Escape the Apocalypse - Playtest

One of my ConTingency playtests, this time about a Lovecraftian Incursion

I ran two playtests of Escape the Apocalypse at Contingency 2026 in Hunstanton (an excellent convention I might add). I wanted to test the Robot Uprising and Lovecraftian Incursion scenarios. Both were a lot of fun, and had quite a lot of drama by the end! This is a writeup of the incursion adventure. (For the first act I was just jotting down a few notes. At the end of the first act I asked for permission to record the game because they were bringing such good drama to it, so I have more details about acts 2 and 3).

Characters

The players decided that they wanted to play in a grim genre, as befitting a lovecraftian scenario. The also decided that they would be a group of supermarket employees and patrons.

• Vivian (played by Lee Martini) is security guard in her mid twenties. Wanting to really set herself up in this career. Mostly deals with accidental shoplifting. Trope: Feels guilty.
• Betty (played by Nikki) is a cashier, single mother of two (Sophie, 7; Jeremy, 3). Plump, with a worn smile. Struggles to make ends meet. Trope: fragile.
• Simon (played by Mathew Day) is a fishmonger, bald and with a big beard. He keeps an eye out for Betty and often keeps some fish aside for her at the end of the day. Trope: Betrayal.
• Callum (played by Phil Cook) is a regular shopper. He is in his 30’s but dresses like a student. Bit of a drifter. Trope: Flawed (he shoplifts).

Beacons

• Vivian wants a legacy of helping people.
• Betty wants to find her children, Sophie (7) and Jeremy (3).
• Simon wants to find his girlfriend, Sophie.
• Callum wants refuge and a sense of belonging.

Harbingers of the apocalypse

1. With increasing frequency thunderstorms appear suddenly out of a clear sky. It becomes suddenly very dark in a matter of seconds. Then after a few minutes it clears again.
2. TV channels from some countries start to drip out and be replaced by static
3. Simon starts seeing some really weird fish being brought in to his fishmonger’s slab. Like really weird. He doesn’t recognise them at all.

Act 1

As things are getting more and more weird worries have spread across social media like wildfire, and suddenly people are panicking.

Scene 1 - supermarket

Our first scene is in the supermarket since it is their workplace. The supermarket shelves are groaning with food and supplies. Looters are grabbing things off the shelves and into trolleys, but there isn’t room for all the trolleys and fights are breaking out. Staff and security guards are shouting and trying to keep order.

Apocalypse Threat - (Jack) Strange geometries

Something has changed in the texture of space. Some angles have become dangerous. Walk down the wrong aisle and people suddenly disappear. Panic breaks out, and our protagonists start doing what they can.

• Vivian (diamond) guides people away from most dangerous aisles, sending them towards safe routes.
• Betty (spade) notices a distortion in the air near dangerous angles and tells everyone about them.
• Callum (club) has the lowest card becomes a dead man walking. he pushed someone aside who vanished,and he was nearly caught too. But he didn’t get away scott-free. His chirality is reversed by a geometry. He is now left handed and can’t properly process food.
• Simon (diamond) leads them out the back way.

Scene 2 - university

As they leave the supermarket loading area and cross into the nearby university campus, they see students pouring out of lecture theatres, sports halls, and offices. People are screaming and running. A riderless bicycle careens across the pavements before them before crashing. Cars are piling up, engines running but empty of people.

Urban Threat - (3) blocked route

Simple for them all to identify the routes which are blocked by crashed vehicles or strange geometries, so they all succeed and gather more supplies.

Along the way Vivian picks up Rick, the university traffic cop. He seems a little lost and in need of direction, so she invites him to join up with them.

Scene 3 - alley market

Their escape route takes them to an urban alley where a number of people have gathered in what looks like an impromptu car-boot sale, desperately trading what they have for what they need. They engage in the street market, swapping some of their supplies for tools and weapons.

Apocalypse Threat - (8) colour consumed, things crumble.

In the dim shadows of the alley, colours start to be drained from things and people. It’s hard to notice at first because of the poor light, but then a couple of people become still and grey, then crumble to dust.

• Betty reaches out for a loaf of bread, but it alarmingly crumbles to dust as she touches it.
• Callum steals some supplies and keeps them just for himself.
• Simon reveals unsuspected lock-picking skills that enable them to find a safe way out of the alley.
• Vivian has been focussing on watching out for strange geometries and she didn’t notice that the colour of her uniform and her skin was being drained out, but Rick spots the problem and hurries her out of the alley.

Act 2 - it is several weeks later, in a rural area

The party have moved away from the hard angles of the urban environment which seems so dangerous and into a more rural area. In particular they want to get to the school where Betty’s children are.

