Exit mechanic / Board implementation

Scurra and I were discussing how we could implement exit mechanics for the game. However, which exit mechanic we choose depends entirely upon how the board is laid out. I want to throw a few ideas out with possible exit mechanics so we can discuss it.

Fixed Board:
Ok this board configuration would be a fixed size of a # of tiles square. For example, 10 X 10 or 11 X 11 tiles in size.

Right now I can think of two ways to do this:

1) As scurra suggested, you start in the center on a permanent start square (of perhaps 3 X 3 tiles in size) and then you work your way out. If you reach the edge of the board, you automatically find an exit there. The permanent 'center piece' of 3 X 3 would allow up to 8 entrances (one for each direction; N, NE, E, etc).

2) Similiar to Dragon Delta, players would start out on the edge of the board and then they would work inward. The exit for a particular entrance would be on the opposite side of the board. With this method, up to 6 players (or explorers) could be used. If a player started in the left most entrance on the upper edge, his exit would be in the rightmost one on the lower edge. If I player started in the lower most entrance of the left side, his exit would be the upper most one on the right side, etc. There would be a center path going from the middle of the upper edge down and also one from the middle of the left edge going right . A solid stone center to the board could be used to prevent the 'straight line' run to the exit.

Free Form board
This configuration would not try to overlay the building of the cave onto the board grid. With this method, the cave could be any shape size that the players built it to be. Some sort of starting mechanism would have to be implemented however. Perhaps like the 3 X 3 tile start mechanism suggested by Scurra as outlined above. The exits would be found by mixing in exit cards into the search deck. Whenever one player found the required number of exit cards, he would show them to the players and place an exit on that tile. The required # could be more for fewer players (say 4 for two players) and less for greater # of players (all the way down to 2 for 5-6 players). Also, we could use a staging mechanism where the backs of the search cards were numbered. The cards of specific stage would all be shuffled and mixed together... Then the deck would be layered with all the cards with the back of 1 had to be searched first, then the 2s, etc. With this method, we could mix in less exits in the earlier stages and obviously more in the later stages... Finding the exit would be scored, and an exit token would be placed on that tile. Any players could then exit the game at that tile. Of course, the player that discovered the exit would score a bonus. (In the same method as other scoring in the game, that player might score a bonus for finding the first exit, and other players would gain lesser scores for subsequent exits they found).

Whatiya think?
-Darke