Game Review: Exit: The Game: Kidnapped in Fortune City by Kosmos

Exit: The Game: Kidnapped in Fortune City designed by Inka and Marcus Brand and published by Kosmos

The sheriff of Fortune City (a town in the American Old West) has been kidnapped by one of the locals and is imprisoned in their cellar. You have come to town to right this injustice, not by being a gun-slinging vigilante. Instead,  you solve a lot of mysteries and riddles to discover which of the local hooligans does not have an alibi. The game proceeds through the usual imaginative puzzles.

The game uses a town map and several locations, including the jail, the gunsmith, and the saloon, to provide the initial puzzles to solve. The very first puzzle is to unlock the sheriff's journal, which provides some key information for the other puzzles as well. In typical Exit style, just about every component inside the shrink wrap is used in one way or another.

Location, map, and locked journal

I liked the use of locations, which allowed some non-linear problem solving. The game lets you choose which building to go to first. After all those puzzles are solved, then the players work on a couple of final puzzles that lead to the sheriff's location and the ultimate victory. Each location is its own fold-out page with valuable information on the front and back. The dispersal of clues throughout the other puzzles makes it possible to work on parts of the final solution before getting there, though obviously there's not enough to make the guess before the last puzzle.

As usual, we had one or two puzzles that we needed hints for, though one of them was because we weren't using a card we were supposed to have. We enjoyed it overall quite a lot (especially the name of the sheriff...R. Grimes--maybe we should have left him in that cellar to avoid the zombie apocalypse). A few other little jokes are thrown in. The game was a lot of fun and didn't seem as difficult as the rating states. 

Recommended.

Game Review: Exit: The Game: The Professor's Last Riddle by Kosmos

Exit: The Game: The Professor's Last Riddle designed by Inka and Marcus Brand and published by Kosmos

Your favorite professor, an archeologist, is dead. He has left a mysterious envelope filled with post cards instead of a will. The cards have some clues that lead on a world-spanning treasure hunt to discover the professor's greatest legacy. The storyline is rather minimal but the game play uses all sorts of maps and tricks to keep players on their toes as they follow the clues. 

Like most Exit games, this one uses just about every component and part of the box in the puzzles. The decoder ring has numbers with colors and it seemed like a high portion of the solutions used the colors instead of the numbers. Not the majority, but a good amount. Some of the discoveries were enjoyable, clever moments, especially the subway solution and the crossword problem toward the end of the game. Occasional symbol-matching was a bit of a stretch--we used hints once or twice. We liked this set a lot and had a fun time solving the riddles and getting to the finale of the story which had more emotional resonance than we were expecting.

Recommended, highly for escape room fans.

Game Review: EXIT Advent Calendar: Silent Storm

EXIT Advent Calendar: Silent Storm designed by Inka and Marcus Brand and published by KOSMOS

See my review of EXIT Advent Calendar: The Golden Book.

This is another adaptation of the EXIT: The Game system as an Advent calendar, with one puzzle to solve each day of December before the 25th. In this game, players are elves in Santa's workshop but a calamity has happened, an earthquake and a storm. Santa hit the emergency button which has the whole place on lock-down. Things are so jumbled that someone needs to get back to the control center and get the situation back to normal. Each puzzle deals with a different room, e.g. the stuffed-animal-making room, the candy-making room, etc. A tear-off booklet has one page of story for each day along with some hints on how to solve that day's puzzle. The "rooms" in the calendar typically have one or more puzzle cards and maybe some strange items, like these, behind the doors.

What sort of magic makes a button larger than a tray of cookies!

The items help make a good variety of puzzles. Scissors and writing implements are needed to complete some of the puzzles, along with the ability to spot clues all over the rooms, the box, the manuals, and everything else. The diversity in puzzles is fun. Even if we fell behind a day or two and had to catch up, each puzzle is only five or ten minutes long to solve at the most and is different enough that we did not feel like we were doing the same thing over and over.

