Exit: Sunken Treasure

Last weekend Adam and I strapped on scuba gear and dove into the crystal clear waters of the Caribbean sea. We were following hints on a map we bought from a street vendor. In the depths of the sea, we discovered the long lost treasures of the Santa Maria.

Ahh, if only that were true.

Well, some of that is true. We did find the treasure of the Santa Maria. Just exchange the gorgeous Caribbean for the relative comfort of our kitchen table with a dreary backdrop of New England spring. A girl can’t have everything, I guess.

Our weekend game night’s headliner this week was Exit: The Sunken Treasure. I can’t recall whether I bought this for Adam or if the reverse is true because we both gifted each other an Exit adventure. The premise of Exit is not all that dissimilar to that of Unlock! where you receive an escape room in a box.

If this isn’t the most appropriate time for an escape room game, I don’t know when would be. It kind of feels like we’re living in one right now.

Exit is intended for one to four players over the age of ten. Kosmos, the game’s publisher, provides a helper app to keep time and provide ambient noise while you play. As we were in the Caribbean, the ebb and flow of the tide and the occasional seabird serenaded us. Unlike its counterpart, the app doesn’t throw wrenches into the gameplay, and, honestly, I didn’t mind that omission in the app.

How much time is on the timer, you ask? The recommended time allotment on the game is between 60 and ninety minutes. Exit doesn’t have a cut off time, but as with any escape room, time is of the essence. There are deductions in scoring for the amount of time you take to get to the lost treasure.

Other deductions come from the use of help cards. Each riddle had three help cards to push you along on your travels. This is consistent with an actual escape room where a game master is available to send hints into the room when your group is stuck. I am assuming this score caveat exists because the help can’t be personalized in any way, but the use of the help cards only counts against your score at the end if the cards told you something you didn’t already know.

There was one part of the game structure more complicated than all the rest. Exit, at least as far as The Sunken Treasure game goes, instructs players to write on and cut up cards, and destroy the gamebook. We struggled with such instructions. It felt wrong somehow to purposefully destroy a game. In the end, Adam and I were not fully compliant in that instruction. It didn’t hurt us too much as we managed to get through the adventure with a decent time.

The Sunken Treasure adventure made our Friday night fly by. I did a double-take at the timer when we finished. There was no way we were sitting there for seventy minutes. If we could play it again, we absolutely would. But alas, this too goes the way of actual escape rooms, it is a one and done. The good news is that Exit is a series of games with a variety of skill levels, so the fun can keep on keeping on.

If riddles and puzzles are your things, this is absolutely something you want to try. I doubt you’ll be disappointed. And really, what’s wrong with taking a chance on a game right now? What else is there to do?