Design Diary | Escape the Living Library
October 2024
You love reading books and enjoy spending time at your local library. But who would have guessed it could transform into a nightmare after midnight? As the darkest hours unfold, navigate the eerie halls of the haunted library, relying on your knowledge, dwindling stamina, and shield (thick books) to make it through the night!
Escape the Living Library- a game where you need to run for your life through different levels of a spooky library. With your limited knowledge, failing stamina, and shield (thick books), how far can you survive? Can you make it out alive?
Number of players: a 1-player game
Components: 1 or 2-page print, along with dice and maybe a few tokens to track vitals
Vitals: Knowledge, Stamina, and Shield.
Each level of the library: Art, fiction, horror, romance, history, thriller, and literature.
November 2024

Decided to opt for a section of the library (side view) instead of the floor plan (top view). The player will roll 2 dice on each round of the game. and refer to the Dice Chart.Â
I developed a Dice chart for the game with two mechanisms:
1. Gain or Lose: If the rolled dice are unidentical, then the player gets to place each of the rolled die on the gain and lose section of the dice chart. The concept of Opportunity Cost kicks in. To gain something, the player has to lose something. So he/she needs to be mindful about which vitals to increase/decrease.
2. Doubles: If the rolled dice are identical, then boom! The players are in for quite an advantage. Be it increasing the vitals by 3 points, or increasing all of them by 1 point, all the 6 possible combinations that the 2 matching dice can bring have to be a game changer.
Through the Dice Chart, the player will try their best to keep the vitals in check. In the event any of the vitals drop to zero, the player loses the game.
Time to add strategic elements to the game!
#1- Each of the floors of the haunted library will test the player’s vitals. E.g. the first level (history) will test the Knowledge of the player, to the extent that for every round a player stays in level 1, they lose a Knowledge point. So it’s in the player’s best interest to escape the level as quickly as possible. Which vital is in threat, and how many points are in the equation will vary from level to level.
#2- How will the player move (more like RUN) through the levels of the library?
+ The player will roll the 2 dice together.
If the player rolls unidentical dice (e.g. a 2 and a 4)
+ First thing first, the player will pace the dice on the Dice Chart and decide which vitals to increase/decrease.
+ Next, the player will either move 2 or 4 spaces. It’s up to the player. Of course, it makes sense to pick the largest number to travel as quickly as possible. But be wary, each level also has its representing TRAPS. If you fall into a Knowledge trap, you lose a knowledge point, and so on. So where you land at the end of a move is quite critical.
+ Once your moving phase is over, the Zone Impact will take place. That is, you will get 1 or 2 points docked (reduced) depending on which floor of the library you are in. If you’re in level 1 (history), you will lose 1 point of Knowledge if you end a round in that level.
If the player rolls identical dice (e.g. two 3s)
+ It’s the best thing that can happen to you. You will reap the rewards, and that’s basically it. You won’t move through the library if you roll a double.
To summarize:
Rolling unidentical dice > Allocate Dice in Dice Chart > Increase/Decrease points based on allocation of Dice > Move through the Library > Zone Impact (reduction of points based on which zone you are in)
Rolling identical dice > Increase points > No movement > No Zone Impact
December 2024

A few interesting changes in the game:
+ Condensed the game to a 1-page format. A page with (almost) no language barrier is all you need to play the game. That and 6 dice! 2 dice for rolling, 3 dice for counting vitals (Knowledge, Stamina, and Shield), and 1 dice to represent the player. No additional tokens are required anymore!
+ The player (represented by a dice) will start the game with 6 health points, as indicated by a 6 on the dice. The same applies to the 3 vitals. The instant the number on the dice (for vitals) is 1, and the game prompts the player to drop more points, it’s game over.
How Vitals are dropping:
– Through the gain and lose section of the game
– Through landing on a trap
– Through Zone impact at the end of every round.
How the Health of the player contributes to the game:
The instant a vital drops to 1, and the game prompts the player to lose more points, the player can stay alive by reducing the points from his/her health. It’s the last resort for the player to stay alive in the game.
+ Introduction of an event at the end of every level: at the end of every level, the player has 2 choices; either to increase any one of the vitals by 1 point, OR by rolling one die and seeing what’s in his/her fate in the wild card. You may end up increasing health coins, having multiple vitals, or even gaining NOTHING!
The one-page format so far has been quite fruitful. The game duration is ranging from 15 to 20 minutes. Which is great! I’m trying to bring a balance in strategy and luck, and the current version seems to be doing it. I’m looking forward to digitizing it soon.
January 2025

The new year is off to a great start, as I have finally developed the first draft of the digital version of Escape the Living Library! The game currently has 6 levels (reduced it from the initial 7 and made each levels longer than before) and takes about 15 to 20 minutes to play. The library is intricately detailed, and can be an amazing art project especially if printed in an A3. I am thinking of providing an A3 version of the game file, along with the conventional A4 when I release it.
The game is undergoing a series of playtests, with a few more changes expected to come. The traps, penalties on each level, and the incorporation of dice so far has made the game quite enticing. With more playtests and tweaks coming along the way, the plan to make the game better with the final revisions.
I’m aiming to launch it on Early/Mid February, preferably at Itch. Maybe at PnP Arcade as well, who knows!
Follow the game on Board Game Geek

Tasliman is a board game developer based in Bangladesh, with the dream of exploring the world of games and introducing it to anyone new to it. He is the founder of Kraftz, a brand that develops board games commercially, as well as with reputed entities like BRAC and The Gates Foundation.