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Aug 17, 2022Liked by Matt Montgomery

I'm pretty sure I have an Escape the Room box on my game shelf that I've never opened. Your look at Exit games makes me more curious about it, though, which was gifted to me after we went to our first (and only, so far) escape room. I do have a copy Escape!: The Curse of the Temple (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/113294/escape-curse-temple) which adds some puzzle-solving elements to what basically amounts to a timed board game (the included soundtrack helps to ramp up the pressure and enforces the time limits). I find the heightened stress level of the timed aspect of escape games to be enough that it gives me pause about choosing to engage, although the rush of completion is unparalleled (we finished our escape room with, if I'm remembering correctly, ~20 seconds left).

My partner and I did one of those Hunt a Killer box sets a while ago and I think that that scratches many of the same puzzle-/mystery-solving itches, but without the added stress of the time limit. You can engage at your own pace, take breaks, & come back to it when you feel like it. We also tried a similar subscription box-style game, Conundrum Box, to do with the kids, but those weren't nearly as well designed, the puzzles were often confusing and unclear (or alternately, too simplistic) and (minor point, this, but...) the random trinkets and objects you get inside were much lower quality (the Hunt a Killer box we completed included a beanie with the stitched logo of a fictional national park in northwestern Canada, a multitool, a spiralbound, themed notebook/journal, among other things).

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