This set is rated as an easier one, with puzzle that are not too hard to solve. We only went to the hint book two or three times to find out solutions we couldn't achieve on our own (which is typical for us playing EXIT games). The last couple of days have a fun twist to the story and, like any Christmas story, it ends very happily for all concerned. 

Recommended, highly for EXIT fans.

Game Review: Exit the Game: The Lord of the Rings: Shadows Over Middle-earth by Kosmos

Exit the Game: The Lord of the Rings: Shadows Over Middle-earth designed by Inka and Marcus Brand and published by Kosmos

Gandalf the Grey has chosen you to help out a small band of Hobbits on a special mission. You're job is simple--distract the forces of evil while Frodo Baggins sneaks his way off to where ever it is Gandalf has sent him. Hmm...maybe it's not so simple. But it is exciting. 

The game has the usual contents--instruction manual, decks of cards, game journal, and a lot of random items. Like other Exit Games, players work their way through puzzles one at a time, using a page of the journal, some cards, and some objects to find a code that shows you've found the correct solution. 

Spoiler-free look at the contents

Each puzzle has the players making notes on the back of a map of Middle Earth, building up to a final puzzle. The puzzles run the usual gamut from easy to difficult and we only used a hint once because it was one of those "look at things from a certain angle" puzzles that we find tedious because we can never quite get the right angle from which to look. Rather than spend way too much time trying to get it right and certainly getting frustrated, we looked at the hint card. The puzzles do move away from the initial theme of distracting the bad guys at some points which was noticeable but not distracting. It's Lord of the Rings, after all. Who doesn't want to fix the shards of Narsil or use the beacons to alert Rohan. 

As a side note, we were missing some components which we only discovered in mid-play. Two of the punch-boards for mysterious items were not in the box! The Kosmos website was easy to navigate and request replacement parts. They came in less than a week! That was a very pleasant experience.

We had a good time playing this. As usual, we didn't time ourselves since we play these for the fun of the puzzles, not the speed score. A good time was had by all.

Recommended, highly for Lord of the Rings fans.

Game Review: EXIT: Advent Calendar--The Golden Book

EXIT The Game: Advent Calendar--The Golden Book designed by Inka and Markus Brand, published by Kosmos

In the EXIT The Game series, players work their way through a series of puzzles related to a narrative in the individual game. Basically, each is an escape room in a box. This latest innovation has the players opening doors on a custom Advent Calendar, each door revealing a puzzle that has be solved in order to find the next door to open.

In this story, Santa's Golden Book has been stolen. The book contains everyone's addresses and what they want for Christmas, so it is a very important tool for his job. Players follow clues left behind by the thief. The puzzles are themed after many different Christmas things, from that Mariah Carey song to Die Hard to the Magi's Journey to Bob Cratchit's office. Like other EXIT games, sometimes components or images from one puzzle are used for a later puzzle, so never throw anything away! In fact, one of the first puzzles has some components that the players sneak behind another door for a later challenge. The theme is fun and follows both the Christmas setting and the EXIT traditions.

The puzzles use the usual assortment of pieces--cards, pictures, and "odd" objects (one of which is a jingle bell!). The game includes 24 puzzles, so players can start on December 1 and end on Christmas Eve. The puzzles are short enough (five to fifteen minutes) that any missed days can be easily made up. The decoder for the game has sliding numbers that show how to find the next door.

Front of the decoder with "555" as the solution

Back of the decoder

The players follow the arrows from that day's door (Up Left, Down Left, Down in the above picture) to another door and see if the three symbols on that door match (Crescent, Crescent, Star in the above picture). It works well and has a nice, clever feel to it. I would include a picture, but you write numbers on the doors so any photo would have massive spoilers on it. At least the random placement of numbers makes sense on this Advent calendar!

The puzzles are not too difficult. We needed hints a few times and accidentally discovered a component for a later puzzle once. We enjoyed the variety of challenges and the creative ways they used the box and the components. The game is very Christmasy. We will definitely get the next Exit the Game Advent Calendar next year!

Highly recommended!

