EXIT: The Game - The Forbidden Castle

The EXIT box takes you on a journey through a medieval castle exploring a multitude of rooms and puzzles. This box was incredibly difficult to get started, taking myself and a friend over 50 minutes to get through only the first 2 puzzles. After we got started and figured out a new "key" mechanic built into the decoder wheel we managed to progress through the next 3 or 4 puzzles at lightning pace. Although we could have gotten a significantly faster time with a help card we refrained and this led to the stagnation at the start of the game. Overall the puzzles are enjoyable and cover a multitude of puzzle types and a unique use of the decoder wheel. This is a great box to get you started in the EXIT games if you can wrap your head around the first few puzzles. Difficulty - 4 / 5 Puzzles - 3.5 / 5 Theming - 3.5 / 5 Creativity - 3.5 / 5 Enjoyment - 4 / 5 Value For Money - 5 / 5 Overall Score - 3.5 / 5

This EXIT game was overall good, but some puzzles were clunkers and brought down the package a little. It’s a 4 out of 5 difficulty, which doesn’t seem to mean much since I’ve never seen a 5 difficulty (or a 1 for that matter). The puzzles are either straightforward or convoluted to the point where we understood what to do but the clunkiness of the materials prevented us from fully solving the puzzle on our own. The crafts are cute when they work. There’s a choice point here that affects which puzzles you do, which is not a great idea if you ask me. You’re already paying for a one and done game, so to have a puzzle be inaccessible is bonkers. The solution disk doesn’t use numbers which makes the puzzles a tad more interesting, though having to translate numbers can get cumbersome. There are better EXIT games out there, so while this is still a decent one, it’s not as highly recommended.

The Exit Game delivers on so many levels. 1) Inexpensive for large groups 2) High Quality games 3) High Quality props 4) flexible to your schedule 5) Family friendly 6) well calculated difficulty levels There’s even a hint/scoring system that reduces your score by time and number of hints that really keeps you honest.

I’ve enjoyed each of the Exit games that I’ve played, but this was one of the less memorable ones. The puzzles were mostly sound, except for one that seemed a little bit of a stretch, but there have definitely been better crafted games in this series.