Space Cowboys , Unlock! Escape Adventures , Card Game , Ages 10+ , 2-6 Players , 60 Minutes Playing Time

Product Information

This is the unfinished manuscript of an astonishing adventure I have in mind. It is entitled ‘Alice in Wonderland’. Please, help me write an end to it… and help Alice out of the mess I so maliciously got her into… I didn’t fall as hard for Scheherazade’s Last Tale as I did The Night of the Boogeymen, but I did still enjoy the scenario. From the start I was impressed: there was great music, funny elements, and a new, ingenious means of “traveling” around to various locations. The puzzles were relatively simple and, in spite of a few ambiguous moments, there wasn’t anything too difficult to solve (even if it meant doing so through trial-and-error). You are smugglers in the Outer Rim, facing danger and the unexpected every day. Today, while transporting expensive cargo belonging to Jabba the Hutt, you are intercepted by an Imperial Star Destroyer!

If you’ve played an escape room game before, we recommend The Werewolf Experiment. This game specifically is the new gold standard for escape room games in our opinion. It has the best puzzles, components and story line of any escape room game we played. How many? That depends on how you feel. For an intimate, romantic tete a tete this will work very nicely. There are not so many clues thrown in on each card as to overwhelm a situation. With two people the challenge will work best if approached in a linear fashion. For a more frantic, almost scatter gun approach, with four or more, you could easily “divide and conquer”. One player will need to control the flow of information and enter values into the app. The more the merrier. This also means alternative viewpoints or ways of thinking are more likely to be expressed. One or two of the puzzles are certainly quite obscure. I personally think the sweet spot is four players. Secret of Dr. Gravely’s Retreat is a bit harder and more mysterious than Mystery at Stargazer’s Manor. This one is recommended for children of ages 13 and up, and then still you really need an adult in the room to help them get through the toughest puzzles. Some cards require a close examination, even using the phone camera and app in combination. This may reveal hidden detail, but if you make unwise choices then time penalties are added. Like a real-life escape room, you do not want to waste time, but you need to be confident that you have made a sensible choice. Occasionally some cards need to be used in combination or even placed together and rearranged on the table. This might be to spell words or give a new image. It is good to get one or two of the party to be having a big picture look and others to forensically examine the relevant cards.In the second game, “Arsene lupin and the Great White diamond”, players are a group of orphans racing to find a diamond which has been hidden. The treasure hunt has been commissioned by Arsene Lupin and whoever find the diamond first will work with him and would not have to worry about their future. The scenario has a twist as there are some false leads in the game that could cost you precious time. In the last few years Escape rooms have popped up all around the world and they soon became a great way to have fun with your friends. They are also often used as team building activities as they are great to stimulate cooperation and interaction. Not surprisingly, a lot of publishers tried to emulate the same type of experience by developing escape room-themed board games.

First off we want to say that all these brands make great games, and we’ve had fun playing all of them. We don’t think any of them is strictly better than another, but depending on your taste you’ll still have a favorite.It will also contribute to the atmosphere around the table with its music tailored to each adventure, awful penalties ... and fatal countdown!

The games have a time limit of sixty minutes, with The Adventures Of Oz being an exception. But, you can simply forego the timer and continue to play the game if you can’t seem to solve the puzzles in time. The timer adds merely an element of urgency to the game that you can skip if you want to. However, we highly recommend playing with the timer on to feel the full impact of the game. You must keep in mind that the difficulty level is different for each of the three games. But, they are all equally fun and enjoyable. If a game is too complicated or easy for you, you can simply move on to the next one. Princess Scheherazade is in great danger. In an hour, she must tell one last story to the Sultan to save her life. Unfortunately, she is out of ideas.

If you are looking to linked adventures, the best ones are for sure those based on the great villain of the series, Professor Noside: “Squeek and sausage” (Escape adventures, difficulty 2), “A noside story” (Secret adventures, difficulty 1), “The Noside show” (Timeless adventuress, difficulty 1) and “Professor Noside's Animal-O-Matic” (Mythic adventures, difficulty 2). A nice feature of these games is that, although the target to complete each one is sixty minutes, if players take longer than this, then the game continues and without the need to restart the game from the beginning. Players who exceed the sixty-minute mark will receive a lower overall grading at the end of the game.

There is a short tutorial game which shows you all the basics so that you can be up and running for the proper game without having to interrupt flow to learn any rules. I was very impressed with this efficiency. We played the tutorial and dove straight into an adventure directly afterwards. It really didn’t feel like a steep learning curve. So how does the whole thing compare to real escape rooms or the card-butchering Exit games? I mean, nothing compares to the feeling of tearing apart a games room looking for a clue that does not exist for a puzzle that isn’t there and being asked politely but firmly by the host to leave (I’m a dichotomy – deal with it) but it does have that ‘ohhhh I get it’ element when you do… get it.Obviously, a good balanced set may not be always an option for you, either because you have already played some of them or because you are looking for something different. In this case, I would recommend considering a thematic set. Echo Base, an important Rebel stronghold, has managed to remain hidden on the ice planet Hoth for some time. The hostile climate provides excellent cover and protection from the Empire- but you must always remain vigilant! It’s been raining for hours and your phone battery is now flat. This day doesn’t look too good unless… Hey! you know a way to kill boredom: you just have to climb up the ladder to the attic where your grandpa’s dusty old arcade machine is stored. Another thing we really like about this escape room game series is that all of its games are reusable, because you can reassemble all the pieces to their original state. So what you can also do is play the game first yourself, and then reassemble it for your kids, who can then play through it themselves with your occasional guidance. Action Story (difficulty 1 out of 3) - The elusive Stella has stolen the world's most expensive gem! Stop her and take away her precious haul;