Game Review: Exit The Game: The Deserted Lighthouse

Exit: The Game--The Deserted Lighthouse designed by Inka and Markus Brand and published by KOSMOS

Walking along a lonely and rainy coastland, you come across a lighthouse. Eager for shelter from the storm, you head to the lighthouse just as it blinks out. Walking up, you see the lighthouse is locked with a combination lock. Also, out in the sea is a boat that is headed for the rocks. To save the day, you need to get into the lighthouse and get the light on again!

This game follows the usual Exit: The Game model of solving a lot of puzzles on your way to the final goal. Players have to assemble the decoder that confirms solutions to the puzzles. Players also have to assemble four different jigsaw puzzles which have clues and other information needed. Some "journals" are included, so the game doesn't have the typical deck of cards like the first Exit games.

The first puzzle, some journals, and the decoder

The game runs a bit longer than the typical Exit: The Game scenario, especially depending on your jigsaw skills. Those jigsaws are not big but the pictures are dark and murky, so putting them together is not as easy. Each puzzle opens up one of the journals which provides more information and further puzzles (and the occasional instruction to build another jigsaw). 

The game has a higher difficulty rating. We had a couple of puzzles that were inexplicable to us. One was, quite frankly, unsolvable without the hint. The final puzzle had two parts, one of which, while interesting, did not really seem to serve any purpose--the solution was already obvious from the other part. The rule book has hints in the back, so players can get some help if they get stuck. The puzzles move in order so checking for a hint won't spoil a future puzzle unless your eyes wander very far. We enjoyed this game and would play another one of these jigsaw-style games.

Mildly recommended--The Sacred Temple was a better implementation of the jigsaw puzzle system.

Game Review: Exit The Game: The Gate Between Worlds by Kosmos

Exit The Game: The Gate Between Worlds designed by Inka & Markus Brand and Ralph Querfurth and published by Kosmos

In the latest innovation for an Exit The Game game, The Gate Between Worlds features only one riddle card! The typical game has a deck of riddle cards that are drawn one by one as the game goes on. This game uses small posters that have clues and puzzles on them. There's still plenty of cutting and writing to do, just on the posters, not on the cards. Some other bits like rubber bands are part of fun, creative puzzles. The decoder disk is the titular gate between worlds and stands up!

Components in the game

The theme of the game has the players journeying through a gate much like the Stargate to many fantastic worlds. The goal is to get back home through the usual method of solving a variety of puzzles, rotate the gate, and find the codes that unlock one of the new worlds (i.e. one of the posters). The game includes a time element but as usual we ignored that in favor of enjoying solving the puzzles without the stress of rushing through game. That was good because we took a two-week hiatus between play sessions! We remembered enough that restarting was not hard.

The puzzles were fun and challenging. Most of them are more mechanical or manipulative than in other games, where there's a lot of decoding. The posters had multiple uses with little details that came in handy later in the play. The game makes good use of the standing solution wheel. As usual (for us), one of the puzzles didn't make sense and we had to use the hint cards. But overall, it was engaging and not hard to come up with the ideas that the game creators had in mind.

This game was another winner from the series. We are amazed that the makers are able to come up with new and creative puzzles.

Highly recommended.

Game Review: Exit: The Game: The Sacred Temple by Kosmos

Exit: The Game: The Sacred Temple designed by Inka and Marcus Brand and Joliane Voorgang and published by Kosmos

The Exit: The Game series has come out with a new twist. They've added jigsaw puzzles! We played The Sacred Temple, where the players follow their archeology professor's clues to try and stop some treasure hunters from robbing a remote, hidden temple the professor has discovered. 

Some of the components

The game has the usual random pieces and the clue-deciphering wheel (which players get to assemble). The narrative and some clues are given in "journals" that have to be opened in sequence as puzzles are solved. The game has four 88-piece jigsaw puzzles, a size that isn't difficult to solve. The pictures on the puzzles help to solve the journal puzzles. Sometimes the jigsaw pieces are used in different ways by the journal puzzles, a nice use of the materials. 