Scene 1 - Faded Roadside Diner

They see a faded roadside diner. There's an open sign dangling by the door, and Inside there is a jukebox playing quietly - “Hey Jude”. It is empty apart from one person sitting in a booth at the far end of the diner. She looks up sadly, and says “Join me, I’ve had this music on to try and cheer me up, but I don’t think I’ve picked the right song”.

Betty recognises her as Tanya, a teacher from her children’s school and rushes over “my children, where are my children? Are they OK?”

“When I last saw them they were OK - the children all evacuated out to the summer camp site in the mountains” Tanya replied.

“Oh God, oh God” Betty gasps, “So they, they’re…”

“When I last saw them they were OK… We lost some of the teachers to the strange geometry, just vanishing in front of our eyes. They went out in front of the children. We lost half our staff getting the children out, but we got all the kids out”

Betty hugs Tanya desperately.

Tanya hugs her back and weeps tears of relief with her.

Rick the policeman wants to know whether we can get some sausages going, because they need to pick up food and bottled water. Some of the others join him in getting sausages frying, and they look for something a bit more upbeat on the jukebox, settling on “Staying Alive”

Rural Threat - (5) feral dogs

A pack of feral dogs lured by the noise and smell of sizzling sausages. They are hungry and aggressive and will try to bring down the weakest person here.

• Betty (plays a heart) realises that they could be distracted by food, and gets Tanya to give her a couple of sausages which she tosses out of the window towards the dogs which diverts them.
• Vivian (plays a diamond) thinks for a moment about the direction the dogs came from and ducks out the back, and moves some of the fencing to make it harder for the dogs to reach them.
• Simon (plays a club) is a bit of a metalhead, and he is used to screaming and thrashing, so he starts barking aggressively at the dogs which unnerves them.
• Callum (plays a heart) although he originally berated Betty for throwing them food, realises it is a good idea and sends more food in the dog’s direction, covering their escape. At the same time he is wondering what dogs taste like, and is concerned about how long their supplies of food are going to last them…

Together with Rick and Tanya, all four are successful in overcoming the threat of the feral dogs. They quickly scavenge some supplies and tools as they leave out the back way.

Scene 2 - School House

The old school house where Betty’s children would have been comes into view. It is battered and doors are hanging open. Venturing inside they find that desks have been overturned and made into little makeshift forts with blankets over the top. Exercise books and textbooks are scattered over the floor and children’s pictures are still pinned to the wall. Everything suggests that they left here in a hurry.

They recognise that where the children had moved the desks into forts they had created lots of angles; dangerous angles. In making things to protect themselves they had actually made things worse. The group are careful to walk down the middle of corridors, keeping away from corners and edges. When they have to turn corners they start taking some weird circular steps. They are not sure how effective it is but it makes them feel better.

They make their way to Sophie (the daughters) classroom. Betty’s son Jeremy was in childcare here, and Betty had always told Sophie to look out for him. Tanya says that Sophie had taken his hand with a serious look on her little face.

Vivian notices that there are lots of blank papers pinned to the wall, but closer examination shows that they were crayon pictures which have had all the colour drained from.

Simon draws attention to the strange sounds that they become aware of here too - the weird geometry is causing echoes from the past to be faintly heard, and while they listen it resolves into the screams of the children and the tense voice of the teachers at the time when the evacuation was happening! There are also the sounds of huge squelching footprints, but are those echoes from the past—or something happening right now?

Apocalypse Threat - (10) Unholy Spawn

Suddenly a huge black monstrosity starts squeezing through the doorway of the room they are in! An unearthly monstrosity of tentacles, ooze, and darkness. The tentacles reach out hungrily towards them all!

• Callum (plays a spade, uses assistance from Tanya) has been hanging around with Tanya the school teachers, and uses his cunning to keep her between himself and the monster.
• Vivian (plays a diamond) thinks she has to take charge here, and in her best security guard voice steps up with a raised hand and ineffectually bumbles out something about “halt, no, er, shoplifting”
• Betty (plays a spade) can hear her daughter Sophie’s voice in the screams that are echoing from the past and it galvanises her into action - she starts grabbing desks and dragging them into orientations to create dangerous angles, and it works. The monster shies away from her and the others, leaving them a route out.
• Simon takes the opportunity to grab Vivian and direct her away from danger and together they escape out the fire exit while the horror is momentarily delayed by the angles of the tables.

Looking around after the helter-skelter run for safety they realise that Rick the policeman isn’t with them anymore. Worse, he has betrayed them and run off with a lot of their spare food! Simon is particularly gutted that someone he had trusted has betrayed them. Callum is of the opinion that people they come across are going to be less and less trustworthy as the perils of the apocalypse continue to bite.

