Fled Board Game Review (With The Spector & The Governor's Hound Expansions)

Fled

WBG Score: 7.5

Player Count 1-4 (Solo with expansion)

You’ll like this if you like: Tile laying games with a twist!

Published by: Odd Bird Games

Designed by: Mark K. Swanson

This is a free review copy of the game. Note, pictures in this review include a roll mat that is not included in the base game. See our review policy here

At its core, Fled is all about trying to outsmart the system while racing to collect the most victory points before you finally break free from a prison that you are for some reason trapped in! You spend each turn adding new tiles to the prison, slowly building out a maze of cells, corridors and hidden rooms. Then you use the rest of your hand to sneak from place to place, picking up contraband along the way. Some rooms like the Warders Quarters give you a chance to trade your stash for the tools you will need to get past the outer wall and make your escape. But you have to be careful with your wandering. If you are not in the right spot when the Governor calls roll call, the nearest Warden could throw you in shackles or worse send you straight to solitary. Let's get it to the table and see how it plays.

How To Set Up Fled

Start by shuffling the room tiles and placing them skull side up in a few neat stacks off to one side of the table. If there are only two of you playing, take out the tiles that are marked for three or more players and set them aside. Next find the starting yard tile and put it right in the centre of the table. Place a warder meeple on top of it, making sure not to use the chaplain. The prison will eventually grow to as far as six squares out from the yard tile, so try to leave plenty of space around it so you do not run out of room. The game mat helps here!

Next, each player chooses a prisoner tile and the matching bunk tile in their chosen colour. Place your prisoner tile next to a reference tile in front of you and put any prisoner tiles, bunk tiles or reference tiles you do not need back in the box. Now take the governor tile and place it on the table opposite the stacks of room tiles. Put the whistle charm on top of it. Then shuffle the roll call tiles and place them in a row to the left of the governor tile. Make sure all the windows are closed except for the tile that is next to the governor which should stay open. You do this simply by flipping the tiles.

From the draw stacks, each player picks a hand of five room tiles and keeps them hidden from everyone else. Choose someone at random to go first. Taking turns, each player connects the corridor side of their bunk tile to the yard tile in any direction as long as it lines up properly. Place your meeple onto your bunk tile once it is in place.

You are now ready to start playing. If you want, you can sound the whistle to let everyone know that the governor expects them to be in a bunk room, or simply just start!

How To Play Fled

The goal of Fled is to get the most victory points while planning your escape from prison.

Each turn you add a tile to the prison. You then use other tiles to move around and collect contraband. Some rooms, like the Warders Quarters, let you swap contraband for tools you will need to get past the outer wall.

Players take it in turns until either one player escapes, or all the tiles are used on up. On your turn you place a tile into the prison. One half of the tile must fully touch one other half of another tile. Windows must connect to windows. Doors to doors. Archways can connect to anything. If you have a tile with a Gold scroll in the top right corner you must place this tile if you can. If it shows a warder symbol, add a warder meeple. If it shows a moon, change the roll call tiles to show the passing of time.

The edge of the prison must be made of forest tiles. The forest must be exactly six squares away from the starting yard tile and never closer. You cannot place any other room on the sixth square. You cannot build past the sixth square. If you cannot place any tile from your hand, place one tile face up next to the Governor tile. This becomes part of the Governors inventory.

If your tile shows a warder and moon symbol, place a warder meeple on that tile. If the tile shows a cross, place the chaplain warder instead. Then flip the open roll call tile over so the window is closed. After that, flip the next roll call tile along further from the Governor so the next window is now open. This shows time passing. Do not move the whistle charm when you do this.

After adding your tile, you must play two more tiles from your hand. You can use these tiles in different ways. You can repeat the same way twice or do two different ways.

First, you can discard a tile to move your pawn or move a warder on the map of tiles you have started to build up. Tools shown on purple or gold scrolls let you do this. A tool on a gold scroll counts as two tools. A shamrock acts as a wild tool. It can be any single tool you wish. Each shamrock you keep in your inventory also lets you hold one extra tile. Discard a boot to move through rooms with an archway, a file to move through windows, a key to go through a door, and a spoon to climb into a tunnel on any tunnel you are on to pop up in any other tile with a tunnel icon within three rooms of where you started.

Second, you can play a whistle tile to move a warder. If you move a warder into the same room as a fellow prisoner (or even yourself if you were so inclined!), and that room does not match the symbols on the current roll call posters, you can shackle that player. Take a random tile from their hand and place it face down next to their reference tile. That player now has minus one victory point. Unlucky!

If the player was already shackled, do not take a tile. Instead send their pawn back to their bunk and remove the shackle. Put the shackle tile face up in the Governors inventory. If the solitary confinement room is built and you target an already shackled player, place their pawn in the solitary hole. On their next turn they lose that turn and move back to their bunk. Again, the shackle tile goes to the Governor.

You can also play a whistle tile to move the chaplain. Move the whistle one spot along on the roll call tiles when you do this. If the chaplain is in the same room as a prisoner, that player can be freed from shackles. Give the shackle tile to the Governor face up. The chaplain can also trade contraband for tools and shamrocks.

If your pawn is next to a forest tile and you have the tools shown on the folded parchment on this forest tile, then you can escape the prison. Discard the shown tools and jump the wall If it is night-time, shown by the moon on the roll call tile under the whistle charm, you need only one tool, shown on the right of the parchment. Don't forget, a gold scroll counts as two tools. and a shamrock can be any tool. Once you escape your turn ends, and you gain five bonus points, as shown by flipping your prisoner tile to show the escaped side. Everyone else has one final turn, then the game is over.

