First Foray into Escape Room Games: Exit and Unlock

Knowing that my two adult children and one partner would be staying for a few days over Christmas, I thought we might try some games we hadn’t delved into before. I ordered Exit – The Gate Between Worlds, and Unlock! Escape Adventures. The 27th was the first day without lots of guests and late afternoon I suggested we try one out. To my surprise (I was starting to flag) everyone was up for it (they’d got up several hours after I did). Great! I’m never too tired for a game. All three of us have been to escape rooms before, but none of us had ever tried the board game versions, so I wasn’t sure how it would go. There are no spoilers in this article!

We started with the Exit Game, which is rated with a difficulty of 3/5. The first task took us quite a long time to complete and the whole adventure took us two hours and fifteen minutes. The box suggests one to two hours is needed. However, I feel pretty confident that we’d be faster on the next one, now that we have a better idea of what might be involved in solving the different puzzles. We thoroughly enjoyed the experience and my son, who says ‘no’ to a lot of board games I enjoy was on-line immediately afterwards researching which Exit game to buy next.

A couple of days later, my daughter and I opened the Unlock! Box. Many of the Unlock! Games come as a set of three and in ours there were two level 2 adventures, and one of difficulty level 3. They are different from the Exit games in that they are based almost completely on a deck of cards and an app. The App provides you with a stopwatch (which ramps up the tension considerably and we ended up turning it off) and also provides hints when you need them. I usually reject board games that require apps and probably wouldn’t have bought this one had I realised an app was needed. However, it wasn’t a case of spending lots of time on the phone. Most of your time with Unlock! Is spent scouring the cards for clues. Some of these clues are ‘hidden’ and to be honest they are so well hidden that a couple of times we spent ages stuck before finally spotting them. At least one of your group will need very good eyesight and if you have glasses for close work then do wear them! Many of the cards work in pairs and you will be aiming to work out how one card might help unlock another. Links between cards can be obvious, or less so.

We did very much enjoy our first Unlock! Adventure and immediately launched into the second one in the hope we’d do better with experience (we did). Disappointingly, when we sat down to tackle the third adventure in the box we discovered that it should be played in two teams, with no discussion between teams. As there were only two of us we decided to save it for another day with more people. It’s a shame the box doesn’t give you more information about the optimum number of players, and also doesn’t tell you the difficulty rating for each adventure. It’s only once you have the rulebook in your hand that you find this out. The box does tell you that there’s no need to read the rules as there is a tutorial included but we found ourselves referring to the rulebook a few times in our first game so I would certainly advise you to do both.

One advantage the Unlock! Games have over Exit Games is that you don’t destroy any components playing it, so you can pass it on to somebody else afterwards. That feels better than throwing the game away, although the Unlock! Box could easily be a third of its size, and skip the plastic insert.

The Exit Games are thrown away after a single use. The fact that they’ve kept the box small and nearly all components are made of card or paper to be recycled makes you feel a bit better about that.

You could argue that Unlock! gives you more entertainment for your money, as a box containing three games costs considerably less that three times the price of a single Exit adventure. However, most boxes contain one game each of three different levels, and if, for example, you’re all adults and have tried the games before then you might not want the ‘easy’ adventure. Also, the themes of the adventures in a box vary quite a lot. In ours, two themes appealed to me and one very much didn’t. I still enjoyed playing it but when I ordered the next set I steered clear of the adventures with the same character in.

Overall, I think I enjoyed the Exit Game a little more, as the puzzles and materials were more varied. Please note though, that I’ve ordered another of each type, proving that both were big hits.

An Update: my Zatu order arrived in time for New Years Eve as promised so we have now tried another of each type. The Exit game was another level three but wow! It was difficult. And frustrating at times. When we resorted to clues, we often felt annoyed that we hadn’t solved the riddle without them but the truth is that Exit throws so many different types of solution at you it’s difficult to think of them all. To counter the frustration though, there are great eureka moments when you get an idea and it works. Despite my earlier assumption about getting better with experience, this game took us hours – about three and a half. Not a problem if you are looking to be entertained until midnight but not the activity to try squeezing into a lunch hour.

Our Unlock! Game lies half-finished on the table. Not because we weren’t enjoying it but because it was past midnight and our brains were fried. This one has involved the app a little more and it’s involved in solutions as well as giving hints.

My advice if you’re thinking of trying this type of game:

Exit offers more variety. Start with an ‘easy’ one. I like to think our group is all above average intelligence but these riddles certainly took us down a peg or two! We’ve tried two of the same level and found one quite a bit harder than the other but neither were easy.

Unlock! Interacts with an app, so choose these if you enjoy technology in your games. We turned off the spooky music because it was ramping up the tension too much but you might like how it charges the atmosphere!

If you are looking at the clues and something looks a bit off, or seems like it might be significant, then it probably is. Everything these boxes gives you is there for a reason.

You need to be a dogged type of person. If you are likely to give up when things get difficult, you’re not going to last long. Having said that, don’t be afraid to use clues, especially if you are hoping to complete the adventure in the advertised time.

Be warned, these games are addictive!