With the isolation of Covid starting to fade away and long cold nights settling in, many of us might be ready for an escape. What better way than with an escape room? No, not the businesses that offer physical rooms and puzzles to solve.
Those are cool and interesting but with a cost of around $50 per person, that might be out of reach on a college student’s budget. Instead, check out Escape Room card games. These little boxes of entertainment are about as expensive as a paperback book and can be played in the comfort of your own home with friends and family.
Unlock!
Each Unlock! game has a different scenario (which aren’t very unique concepts to escape rooms), such as haunted mansions, under the sea, and a laboratory escape.
Components include a 60-card deck and a free app.
The real highlight of this game is its reusability – you can trade it with others and there are no wasted pieces. The app is nice because it prevents someone from cheating (or being just overly curious) about finding the correct code to unlock new clues. The lack of creativity in the progression of the scenarios is justified given the $11 price tag and the reusability of the game.
Aesthetics: 4/10 – Nice artwork, but its simplicity and lack of originality leave much to be desired.
Difficulty: 7+/10 – The difficulty rating can get out of control. Don’t be afraid to take hints.
Creativity: 6/10 – The clues and game progression are thoughtful, but all card based.
Playability: 8/10 – Easy to break out a game and get playing, especially with the app.
Fun: 8/10 – Fun for all unless you have a really ‘overthinky’ player on the team.
Difficulty ratings are subjective sometimes, as one little clue can stump the team and eat up time (the Nautilus scenario has my whole family and all of my friends stumped – we’ve tried cracking it numerous times, but always toss it back in the corner.)
Exit: The Game
This is an award-winning game series that also includes cards and a free app like Unlock!, however, this one is not replayable. There will be clues that require cutting, folding, and writing to figure them out. It definitely adds to the fun factor of having more interaction with the puzzles, yet more junk for landfills makes the $15 price tag a little more expensive for one-time use.
I did read a recommendation somewhere to photocopy these extra materials, but I know from past play that not everything will translate well as a photocopy and it would spoil the game for anyone who got to see all of the clues at one time.
Play follows using the decks of cards in order to solve riddles and open doors. There is a really cool decoder ring for this: Enter the three numbers that the team thinks corresponds to the clue to reveal a final number. This last number matches an answer card, which if it is correct, opens another door. If it’s wrong, the team can pick a ‘hint’ card.
Confusing? Yes, there is a lot to keep track of in this game, but after a few rounds, it gets easier. One big problem was when we were moving the decipher wheel incorrectly and could not come up with a usable answer. It pays to write down possible solutions and then have other players double check each other. This is about teamwork, after all!
Aesthetics: 7/10 – Nice artwork and a cool decoder ring.
Difficulty: 8/10 – Difficulty in trying to understand the initial game play.
Creativity: 10/10 – Super creative puzzles.
Playability: 3/10 – The one time use is a real deal breaker.
Fun: 8/10 – Next best thing to a real escape room at this price range.
Each game offers pros and cons, so definitely branch out and try them both just in case one doesn’t suit your tastes. There’s also some bigger escape room boxes with more complex directions, such as “Escape Room In A Box”. But I’ll leave you to discover those on your own.
With so much time spent apart from friends and family the last few years, board games which offered a collective group experience seemed to offer the most joy.