Exit: The Mysterious Museum | Exit: The Game - A Kosmos Game | Family-Friendly, Card-Based at-Home Escape Room Experience for 1 to 4 Players, Ages 10+

SPOILER-FREE REVIEWTL;DR Version...PROS:- great price for the experience- excellent at-home approximation of the real thing, down to having help/hint cards, like you might ask a real-life game master for help- no experience necessary- during COVID: an escape room... in your house... with only those you already hang with daily!- free mobile app for skip-reading-the-rulebook instructions with graphics AND a timer with appropriate atmospheric audio, which adds a lot to the experience (they should promote this feature more)- a "scoring system" that favors quicker exits without using help cards and compares your accomplishments across different Exit games (or to other people, if you want that)- some of these puzzles are just ingenious and I don't know how they can make so many across multiple games and maintain excellent qualityCONS:- really struggling to come up with any here...- reaching/picky: there's one puzzle you can only really solve (beyond a powerful imagination) with a very common kitchen item that's not mentioned in the "other things you'll need" section (but is depicted when you get to that puzzle) ... but I can also see an argument that naming it would give too much away- there's also one puzzle where the scissor-work required just takes a long time, only one person can do it while the others watch (long, boring for them), and the longer it takes with the ticking time-pressure, the more socially agonizing it is to be "Edward Scissorhands" ... so this one game could be improved if there was a way to shorten that one puzzle.- unlike a real escape room, you can't break off into sub-teams to solve any puzzles simultaneously ... this is 100% linear ... a very minor thing, though.FULL REVIEW:My first escape room experience was when my 2nd-level-up boss had us do one as a team building thing around the holidays a few years back. So ~8 of us made it out of a hostage-like situation with ~10 seconds left.The thrill of that is akin to the first time one makes an amazingly unexpected shot while golfing (regular or mini-golf). And it makes you want it again. But my first "hit" was free.I not only wanted that experience again, but also wanted to share it with my family. This past summer of 2021, the kids were old enough to get into it, so for my birthday we tried out a real room together. We failed... with several puzzles remaining.We figured if we played smarter and ask for more help earlier, we could win one. So we did it again the last week of summer. And failed again. But this time we were so close, the game master generously gave us 5-10 extra minutes to experience finishing it. Nice, but still a bummer to "lose" again.And they cost about two hundred fifty dollars combined. Worth it, but deterred from another go for a while.Plus, it was a summer of COVID before kids could be vaxed, so we were masked up and scheduling the first session of the day to avoid people, which is much harder during the school year.When along comes my discovery of these Exit games. Gave one each to the kids for Christmas. Now, I'm a board-gamer, so it takes some mental toughness for me to consider buying a game (out of Germany, no less) where I will be damaging game parts on purpose and only playing it once. BUT for the chance of giving my family the escape room experience for this price compared to the real thing ... this is practically a steal!New Year's Eve 2021 was an ideal time to try this, and House of Riddles was the first we've tried so far. It just went fabulously! Everyone contributed, even the 8-year-old spotted some things that saved us. In the end, as a team, the family figured everything out without a single Help card, and we finished in less than the 90min max, but more than the 60min "ideal" which docked us 1 "star" (equal to under 60min + 1 Help card). This was a family-bonding, new-years accomplishment we could all be proud of.And to round out the experience... in real escape rooms, if you win/finish, they get a pic of your group while holding a board with your time on it. Otherwise, you can get a pic, but no time. So before this, we had 2 family photos with no one holding a time. But to close out 2021, I screenshotted & printed the final time (and score) from the mobile app, setup the tripod, and we got a family photo (dog included) where we finally got to hold up our successful escape room exit time!Bottom Line: While it is "just a game," it also holds the potential for building memories with family & friends that you will never forget. Thank you, game makers!