The game does not come with the usual deck of cards. The journals replace the narrative cards and the back of the instruction manual has the hints for the various puzzles (eliminating the hint cards). The creators did a good job having the first few clues on one page and the solution on the back of the page, making it difficult to accidentally see the right answer for a different puzzle. The puzzles are solved in order so there's no worry of looking for clues where the facing page shows unsolved solutions.

Index to clues on the back cover

The other fun innovation about the solutions is that when the player lines up the right numbers on the code wheel, a little window on the back shows whether the answer is right or not. Occasionally we hit a solution for a different color lock but it was pretty easy to ignore the wrong solution and keep playing.

Right solution for the pink puzzle

Not right for any puzzle

We enjoyed the game. The recommended time is two to three hours though we didn't time ourselves since we enjoy solving the puzzles, not rushing to the solution. We finished it in two sessions since, with the kids, we don't have large blocks of free time. It's well worth the price--we'll play the other jigsaw Exit: The Game games. 

Game Reviews: Three At-Home Escape Rooms

We are still playing various "escape room in a box" games. These games typically can only be played once. They are all economical (under ten dollars) and play in one to two hours. The first game was not so much an escape room as a mystery to solve...

1. Mystery at the Lux Museum by Clever Kids Mysteries

After reading a glowing review from The Family Gamers, I ordered a copy of Mystery at the Lux Museum from the publisher's website. We left it to our kids to solve the puzzles, which they enjoyed very much. The game was designed with elementary/middle schoolers in mind. It has a good variety of challenges, involving math and spatial reasoning and other skills.

Opening the box

Reading the intro

Something strange is going on at a local museum. The players as part of the Clever Kids Detective Agency come in to find a lost artifact hidden somewhere in one of the displays. The whole museum is exhibits from a single family and the family had a secret spat that resulted in the missing item.

My kids did a good job working together, though the four-year old's attention span was definitely shorter than my other two children. They worked through a little over half of the puzzle in one day (they spent about 45 minutes). The next day they finished up. We had to go to the publisher's web site to confirm the correct solution. My children found the right location and solved the mystery. The game was a lot of fun and we look forward to the publisher's next game which should be available in November 2019.

Working with the clues

All this stuff inside!

2. Exit the Game: The Abandoned Cabin by Inka and Markus Brand

This Exit the Game was one of the early ones and we hadn't been able to find it in stores. We gave in and ordered it from Amazon, just in case it never shows up again in retail. The story is your car broke down and you sheltered in a cabin overnight. In the morning, you find yourself locked in and have to escape before the madman gets back and keeps you forever.

Having played almost all the other games (new ones are coming out all the time), we had a good sense of the style of puzzles. We did get tripped up by the "box puzzle." These games typically have one or more puzzles that use the actual box the game came in. Such challenges are usually very creative, though sometimes more than we can guess. The other puzzles were fun to work out and we enjoyed the game.

Even though the game only plays one time (players have to cut, fold, or otherwise alter the components), the low cost makes it worth while and it's nice to just recycle the game rather than have another box taking up space on the game shelves. Our oldest child played with us and he enjoyed solving the puzzles.

3.  Unlock! The Night of the Bogeymen by Space Cowboys

This was an impulse purchase at a game store. We had mixed experiences with Unlock! games before. Some were really good, others really frustrating. Happily, this one is on the better side of Unlock! games. The story has players helping a young boy deal with his nightmares, which manifest as several bogeymen in his bedroom.

Unlock! is typically a cards-only game supported by a free phone/tablet app. Our favorites have included components beyond the cards, creating a more satisfying experience. This game had an extra bit of origami that made a fun challenge and some variety, which is what we think the series needs. Also, this was listed at a one-lock (out of three) difficulty and it was not too hard.

Our final stats from the app

We got a couple of things wrong and used one hint but did work quickly, resulting in a four-star rating for our performance.

More Exit The Game Games

The Exit The Game series is a set of games that are escape rooms in a box. We've played a few of them so far. See other reviews here and here.

