Once an Escape Officer has a Personal Escape Kit, and has decided on a route, they must attempt to pick up the required pieces of equipment, by either moving two POWs into a room with the symbol of the desired piece of equipment, or moving two POWs into two different rooms containing the same symbol.

This is how many dice rolls the player is allowed to make in attempting to move one chosen POW towards a target area.

If the amount of movement generated is not enough for the POW to reach a target area, the escape attempt fails and that player is out of the game.

Arresting as many prisoners as possible after they have filched equipment puts them in solitary confinement for a period of time, reducing the POWs available to the Escape Officers.

Humphries's concluding words of advice are, "first, keep on the move and second, plan escape attempts carefully.

The TV series proved popular in the UK, and former Colditz POW and escapee Major Pat Reid, who had written several books about his wartime experiences, co-designed a board game with Bob Brechin and Brian Degas as an official licensed tie-in to the TV series.

In 1972, Invicta Plastics published an unrelated board game designed by 18-year-old Adrian Wild titled Escape from Colditz Castle.

An Amiga computer game titled Escape from Colditz was created in 1990 by Digital Magic Software.

Based on the board game, it required the player to help four prisoners escape by exploring the castle, finding equipment, solving puzzles and digging a tunnel.

He noted that "as the game progresses and escape plans near fruition, it can become quite tense for the players concerned, hoping that they will not be caught at the last minute."

Despite this, he gave the game a rating of 4 out of 6, saying, "Escape from Colditz should provide many hours of enjoyment for most members of the family.

: A Boy's Own Story of Imaginary Combat, journalist Harry Pearson noted the one problem he had with the game: "Escape from Colditz was hugely popular, but it had one major defect — someone had to be the Germans.

While the Allied players got to run around the castle hoping to nick the stall car, collecting skeleton keys and wire cutters and hoarding Red Cross cigarettes with which to bribe the guards, the German player just marched around with his dogs hoping to fall into a tunnel.