Betty wants to press on to the summer camp location, but first they want to get some additional supplies, so they head off to a nearby abandoned mine where they might find supplies.

Scene 3 - Abandoned Mine

The mines extend deep into the rock. They're still lit by flickering emergency lights and seem like a refuge from the danger outside. The pit props are creaking slightly under the weight but the sound is dwarfed by the echoes from the past here, which are from further back in time - people talking normally, sounding normal. It can’t have been that long ago, but it feels like an eternity.

Vivian is a bit concerned about all the sharp angles in the mines, but Callum reminds her that the miners follow the seams of valuable minerals, which makes it much more organic than she fears. Nonetheless they proceed carefully.

Rural Threat - (7) Maddened Livestock

They disturb a herd of maddened pigs which had been sheltering here, and the chunky beasts charge them in a frenzy. Vivian as a confirmed city dweller realises that her city life had not prepared her for the size of actual pigs.

• Simon (plays a diamond) and uses his skill to open the doors to an elevator cage, to give them protection.
• Callum (plays a spade) uses his cunning to attract them towards him, then pulls himself up on a beam so that they run underneath.
• Vivian (pays a weak heart) wants to do something to help the pigs but...
• Betty (plays a heart) grabs her in a hug and turns Vivian around to protect her as the pigs charge past. Tanya isn’t able to help anyone as she cowers in fear, and then the pigs are gone.

Together they manage to gather enough food to keep them together as they prepare to head out into the wilderness and the summer camp.

Elsewhere

• Now some weeks have passed, we see that some people have decided that you can sacrifice people to stop things, and cults are starting to spring up. Charismatic people leading these groups are starting to sacrifice those who are less helpful to the group. They should have been more loyal, more believing in the new world.
• There are people who have lost love ones seeking out places where the echoes of the past allows them to hear their voices once again.
• Nature is becoming more dangerous, even rabbits are attacking people.
• All of nature is rebelling against humanity, predator and prey collaborating together and going feral against humans.

Act 3 - a few months later, in the wilderness

It’s a trek towards the summer camp destination, and it is now more than a month since the incursion started.

Scene 1 - Observatory

This observatory is abandoned and has been clearly damaged by the apocalypse. There are bits of bones of people who used to work here — not gnawed by animals, but strangely bisected. Flesh has rotted off them, but there are signs that some of them may have been sacrificed by other humans, in a kind of ritual sense.

Inside, the huge telescope peers up through the open dome, and there is a computer that seems to still have some power. Tanya continues to cower behind them as they investigate further. Vivian investigates the computer, keen to see whether it is possible to find an uplink to a scientific community, and discover something about the research they have here. Callum is a bit concerned about revealing their presence to others though because of the way that people are turning on one another.

There is evidence that the children camped here for a while, but some packs have been left. Not all moved on. Betty starts desperately checking every single pack looking for something that relates to her children. She is muttering a little mantra to herself “they will be OK, they will be OK” as she tries to hang on to her fragile sanity.

Threats (K) Sky Tentacles and (4) Ticks

Suddenly the sky turns black with storm clouds and thunder, and then out of portals in the sky vast tentacles come reaching down, grasping and collecting things. They snake inside the observatory roof, trying to grab at the members of the group.

Vivian tries to use things they have learned before to create some protective angles to shelter them, but to no avail and she is thrashed aside. A tentacle wraps around the bag which Betty is holding and hauls her aloft as she is unwilling to release it! Callum opens fire with a shotgun they had found and although the shells don’t penetrate the tentacles skin it releases the bag, and then the tentacle retreats up to the sky. Betty crashes down, and becomes a dead man walking after that narrow escape.

Callum realises that being a mirror version of himself has affected his psychology too, as he is getting angrier and more authoritarian. He knows something is wrong. The difficulty he has in digesting things has made him more gaunt and he isn’t sleeping well either.

Scene 2 - Satellite Control Centre

Pressing on towards a valley, they come to the satellite control centre which had a school visitors centre next to it. Again the doors hang open and the roof has been ripped open by an earlier attack of sky tentacles. There is no evidence of people here at all though. Everybody had ben snatched. It’s like this place was deliberately chosen. Maybe they were working on something relevant here? Callum is muttering to himself about secrets.

They find Sophie’s bag. Vivian goes and touches Betty on the shoulder to find out what was wrong. Betty thinks that Sophie didn’t make it and just keeps repeating “she didn’t make it, she didn’t make it” Vivian comforts her, telling her that we know she got away from the school, and she could have just dumped her bag here. “Who knows what happened when the tentacles came down and the roof peeled open? They might have literally grabbed the children and ran for it. She might be OK. Jeremy too”. At the mention of Jeremy, Betty nods slightly, but is somewhat out of it.