The Forbidden Castle is a level four difficulty game. The story is that players go to a medieval castle and get locked in by the guy that has been behind the other Exit games (though there really isn't an on-going story, so the games can be played in any order). In a fun twist, the solution dial has a bunch of keys that have to be lined up properly (the top, middle, and bottom of the key). Describing which key part should be lined up was a little challenging. Clear communication is key!

Tricky solution dial

The game involves a lot of chopping and folding of cards and components. The castle theme is well represented--there's a suit of armor to put together, a tapestry to weave, etc. We had a challenging time and one puzzle didn't line up quite correctly for us, but we had fun and recommend this game.

The Mysterious Museum is a level two difficulty game. Players are on a trip to the Florence Museum of Science and Technology to see an exhibit on Columbus's ship, the Santa Maria. The book of clues works a little different than in other games. Players need to solve a puzzle before they can turn the page, so the first page is the lobby, the next is the museum's first exhibit, and so on.

Lobby with clues and stop sign

This mechanic introduces a fun twist in the game's narrative that we enjoyed a lot but I can't describe otherwise I would spoil the surprise. I found it most enjoyable. The puzzles weren't too challenging. The solution was satisfying.

The Sinister Mansion is a level three difficulty game. Players are invited to a neighboring mansion to check on the cat, but as usual it's a trap and they get locked in with a ton of puzzles barring escape.

The game was fun but felt a little average. After playing several different games, certain types of puzzles become very familiar. That makes the games easier and makes the puzzles more or less enjoyable depending on your attitude toward similar problems. We liked being able to solve stuff quickly. Also, it felt like we were going in the right direction.

Game Review: Exit the Game: Dead Man on the Orient Express

Exit the Game: Dead Man on the Orient Express designed by Inka and Markus Brand

See my review of previous Exit the Game games here.

The Exit the Game series is a bunch of at-home escape rooms in a box. Designers Inka and Markus Brand craft various puzzles that players have to solve in order to complete the mission or story in the game. In Dead Man on the Orient Express, they give a new twist to the final puzzle.

As the title suggests, the game is inspired by Agatha Christie's famous novel Murder on the Orient Express. The game's story includes the iconic train and has a "master detective" (named Achilles Pussot). He was solving the murder of Edgar Ratchington, a lone traveler on the train. Unfortunately, Pussot has disappeared in the midst of his investigation but has left many cryptic notes that should lead to the murderer's identity. Eight other passengers are on the train, all claiming to have alibis and having no relationship to the victim. Of course, someone is lying.

Play proceeds like most other Exit the Game games until the final puzzle. In order to find the code for the final puzzle, players have to identify the killer. Clues are found on various game components and can be put together to narrow the field of suspects down to one.

Various game components

One new and different component is the train compartments which are opened individually as the game proceeds. The compartments reveal more puzzles and more evidence for the murderer's identity.

Inside the compartment from the components above

We enjoyed all the riddles and were very close to discovering the identity of the killer. One small detail went unnoticed by me so I accused the wrong passenger. I was glad that I put together other clues that supported the other passengers' alibis. If it wasn't for one detail, I would have solved it completely. Even so, I enjoyed sifting over the evidence and coming to conclusions, even if I was ultimately wrong.

Highly recommended, especially for Agatha Christie fans and gaming fans.

Game Review: Exit the Game Series

Exit The Game Series created by Inka and Markus Brand

The Exit The Game series is often referred to as an "escape room in a box." Escape rooms are a recent entertainment phenomenon where a group of people are locked in a room filled with puzzles and given an hour to unlock the door by solving all the puzzles. It's a fun challenge that we tried in Florida. Having that experience at home is more convenient and cheaper, though not as thrilling as a room with secret compartments and doors.

To replace the actual physical locks and puzzles, Exit The Game uses a booklet, some decks of cards, the occasional odd item, and a small decoder disk with a three number (or symbol) code that indicates a card in the Answer deck.

