My experience with the Kosmos “Exit the Game” series has been hit or miss… And I’m starting to wonder if the difference in experience isn’t the specifics of each game but rather the environment in which I’m attempting to play it.
This is the sixth game in the Exit the Game series I’ve played, and I’ve tried with groups ranging in size from 2-4. Invariably, two things always hurt the experience from the beginning.
1) There are often times when only one person can work on a puzzle at a time, leaving the other players to sit idle. This leads to a general rule of thumb on these games, which is “the less, the merrier.” Truth be told, I’m betting I’d have a blast playing one of these games myself, if I didn’t have such an aversion to playing a board game alone.
2) It’s never fun to try dodging the need to cut / tear / fold pieces. I really dislike damaging game components (and the awful aftermath of having to throw away / recycle a game where 90% of the components are still intact), but trying to utilize photocopies / sketches / approximations to get around the issue usually leaves the group bored and frustrated, so it’s better just to bite the bullet and cut away.
So how did we fare this time?
Setup / Components
I played through The Catacombs of Horror as part of a team of three. We had a well-lit table we could use to keep the game components visible to most players most of the time.
The Catacombs of Horror is a little bit different from other cases in the Exit series in that it contains two chapters which can either be played back to back or separately. We opted to play the game in two sessions a few weeks apart, and the game made it easy to pick up where we left off.
The components were for the most part things we’re used to seeing in escape room home games- assorted papers, thicker paper props, and small plastic trinkets. Given that this game had two chapters of content, there was a larger than normal volume of pieces.
Two other props were noteworthy. The included candle prompted great speculation from our team on how it might be used, and it kept us looking forward to when we’d finally be able to pull it out. Also, the game contained a box within a box with a few props not to be revealed until chapter 2. Both elements created some extra suspense- it was nice to have some surprises to look forward to.
Story / Presentation
The story was broken into two chapters describing your search for a friend who went missing in the catacombs. The chapters each have a slightly different goal- in the first chapter, you’re looking for your friend. In the second chapter, you’re dealing with an obstacle (I wont get any more specific than that to avoid spoilers, but there’s a reason why it’s called Catacombs of Horror).
The narrative isn’t enough to keep someone engaged who’s not into puzzles. The game does a decent job dropping in some story elements into the puzzles, but in general it doesn’t spend that much time establishing the environment or any characters. If you’re looking for a game with more of a storytelling aspect, you may prefer the Kosmos Adventure Game series, Escape Tales, or Time Stories.
The presentation is nice, and generally familiar to those who have played this Exit The Game series before. Typically you have an image portraying where you are during the game, a handful of clue cards and items, and a code wheel to line up your puzzle solutions and determine if you’re correct. Catacombs of Horror doesn’t deviate from the formula, and it continues to work just fine.
Puzzles / Flow
The game opens off a little rough- after inventorying all of our items as our group, we identified the first puzzle, and it wasn’t something more than one person could work on at a time. So two of us reviewed our inventory and chatted while the third solved the puzzle.
After that, the puzzles opened up a little bit better, where the execution elements were less time-consuming compared to the brainstorming phase, so we got to work more as a group to think through what we should be focusing on and how.
Generally speaking, the rest of the first chapter went wonderfully, with plenty of collaboration in puzzles, and only one snafu where we damaged a game component more than the game intended. That’s one of the downsides of having the game require cutting / folding / scratching; some of these things are hard to undo if not done exactly right.
Chapter 2 started off a little rough, as well, with the very first puzzle requiring one person to spend a long time on an execution / physical manipulation task while the other two of us twiddled our thumbs. Unlike chapter 1, chapter 2 didn’t bounce back from this issue, and many, if not most, puzzles required one person to take charge and keep the other players waiting.
The game’s final, climactic puzzle was fantastic. The game did a good job slipping in elements here and there that aren’t fully utilized into the final puzzle which brings together many threads into one really neat experience. Because it used so many different components, it was not only possible, but also helpful, to have multiple players participate. This single puzzle would be a great showcase for how cool escape room home games could be, and I hope to see many more like that.
Conclusion
I rate this game as just about par for the course for the Kosmos “Exit the Game” series. Aside from “Dead Man on the Orient Express” which delighted us start to finish, most of the Exit the Game kits have the same strengths and weaknesses – decent puzzles with a few standout highlights, dragged down by encouraging multiple players to participate in an experience truly designed to be played with only one active participant.
If you’ve played any of the others and like the formula, there’s a lot to like here, with the expanded two-chapter scenario and a knockout final puzzle. If you had reservations or issues playing any of the other games, you’ll probably have the same issues here. And if you’ve never played an Exit the Game before, you should probably start with one of the less elaborate kits to get a feel for the series.
Any questions about anything on this game I didn’t cover? Let me know!
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