In Escape Pods players must evacuate as many of their crew members from an exploding spaceship as possible - securing refuge on a nearby moon. However, each shelter requires a specific combination of crew member roles in order to be completely successful!

As they flee the ship, players may have to work together - sharing pods, dodging meteorites and avoiding collisions with other evacuating ships. Once a pod reaches a shelter, players place their crew members - face down - in the available slots.

Each round, players program their actions by taking up slots on their action cards. These can include: moving pods forward, boarding adjacent pods or laying satellites to guide your crew to the moon shelters.

The game ends when there are either no more spaces left in the refuges or when all remaining pods are trapped behind the growing meteor shower. Then the crew members that made it to each refuge are flipped - revealing their role. This determines how successful each evacuation effort was and rewards bonus points to the players who sent the required roles to the shelter.