Box One By Neil Patrick HarrisTheory11 OnlineEscape roomTabletopI really don’t want to spoil anything about Box One, so I will say this is an experience that deserves to be played by fans of escape rooms and puzzles. Neil Patrick Harris’ involvement in this game is far more than just sticking his name on the box. His personality and creativity embody the box. The further you get down the riddles, the more apparent this is and the more clever and surprising the puzzles get. Try it! Also, even though it says it’s meant for one, I played with 2 players as I usually do most escape rooms. It’s technically replayable if you ever want to share the game with a friend!
The Treasure Trove Of Pirate CoveSolve Our ShirtsEscape roomTabletopCU Adventures in Time and Space, a superb escape room venue in Urbana-Champaign, IL, have somehow come up with the novel concept of fitting an entire escape room game onto a shirt. All the puzzles are solved by examining and searching the packed design of this T-shirt - both front and back. You also need to use several papers, an online browser website for inputting answers, and quite a few other props including a bottle that comes with the shirt itself. The game has a lot of personality. A lot of it comes through in the detail-packed shirt, and also through fun audio clips. There are quite a bit of puzzles here, and the game will run at least an hour for most people. A lot of the game feels like a Where’s Waldo search which was a bit overwhelming due to the loud shirt. But the puzzle payoffs and endgame surprised were worth it! And you get to wear the shirt after!
Escape From the Maze of the MinotaurSolve Our ShirtsEscape roomTabletopYup, escape rooms come in shirt form now! The Solve Our Shirt series of actual wearable T-Shirts filled with puzzles and other secrets come from the incredibly bright minds at CU Adventures in Time and Space, who have also designed some of my favorite escape rooms to this day. Escape From the Maze of the Minotaur is essentially a tabletop game with accompanying paper materials, online browser website for inputting answers, and some other hidden goodies. The only difference is you also interact with a shirt, which by the way, feels nice and looks good, even though it’s a bit of a loud design. The puzzles are surprisingly devious and take a lot of time, even though there aren’t many. I’m amazed by what was hidden in plain sight on the shirt, and I love the different ways I got to interact with this wearable fabric. Note that you don’t have to wear the shirt while playing, but you can certainly wear it after! It’s a fun unique take on escape room games that doubles as a souvenir! You can buy it online or in person if you go to their physical location in southern Illinois.
Unlock! Timeless Adventures: Lost in the TimeWarpSpace CowboysEscape roomTabletopVery good Unlock! escape game! I was really impressed with how this game handled time travel and representing changes through time through an ever changing playmat. Some puzzles to pinpoint important years were maybe too hard. Great ending! I love how the end plays out, particularly in regards to the players’ own experience. I won’t spoil it so you’ll just have to see it to believe!
Unlock! The Adventures of OzSpace CowboysEscape roomTabletopA Wickedly Wonderful entry in the Unlock! escape game series! This game is based on the classic Wizard of Oz, and it does justice to the name. It’s a real adventure with a map, character roles for each player based on the ones from the story, puzzles utilizing special items and the app, and even bonus quests for the best finale. The bonus puzzles are a great addition, and are definitely a challenge. The game as a whole is rated at the highest difficulty of 3 and is a full 90-minute experience. Most puzzles are logically sound and were fun to solve. The music is great too, though it’s certainly not from the original movie. So what are you waiting for? Go off to see an adventure, a wonderful Adventure of Oz!
Unlock! Timeless Adventures: The Noside ShowSpace CowboysEscape roomTabletopThe circus is back in town! In app-based escape card game form! This Unlock! escape game incorporated several fun ways to utilize the deck of cards. The little booklet was particularly neat. The game felt weirdly uneven in terms of difficulty balance, though, like how some puzzles we would just cruise through, while others were illogical. I liked all the illusions and tricks, and the finale puzzles were fun, if not a bit tough to actually accomplish. The whole box of Timeless Adventures is solid, and this is a good part of it. Not my favorite box in the series, but the time travel one is definitely standout.
Unlock! Epic Adventures: The Seventh ScreeningSpace CowboysEscape roomTabletopThis Unlock! game comes with 3 scenarios like others. The first one is a lighthearted game in the world of old-school campy horror movie at a theater, the second is a mystical trip to China, and the third makes you agents for a mission. The 1st one was hilarious, and the later ones have some clever meta puzzles. I really appreciated the use of bonus rules to spice things up. Particularly those that pulled you in and out of the fake b-horror werewolf movie that this scenario is based on. The bonus for winning is great! It may be a little confusing to those who are 1st timers to Unlock!, but veterans can appreciate the new rules as bonus features. There were some good “aha!” moments for us throughout! Recommended but NOT as your first Unlock!
EXIT: The Game - The Return to the Abandoned CabinThames & KosmosEscape roomTabletopOne of my favorite Exit tabletop games! Thanks to the 3D setup for the cabin, it’s one of the most similar to an actual escape room. As a sequel to one of the 1st ever Exit games, this one was a lot more devious in its design and solutions. Lots of tricky out of the box puzzles, and even one or two that “wowed” us. And I don’t even expect to get “wowed” by tabletop games, but Exit continues to surprise me with new, clever tricks. I was possibly more “wowed” here than in some real escape rooms, and that’s saying a lot! Would return again!
EXIT: The Game - Advent Calendar - The Silent StormThames & KosmosEscape roomTabletopAn enjoyable box of 24 Christmas workshop themed puzzles! There are lots of creative ways to thank both inside and outside the box for this one. I very much liked opening each door and experiencing a puzzle a day. The story is actually quite involved, and while it’s not necessarily my favorite of the Advent Calendar stories, it had interesting twists. This makes a great gift for the puzzle lovers in your life, as do the other EXIT Advent Calendars. Though, obviously, it makes most sense to play during the entire month of December. Now, be nice, because Santa Claus is coming to town!
EXIT: The Game - Kidnapped in Fortune CityThames & KosmosEscape roomTabletopReally liked this one! I wasn’t actually expecting this game to be a whodunnit mystery, and as a huge fan of the genre, I was pleasantly surprised! Wouldn’t have expected it from the Western setting, but I appreciated it nonetheless. I liked the nonlinear nature of visiting locations in any order to solve puzzles within. The puzzles were shockingly fairly easy for a 3.5/5 difficulty game. I think what made it easy was the fact that once I chose a location, I had to commit to solving that puzzle to move on. As a result, I generally only had the clues to that puzzle in front of me at any given time. And those puzzles weren’t too hard in the first place. The mystery was really fun to deduce!
