EXIT: The Game - The Disappearance of Sherlock Holmes

My husband and I have done 2 real escape rooms and loved them both. During the quarantine I wanted to find something non-electronic that we could do together and a cooperative game sounded like just the thing. We started the EXIT series with the Mysterious Museum (a level 2), then Secret Lab (3 1/2). Since then we’ve also played Pharoah’s Tomb (4) and Sunken Treasure (2) and have Forgotten Island (3) and Forbidden Castle (4) waiting in the wings. Having done four of these games so far, this is what I have to say: We are absolutely AMAZED at the cleverness. I’m particularly amazed that although each game follows the same basic format (i.e. once you’ve played one you will know quickly how to play the rest), each one is completely and utterly different in terms of theme and puzzles to solve. We have seen no duplications of anything, though each game does give you more ideas about how to think for the next one. We time each clue and then enjoy going back over what stumped us. Some puzzles took 1-3 minutes, others took 20-30 minutes or more. On the first game my husband felt we were stuck too long at one point so he went for a clue, but I was sorely disappointed that we did that. Since then we tough it out - NO CLUES! Though after we’ve escaped the room it’s fun to go back and read them. Also - these are one and done games. In other words, once you solve it you won’t want to do that again (unless some time has passed and you have a terribly memory) because it’s one solution - one game. There is no variation if you play it again. BUT... for the price - it’s cheaper than two movie tickets (also one and done) and totally worth it for an evening of entertainment. They say you have to cut/tear/bend and while that’s true we managed to keep each of the games in tact and passed them along to friends. Sometimes it SAYS to cut so we cut and just taped back together. If bending was required we used our imagination so as not to deface the game or give clues to the next players. We were able to make it happen each time. So technically you can pass it along if you want to, but even if you didn’t - like I say - cheaper than going to the movies. How many people? One could do it. Two was perfect for us. MAYBE three, but the caveat is that the pieces are small and can only be looked at by a couple people at a time. If you had a group of 4 or 5, someone will be waiting. Two people is great because the ones I got quickly, he wouldn’t have and visa versa. My only complaint: the writing is quite small on some of the pieces making it really difficult for me to read. My younger-eyed husband didn’t have a problem, but if it were just me the tiny print on some of the cards would have taken away some of the joy. So far we’ve had four great date nights and had a blast. The people who aren’t liking this game obviously just bought the wrong game for them. Go into it understanding and accepting the challenge and you will do just fine. The clues are pretty good and are progressive... so lets say you take a clue and you already had figured that out - it won’t count against you and you have two more progressive clues to check if you’d like. So there is no reason you can’t finish or understand the game. Be patient, clever, and think outside the box (or sometimes inside the box, but I digress...) LOVE.THESE.GAMES. !!!

Best games fun for all.

My engineer gaming group (4 ppl, 30 yrs old) took 2 hours to solve this with 3 hints\clues used. It was pretty hard. I'd start with an easier one if you're new to escape rooms. Our 4th engineer decided to quit after 20 mins because none of the solutions we were coming up with made sense to him. The system is very well designed. It definitely feels more like a real escape room than some other escape room board games I've played. Educated guesses are not punished if they're wrong (like some other escape room board games), but rote guessing is also not a real option without feeling like you're cheating. Ckue\hints system was pretty decent too. 3 clues you can take for each puzzle, first one gives what pieces you need to solve the puzzle, second gives hints on how to solve it, and third tells you the solution to the puzzle. This game has one real advantage over in person escape rooms in that there's no real time limit. You can keep going for as long as you want. You don't get kicked out of the room after you fail to complete it within the hour time slot. The only way you can fail this game is by quitting. When you finish, you get a rating based off how long it took to solve and by how many clues\hints you used.

The Exit: The Game series are a favorite for myself and my wife, every now and then we will purchase a new one, make ourselves a couple of cocktails and spend an hour or two in the evening working through one of the games. They are always so inventive! Really, we have played about 20 of these and we have had no repeated puzzles, some puzzles might be similar but there is always a little twist to the trick to chuck a spanner in the works. This game in particular wasn't my favorite, we got frustrated in a couple of spots. A couple of the puzzles seemed like a bit of a stretch to solve, like the method to solve the puzzle was vague and even after knowing the answer I was still confused to how someone would ever think of doing what was intended. But overall these games a good time and constantly surprise us!

Great game! Amazed at the creativity and imagination of the good people that create the EXIT games. My son and I have played several of them and this one is one of the best yet! Challenging riddles to solve, but not to fear if you get stuck as you have the option to get a hint if you need one.

Fun way to connect as a family game.

Let me start out by saying there will be no spoilers in this review. I've played both The Secret Lab and Abandoned Cabin in this EXIT series. Both took about 2.5 hours to complete with 5 people. I'm an engineer, and while not a rocket scientist by any means, I'd like to think I'm not a total idiot. The games are very challenging and we had to use 2 clues in Abandoned Cabin and 5 clues in Secret Lab. They were both a blast to play, but if I had to recommend one it would be Abandoned Cabin. The puzzles in Abandoned Cabin were just much more refined and better designed. I would highly recommend these EXIT games and can't wait to play the rest in this series. **Update 9-2-2018** Just played The Forgotten Island, and I must say it was terrible. With the Forgotten Island, the game was just SO poorly designed. I can't believe it came from the same company. The riddles made little to no sense and you needed no logic or intuition to play - you just needed to make wild guesses. Very disappointed in The Forgotten Island.

I liked the idea of an exit room game you could play by yourself if you like. I love and am pretty good at solving puzzles, riddles and anything that requires analyzing information and figuring out the connections between indirectly related things. However, with these games, you can only play once because you are supposed to cut, fold and write on material. You can't even pass it on to family or friends to play. Also, many of the riddles were so vauge that it made it impossible to solve without at least the second clue or solution. Even when you learned the solution it still lacked the logical connections to solve them independently. In fact, one of the riddles barely hints at the fact you have to find the answer on the rules book. It never says you may need to use it to "solve a riddle", just that you shouldn't be shy about looking something up in the rulebook if something is unclear. This sounds like if you don't remember what something is for or forget concepts of the game play. I never would have thought for an immersive game like this is supposed to be, you would need to, so to speak, "break the fourth wall" or "break out of character" to find the solution in a rulebook. I liked that it challenges you, but I wish they wouldn't make an intermediate level game play like an expert level. Also, don't make it a one time experience. If I came back to this after several months, I guarantee I wouldn't remember the codes, card numbers or riddles provided in the game to solve.