Rush Out! is an asymmetric one vs many dice rolling game where one player represents an evil sorcerer and the other 1-4 players are hero adventurers trying to escape. The premise for Thomas Dupont's game is that the adventurers have already looted the sorcerer's underground maze and now they are just trying to escape before the sorcerer catches them.
There's a thick deck of spell cards and each card shows the symbols needed by the heroes to complete it. Heroes are frantically rolling their three custom six-sided dice in order to generate the symbols needed: they can choose to work on individual cards but they will need also to collaborate to complete cards (some have more symbols on them than a single player has dice). However, no more than two heroes can place their dice on any one card. Get through the deck and the heroes win. They have succeeded in Rushing Out of the dungeon.
Of course, it's not quite that simple. It's not just the heroes that are rolling dice, the sorcerer has their own set of five custom six-sided dice and they are also placing them out on cards (tho' no-one can have their dice on more than one card at a time). If the sorcerer completes a spell card, then the spell takes effect: typically the spell will remove heroes' dice from an incomplete card, add a card to the heroes' deck or advance the dragon towards the heroes' deck: if the dragon reaches the deck, then it's game over for the heroes.
That's the basic game in a nutshell. It's fast, furious and often frustrating - especially for the heroes when they see the sorcerer wipe off all the dice from an almost-completed card. Real-time games are mostly high on adrenaline and Rush Out! is certainly no exception. Heroes need to communicate almost instinctively with each other - you can expect any hesitancy or dilly dallying to be immediately exploited by the sorcerer. Games run to at least 20 minutes, and that's a long time to sustain unremitting speed dice rolling action! Game can feel stressful or exhilarating - depending on how well you respond to that adrenaline Rush Out!
Sit Down! have done a great job in the production of this game, with art by Alexandre Bonvalot and a series of 'scenarios' that incrementally add extra card effects. Of course, these give players more to think about, so you need to watch out to ensure that that extra layer of decisions doesn't slow down your dice rolling action...
If you can take the stress, this game is great fun, and suitable for all the family. You should Rush Out! to buy a copy!