensure that this never happens. The game becomes a big logic puzzle.
If you ever fail, then you will put the cards back in order and start again, learning from your mistakes and finding the optimal route through the puzzle.
Flee - Coming Soon
If you don’t like reading rulebooks, then the Fast Forward Series is definitely something to look into. It’s somewhat adjacent to the legacy game concept, where the game changes whilst you play it, but it also allows you to put the game on the table and start playing immediately – no set-up or having to learn rules! You’ll learn by trial and error as you play and you’ll need a good memory to succeed!
Flee is a really puzzly co-operative game and it’s certainly a challenge. It has an Alice in Wonderland theme that’s definitely appealing and different. If you’re looking for a completely different experience around the game table then Flee is certainly worth keeping an eye out for!