Threats - (J) Deadly Geometry, and (8) Bear

The threats they encounter here are a bear and the deadly geometry again. They don’t have the cards to beat it, and things work out badly for everyone as the bear comes in. Callum tries to use Betty as a bit of a defence for himself, saying “Sophies gone, perhaps you ought to just stay here with her memory” being a properly horrible person. Vivian grabs Betty and wants to get her to safety while Betty flails ineffectually at the bear. Vivian gets them into the office, but in a thoughtless moment she puts her hand round a corner and loses most of her fingers on her left hand. Simon bravely charges the bear to try to knock it into some bad geometry and he is somewhat successful. The bear drops into three steaming pieces but the geometry does something to Simon. Suddenly he is ashen white, his beard and eyebrows fall out, and he looks gaunt as if he hasn’t eaten in a week. It’s almost as if it is a different version of him. Callum feels more kinship with him now.

Scene 3 - Hunting Lodge

This is on the outskirts of the summer camp and play park next to what was a luxury hunting lodge. But now the lodge is partially collapsed. Charred with fire, burnt journal pages and bodies. There are signs that this was a centre of some cult activity. Maybe it was a big ritual that went wrong - or that went right but didn’t spare them. There is writing on the wall that shifts slightly when you look away from it. Everything is written in a super cursive form. Nobody is writing in angular letter forms. The roof didn’t collapse, it was peeled open from above.

Threats - (K) Sky Tentacles and (8) Wolf pack

They can hear wolves howling in the distance, but the sky tentacles are back. Storm clouds gather out of a clear sky, lightning flashes and once more tentacles reach down, questing for people.

Callum steps up to it, less to fight it and more to welcome and worship it in an aggressive manner. Betty and Simon jointly have the lowest cards, and Simon decides that he is going to sacrifice himself to protect them all. He thrusts the photograph of his girlfriend Sophie to Betty and says “find her please” and then makes his move. He knows this lodge was used by a rock star he used to follow, and Freddies guitars are all here. As the others run he plugs in the amps and decides that he is going to be the noise that attracts the creatures. He is thrashing out “Run to the hills” as several tentacles grasp him, lift him into the air and tear him asunder while the others escape…

Arrival

They manage to find the summer camp. Vivian and Betty are going to have happy endings, Callum is going to have a sad ending.

Vivian wanted a legacy of helping people, and she has helped Betty and Tanya get here safely. But as they are being processed by the people in this community she is recognised by other people she has helped and given directions to over time. Clutching her security lanyard like a talisman, she is relieved that she has been able to save some people. As she moves off, a couple from the supermarket clasp her hand and say “thank you Viv, thank you. I’m here because you directed me away from that corridor”. As other people gather round Vivian to thank her, there are tears in her eyes.

Betty hears a little voice cry out “mummy!” And Sophie is there. She had dropped her bag, but escaped with her brother. Betty kneels in tears, hugging them desperately. She was so close to giving up but… they are safe. She then does find Simon’s Sophie, and tells her that Simon had given his life to save them, and to ensure the children still have their mother. Sophie gives her a fierce hug, and becomes part of their little family unit going forwards, so she is never alone. She says that people misjudged Simon, and never saw his heart.

Callum was looking for a place of refuge where he would belong, but finds that he doesn’t belong. He has lost his humanity and sees everyone around him as problems to get around or objects to use. He drifts off with the journals that he picks up and eventually dies as an attempted cult leader. He didn’t find what he was looking for. That one wrong turn in the supermarket ruined his life.

Finale

We count up the eight secrets they have left at the end, and shared between the three survivors this rounds to up to three on average. Because this is a Grim genre, it means that the ending for humanity is bleak. What does this look like?

• People realise that right angles are so dangerous people abandoned buildings built along those patterns. But even when people set papers and pens parallel to one another, patterns build up and more and more people are vanishing from the world and nobody can stop it.
• There is a cultural shift in the places where people are survivors. Buildings are circular, people hold hands in circles. Humans are not a common sight in the land any more, but you might see on a hilltop across the way a group of people holding hands in a circle, desperate to cling to life.
• Cities become more and more empty, and of the people that we do see there are more and more with that strange gaunt look as they have been transformed or reflected by the strange geometries. They don’t quite die but something weird is happening. Groups of those people come together driven by voices and echoes to try and pull other horrors through the dimensions.
• The points of light in the cursive society are shrinking among the dark angles. The echos of voices are from earlier and earlier in time. And things get darker.

Other news?

This is going to be coming to Kickstarter early next year - probably May. I'd love it if you would sign up for a notification of the launch on the preview page here:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/plane-sailing-games/escape-to-utopia

• Escape the Apocalypse