You can also surrender a tile you cannot use to the Governor by putting it face up next to his tile. You might draw this tile later from his inventory. You can also add tiles to your inventory. Contraband items are shown on teal scrolls. If your pawn is in a room that matches the posters on the roll call tile with the whistle charm, you may put a matching contraband tile from your hand face up into your inventory for free.

If your pawn is in the warders quarters or in the same room as the chaplain, you can trade contraband to add tools or shamrocks to your inventory. Tools on purple scrolls cost one contraband. Shamrocks or tools on gold scrolls cost two contraband. When you do this, simply remove the spent contraband tiles to the discard pile. Your inventory sits next to your prisoner tile. You can hold up to three tiles in it. If you have any shamrocks in your inventory, you can hold four.

At the end of your turn draw tiles to refill your hand back to to five. You can draw from the draw stack or the Governors inventory if there are tiles there. If there are no tiles left to draw, reshuffle the discard pile to make a new draw stack. If a player cannot refill their hand to five tiles at the end of their turn, the game ends at once. In this case no one escapes. But there will still be a winner.

Count victory points shown on the scrolls in your inventory. The starting yard tile shows how many points each scroll colour is worth. Add five points if you escaped. Lose one point if you are shackled. Tiles left in your hand do not score anything.

The player with the most victory points wins. If players tie, the one with the highest value scroll in their inventory wins. If still tied, they share the victory.

The Spector Expansion

This is a solo or multiplayer expansion. But mainly seems to be about allowing the game to now work in solo mode. The multiplayer mode simple works by adding in the new tile and ghost meeple to the game. When you activate the whistle to move the Warder, you can now move the Ghost one room as you wish. Any ghost encountering a prisoner sends the Prisoner running scared back to their bunk. No shackles are added, it just slows you down.

In solo mode, simply add in the ghost reference tile to the left of the main reference tile. Then replace the chaplain tile and meeple with the ghost ones. Then, play as usual, but after each of your turns, the Ghost has its own turn!

On the Ghosts turn, flip three tiles from the the main stacks and choose one to add to the prison. If one of the tiles is a gold scroll you must pick this one if you can. If any of the tiles have a Shamrock or Whistle you must pick one to set aside, it cannot be added to the prison. When you add the tile that summons a Warder or ghost, you must add it to the prison in a way that is most dangerous to you. Come on, don't be scared! If you cannot add a tile to the prison simple add it to the governors inventory like normal. If any of the remaining two tiles has a Shamrock or whistle then the Whistle effect is triggered. The nearest Warder and Ghost must move towards you. The ghost can move without any restriction. Is is a Ghost after all. The final tile is surrender to the Governor.

If the whistle makes its way back to the Governors roll call tole before you escape you lose the game. If you cannot replenish your hand like in the normal game, you also lose. And if the Ghost meeple ever reaches you you also lose! You win only by escaping. There is a score system to see how well you did. Oh, and a cute Ghost Meeple to play with!

The Governor's Hound Expansions

Talking of cute meeples, this expansion brings in a little doggy meeple! Need any more info? Fine...

Begin the game with the dog on the starting yard tile. Add in the six new tiles that introduce a three new bone symbol and three more wild Shamrocks. When you discard a bone tile you can move the dog up to three rooms. The dog cannot move through windows, but anything else is fair game. Including tunnels, where the dog can pop up in any tunnel when it uses them. The room where the dog is will work just like the charms location, and will allow you to add matching contraband to your inventory to that rooms symbol. Adding bones tiles to your inventory adds two points to your final score.

Is It Fun? Fled Board Game Review (With The Spector & The Governor's Hound Expansions)

There’s something very satisfying about slowly building the prison around you, tile by tile, never quite sure if you’re helping yourself, helping another player, or making life harder later on. Each turn feels like adding another piece to a living, breathing maze, as corridors stretch away, new rooms appear and warders start to patrol. It turns the table into a story that changes every game, and that sense of watching the prison take shape in front of you is half the fun.

I also love how every move forces you to make choices that feel sneaky but clever. Do you spend your turn darting into the Warders Quarters to swap contraband for tools and gain points along the way? Or do you take the risk and stray further out in the open to grab something better next time? The roll call adds real tension to this decision. You never quite know when the Governor will summon everyone, and if you’re caught in the wrong place you could find yourself in shackles or sent to solitary. It keeps you thinking, trying to plan a couple of steps ahead; but without decisions ever feeling too heavy.

Then there’s the thrill of actually trying to actually escape. You have to collect just the right mix of tools or shamrocks, watch for nightfall when it gets easier, and hope no one else beats you to it. The moment you finally leap over the wall, flip your prisoner tile and know you’ve made it out is brilliant. Even then the game isn’t quite over, because everyone else gets one last turn to catch up or spoil your lead. But you know you will have given yourself a very good chance.

But if you don’t win, it will still feel like you’ve taken part in a story right there on the table in front of you. You might have dodged warders, and ghosts, hidden in chapels, made deals, or sent someone else running back to their bunk. It’s messy and a bit unpredictable, but that’s what makes it great. At the end of it all you sit back, look at the prison you built together and the chaos that happened inside, and you can’t help but smile as you tell the stories of the game you just played.