Background of the reviewer: Middle-aged mom with years of experience in the Pokemon TCG competitive community. I am a casual gamer who mostly plays with my family (Catan, Ticket to Ride, Fluxx, Pandemic) or Solo Marvel Legendary. Always looking for new gaming opportunities.Experience with Escape Room Games: This is my first purchase of and experience with a table-top escape room game. I purchased this after reading multiple BGG reviews of all of the currently available escape room games. I have not done any live escape room experiences.Out of the box: The instructions are super explicit about not examining the included materials. The box contains a plastic wrapped set of cards, a cardboard decoder, three “strange” items, a book and a rule book. The instructions are very clear in guiding players through setting up the game without accidentally revealing any information that would ruin the experience. Everything is very well-constructed and a good value for the price. It was very easy to get the game started. The other suggested materials were pencils with erasers, a pair of scissors and some paper.How hard is this to play? The directions are very clear and easy to understand, and we quickly got the hang of trying different things, talking things over, and thinking outside of the box as much as we could. The game is very well constructed and all of the components work well together. My wife and I found the puzzles extraordinarily challenging. The suggested playing time is 60-90 minutes and after two hours we were not even halfway done. We got the first riddle, but then had to use one clue on the second riddle, 2 clues on the third and could not solve the fourth. Despite how hard this was for us, it was still fun as we had some “ah-ha we got it” moments, only to realize we did not. The clues we did reveal showed us that were on the right track multiple times, but just couldn’t quite bring it home. Interestingly, each time the clue showed us how close we had come, we eagerly moved to the next riddle thinking that it would be the turning point for us. (it never was) We are clearly not of the ilk that finds success at games like this, and in hindsight, neither one of us is into puzzle-solving. We don’t do Suduku, anagrams, or other logic puzzles. I think if we had more brain-stretching experiences like this we would have fared better. We boxed it back up, but fully intend to pull it out again when are refreshed, and maybe have a third person to join in. Even though we have decided this game probably isn’t for us, we will be buying the next one in the series for our 14-year-old son who definitely loves puzzles and challenges like this.What, exactly, are you doing when you play? You are using the provided materials to solve riddles. All of the information you need to solve the puzzles is there, you just need to figure it out. Each riddle you solve “unlocks” the next set of riddles. At first you are solving one riddle, but then move on and have multiple riddles involved. You and the other player(s) are working together to brainstorm ideas of what might work. Each time you think you have it solved, you use the cardboard decoder to check your answer. If you are wrong, you go back to the drawing board. The decoder is very well made and a clever way of guiding you without revealing anything.Recommended number of players: The box says 1-4 players but I think 4 is on the high end. There is not, in my opinion, enough to keep 4 people occupied. I think this would be a great date night activity (if the couple are a lot more logical than my wife and are), or maybe for three people. I think this could also be played by six people if you used two copies (or photocopied a second set of the book) and agreed to not work ahead of the other players but worked side by side. The book that you are referring to is hard to share with two people, let alone 4, and it’s a crucial part of figuring things out. I also question the 12+ age rating. I am not sure a group of 12-year-olds could figure this out without an adult involved, but others may disagree. Once my 14 year old plays the next one in the series (after Christmas) I can update my thoughts.Replayability: This is a consumable game -- components of the game are marked or destroyed as part of the play. Also, once you solve the riddles there is no point in re-playing it. When my wife realized it was not re-playable she was at first confused. Why did I buy a game that we would just throw away when we were done with it. Once I explained that it cost less than a movie ticket (I got it on sale for $10), and this was our date night activity, it made more sense to her.Final thoughts: Although this ended up not being the type of game I think we would play again (we’ll stick to Pandemic and Marvel), I do not regret the purchase in the least. I would highly recommend this to those who: enjoy logic puzzles; are creative problem solvers; have a fairly high frustration tolerance; are interested in stretching their mental muscles. It is extremely well-made, clever (at least as far as we were able to proceed), and a great experience for a good price-point. If you are considering purchasing an escape room table top game (or dropping the big bucks for a live experience), I would suggest this as a good entry game. If you enjoy it, you can consider the more expensive options out there. If, like us, it’s not your cup of tea you are out less than $15.

This was our first "escape room" and I played it with my family, not known for handling new complex games well. It started out a bit ominous as we read through the slightly confusing instructions and struggled executing through the first obstacle (which was a bit flawed and probably tougher than the first one should have been!) and overcame the "we have to destroy our puzzle pieces?!?" fear! (one-time play game) Also, the way the hints were ordered was randomized and a bit confusing. For these reasons, I knocked it down a star because there is room for improvement here!BUT we powered through all that and by the 3rd puzzle, we had the hang of it and it really started to click. By the end of the night, we were solving much harder puzzles with ease and we escaped the museum with almost no hints! A couple of the puzzles were pretty fun & quirky too, including one with a cool arts & crafts project and another we had to solve with a cooperative floor map. We had trouble with one other puzzle that involved a game-external "advertising flyer", which I'm still not sure what that was - but the majority were solvable without hints.By the end, we went from a dysfunctioning arguing trio to a symphonic puzzle-destructing team. The story was reasonably fun and engaging too! Good job Exit - our first experience ended up great and we will play more of them.