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

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. !!!

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.

This was a Christmas gift from my husband. I love these types of games/puzzles, and this was my first Exit game. I played it by myself over the course of 2 days. It took me about 3 hours to complete, and I needed 2 help cards, which puts me at 6 stars in the assessment. The reason I am giving 4 stars instead of 5 is because I think they left something out of the instructions that is important to know, especially for 2 Riddles. If they had said this in the instructions I probably would not have needed the 2 help cards I used1 and it would have taken me considerably less time to solve, but as it is there was no way I would have solved the riddle without the help cards. The information they left out of the instructions is;*possible spoiler to follow*that you might need the actual game box for some of the Riddles. 2 of them in this game.* end possible spoiler*One of the Riddles actually tells you this, and one does not. The one that does not comes before the one that does and so I had no clue. They should have included this tidbit in the 'Where is the game board?' section, or in the riddle itself.I also recieved the Enchanted Forest game and I am excited to get into it!I would definitely recommend this to anyone who likes these sorts of games/puzzles. I will be getting more myself in the near future!

College aged kids loved playing!!