Components from an Amazon photo

The game starts with the booklet and usually one of the riddle cards, enough to solve at least one puzzle. Each proper answer reveals more of the Riddle cards (and maybe one of the odd items), which give new problems to solve or more information about a problem already available. Quite often, the players need to write on, fold, or cut apart game materials to solve the puzzles. So the game can only be played once, unless you do a lot of photocopying like we did for several of the games.

The system works surprisingly easily and makes for exciting moments when the players check the answer deck to see if they solved a puzzle correctly. The first three games collectively won the Kennerspiel des Jahres for 2017, the highest gaming award in Germany. As of this writing, the number of available games in English is ten (see what Amazon currently has here). Here's our experience with five of those ten.

The first game we played was The Forgotten Island. Our day started with a fine leisure sailing excursion. A dark storm came up and forced us onto a mysterious island with many locked items, including a boat, and no food or water. Not escaping could be fatal!

The game is rated three out of five for difficulty with an expected playing time of one to two hours. We finished our game in a little over an hour and a half, using eight help cards. So we earned three stars (out of a possible ten) according to the scoring system. Not bad for a first time play, we thought. The puzzles were enjoyable though two or three of them were completely incomprehensible to us. We assumed future plays would be easier. At least we made it off the island without dying! Though a couple of hours on a tropical island hardly seems fatal, unlike our next experience...

Our second game was The Polar Station (also rated three out of five for difficulty). We were scientists at a polar lab that went into lockdown. The next door lab was destroyed. It was working on a weird black oozing material that infected the lab workers. The assumption was that our lab may get infected too. The only way to ensure our humanity was to challenge us with locks that only human logic could solve.

We put our logic to the test. Unfortunately, we started just before bedtime for the kids, so we did about an hour that Saturday night. We finished the next day but forgot to check the clock. Our nine-year old daughter was distraught Saturday night, fearing nightmares from the story's theme. She had trouble falling asleep but no nightmares. We completed the game with only four hints, so we did much better on that front. Since we didn't have an official time we didn't calculate a score. We didn't really care. The game was fun.

Our third game was The Secret Lab (rated three and a half out of five for difficulty). We were volunteers for a medical research experiment. At the lab, we were the only ones who showed up. Gas from a test tube knocked us out! Waking up, we found ourselves locked in. The locked door was the only way out from this mysterious experiment!

We started the game after dinner on a weeknight and got about an hour in before the kids ran out of energy (not learning from our previous adventure). We had two more sessions of working the puzzles and came to a satisfactory conclusion. By this game, we'd given up on tracking time and calculating a score. Despite a bunch of bio-hazard signs and the slightly ominous set-up, the game was much less scary. Even so, our daughter had little interest in the game. Our older son especially enjoyed it.

Our fourth game was The Sunken Treasure (rated two out of five stars for difficulty). We were explorers looking for the wreckage of the Santa Maria, a legendary treasure ship lost in the Caribbean. We started our adventure on a boat but pretty soon were underwater searching around a sunken ship.

By this point, we were getting used to the style of puzzles. That, combined with the two-star-rated difficulty, made this an easy and highly enjoyable "escape room" experience. We moved quickly through the puzzles. We probably should have timed ourselves but we'd gotten out of the habit (and probably won't get back into it). I'd recommend this as the first game if you want to check out the series.

Our fifth game was The Pharoah's Tomb (rated four out of five stars for difficulty). We were tourists visiting the Egyptian Pyramids and got trapped inside one of the tombs! Luckily, a previous adventurer, one Dr. H. Ford, left a bunch of clues on how to escape.

Even with the higher difficulty level, we didn't have an especially hard time with this one. The puzzles have the same style, so we were looking in all the right places for extra clues and information. Only two of the puzzles stumped us enough to have us take a hint from the hint deck. A few Indiana Jones easter eggs in the game (like the adventurer's name) added to the fun. We again took two sessions to complete the game.

If you want to buy one or more of these games, or one of the other games in the series, check Amazon here or go to your local friendly gaming store! We recommend them highly and will play more in the future!