In the darkness, you can see almost nothing. The uneven surfaces of the narrow white corridors cause the encroaching blackness to dance against the flickering light of your lone, half-burnt down candle. As you take your next step you hear a soft cracking sound and with the step after that the ground you had just stood on falls out behind you. There is an eerie silence as you move down the corridor, and several times now you have thought you saw something moving just beyond the light. You look in each direction as the claustrophobia tightens its grip on your psyche before deciding to go back and try another route, but as you do so the path is not the same; something has changed and the route goes a different way now. Then you see… it. The dark has a shape and as it turns it reveals a set of eyes that look straight through your horrified soul. A tentacle lashes out and you feel a stinging pain in your body, but even worse is the fact that your candle has gone out. You panic, turn, and run blindly down the darkened hallway. Before you get very far, however, you hear another crack as the ground again gives way and you fall deep into the eternal blackness.

The Night Cage is one of Smirk & Laughter Game‘s newest releases. It was originally spawned into existence via a Kickstarter campaign in the Summer of 2020. This immersive, dark, horror-themed board game was designed by Christopher Ryan Chan, Chris McMahon, and Rosswell Saunders. The enveloping darkness portrayed by the aesthetics of the game is conceived by Christopher Ryan Chan’s artwork and really brings the project together. The game itself focuses on tile placement, an ever-changing labyrinth, and an experience in which the players will either succumb to or escape the darkness altogether.

In setting up a game, each prisoner of The Night Cage will need a Prisoner Status Card, a Prisoner Token of matching color, a Starting Tile, and one Nerve Token. Depending on player count and difficulty chosen the rules will explain what tiles to remove from the pool before shuffling and placing them in the candle-shaped holder per the book’s instructions. There will always be at least 4 prisoners so in a game with fewer players they will need to split them evenly or take turns controlling the extra. Should a 5th person decide to face the darkness there is an extra set of components for them as well. A game of up to 4 players will use the 6×6 side of the board, but if playing with 5 then use the 7×7 side and place it in the center of the group. 1 metal key per prisoner should be set on the board’s corner in their space, the remaining Nerve Tokens in the opposite corner, the filled Tile Holder goes next to the board, put the Discard Board next to the holder, and returning any unused components to the box. The host of this trip through horror will be the first player. Next, each prisoner in turn order will place their Starting Tile in the orientation of their choosing upon an unoccupied square of the board’s grid and in turn their Player Token upon that tile. Their candle will illuminate a single space in each open direction, so they will draw tiles and peel away the darkness as best they can.

The Night Cage is a prison without bars. All hope is not lost, however, since if each prisoner manages to find a key while traveling in the lightless maze and meet with the others at a gate, they may turn their keys in unison to unlock the egress. On a prisoner’s turn, they may choose to stay in place, hopefully gaining a bit of nerve to spend later, or move down a connected corridor. Pits will open up, and if a player is still occupying that tile they will plunge into the shadowed depth beneath their feet. Monsters will next trigger per their rules before the current player removes any tiles that are no longer illuminated and places any new ones they may have revealed. Monsters have different effects, and players should beware of them removing too many tiles from the draw pile, as once that is exhausted Final Flickers is triggered and the darkness will soon consume the entire board. At this point no new tiles can be placed, unilluminated tiles are removed as normal, and a single lit tile must be removed as well at the end of each turn. Will the prisoners be able to find their way to the gate and each other before all is devoured by darkness?

Beyond the core box lies even more terror in the form of The Endbringer. It is the first micro expansion to the game and brings new mechanics with its own form of prisoner eradication. We were lucky enough to get ourselves a copy of this horror to add to our struggles in the inky gloom and truly hope it is but the first to come our way. This woe will eat away at the draw deck each turn, thus hastening the prisoners’ demise as they struggle to endure and contest their fate.

While The Night Cage may not be a game to play year-round, it has our attention for the current ambiance of the October season. It stands as a brilliant delve into the theme of human dismay. Players must work together or they will all die alone. The unknown in the darkness that constantly threatens to end, not just one, but all prisoners’ lights, bring an ambiance to the game that helps drive home the struggle that is exemplified. There is so much theme here, and if you take just a bit of effort to help bring it up a notch, such as playing in the dark with candles as we did, then the game is so much fun! We had a hard time getting gamers to play anything else during the game nights this was on the roster and cannot recommend it enough to those even slightly interested. As always, any game that can be taught in under 10 minutes and enjoyed for hours will make our cut, but The Night Cage is a slice of horror that exceeds our expectations in the genre and stands as a testament all its own.

All photos of Smirk and Laughter Games‘ products were taken and edited by Krista.