The Sunken Treasure | Exit: The Game - A Kosmos| Family-Friendly, Card-Based At-Home Escape Room Experience for 1 To 4 Players, Ages 10+

A. Graham United States

Love this series of games!! Very clever, each one quite different.

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. !!!

Zephyr United States

Loved This! (How to save for another use)

I absolutely loved doing this game. I played it by myself (mom of a 7 year old; wife to a man that's more into video games than board games) late at night. I'm an introvert, so a 1 person game piqued my interest and I've wanted to try the escape room variety. The story line on this was nice. The puzzle were great. Not too frustrating, but a couple that left me wondering what they wanted me to do. Given this was my very first escape room of any type, I did need to use a hint card to figure out one of the clues as I was completely stumped. Later in the game, my mind had been trained to think of using more than just the booklet & cards so I was able to quickly figure out another clue. You will need EVERYTHING that comes in the cellophane wrapping. Everything. I really liked that about this game. Even though it's meant to be a one-time use game, I did want to save it to be used later on with my family. If you binge-watch TV, you know what it's like to forget most and be able to play the game like it's new again. If you'd like to save it or pass it along, make a copy of pages 7 & the back cover before you start. Everything else I was able to either trace with my finger or use my phone to take pictures of where things were laid out. One clue "requires" you to cut cards, but I was able to lay them out in a way that didn't need them to be cut to figure out the clue. App's Timer: I really liked this portion. It added ambient sounds (that changed depending on where you should be in the game, though some might find the underwater breathing annoying...no spoilers there...you're in a shipwreck, after all) and I liked that the timer could be paused even if I logged out of the app and finished the game another day.

Parents of 3 young boys United States

Awesome experience, and creativity flowed to creating our own puzzles!

I did this with my 9 year old son, who is very smart and loves puzzles. We downloaded the app and listened to the introduction. It was a little slow to get through but better than reading them aloud myself. We REALLY enjoyed the puzzles. This was difficulty level 2 of 5, which I felt was perfect for us. We did use the help cards on a few, and only used the solution card on one particularly difficult puzzle. It took us about 2 hours or so to complete and we both had fun the entire time. Even though the box is small and there aren’t a lot of props, it really had some ingenuous puzzles that were fun using just the decoder, cards and book. This game had my son so excited that afterwards he saved the decoder and made his own games for his little brothers quite a few times! In my mind that’s the best kind of game - one that inspires creativity to make new games from it. It’s a little bit of a shame that the game can only be used once because you Mark and cut it up, but there are certain puzzles we could keep and my son could use in his own made up games. The price is totally worth a few hours of fun and all of the creativity that flowed from it. Now a days it’s more about the experience than the material objects! I already bought another one - we’ll do a couple level 2 before advancing to level 3. I think once you do a few you learn how to think like the puzzles.

J. Hilton United States

Fun for 1-4 players

My family just played Exit: The Sunken Treasure tonight after dinner. We are two middle aged adults and two young adults (16 & 20). I've never done an escape room before but my daughters have. We all thought this game was really fun. It took us just under two hours to finish and we only used two hint cards, both for the same puzzle, which really had us stumped. All of the other puzzles, at least one of us was able to get the "a-ha!" moment and figure them out. If you love brain teasers, codes, puzzles, treasure hunts, or "point and click" adventure games on PC or mobile, you might like this. If that's not really your thing, then this game probably isn't for you. However, you may still enjoy the story and have a good time watching others work on the puzzles, maybe even be the "narrator" and read the story book and cards for them as they go along. It's possible to play this game alone, too, if you really want to do an escape room type of experience but don't have anyone to play with. In case it isn't clear, this one has a difficulty of 2 out of a possible 5, so it's good as a starting point, to see if you'd be interested in the harder Exit games. Probably wouldn't work very well playing with others via Skype, Twitch, Zoom, etc, because there are several pieces that you'll need to examine closely and interact with in order to solve the puzzles.