Category Archives: Room in a box

VAP Games: Escape The Casino

Room-in-a-box, Mar 2018

Escape The Casino describes itself as a ‘digitop’ game, and represents another variation on the play at home format. Several other games use a support app as part of the game, to track time and verify answers, but Casino takes it one step further by … (more)

Escape Team: Missions 1-5

Room-in-a-box, Feb 2018

There are a few other games available on a print and play basis, but Escape Team take that approach to perhaps its purest form. Where other printable games are best printed on card in colour, these are intended for printing in black and white on norm… (more)

Escape The Crate: Episode 6: Extinction

Room-in-a-box, Feb 2018

Escape The Crate has now been running for a year, and it is to the credit of the designers that they’ve never gotten lazy and settled into a predictable rut. While the format remains constant and some puzzle types make recurring appearances, they kee… (more)

Unlock!: The Tonipal’s Treasure

Room-in-a-box, Jan 2018

The Unlock games have so far been released in sets of three, and both times the third game in the set has had the highest difficulty rating and has also seemed to be the one with all the designers’ favourite ideas. This one, The Tonipal’s Treasure, i… (more)

Unlock!: The Nautilus’ Traps

Room-in-a-box, Dec 2017

Second in the Mystery Adventures set of Unlock games, The Nautilus’ Traps is a beautifully illustrated game with an evocative theme, creative puzzle ideas and some clever ideas that mix up the format somewhat; and despite all that it’s a contender fo… (more)

Unlock!: The House on the Hill

Room-in-a-box, Dec 2017

They’ve been out on the far side of the Atlantic for a while now, but the three new Unlock games finally reached the U.K. in December. Here they’re sold as a single box of three games with each described as a different difficulty level, and House on … (more)

Paper Escapes: Volume 2: Survive the F5

Room-in-a-box, Dec 2017

In the ancient long-gone days of six months ago, back when an ‘escape room book’ was an entirely new concept to me, I tried the first Paper Escapes book and was unimpressed. It was therefore a good sign that its sequel has had a ground-up redesign. I… (more)

Ivan Tapia: The Escape Book

Room-in-a-box, Dec 2017

Whereas boxed escape rooms are now thoroughly established with about three dozen products available, book-based escape games are still very novel. Newly translated from its original Spanish, The Escape Book claims to be the first of its kind, which m… (more)

Exit: The Forbidden Castle

Room-in-a-box, Nov 2017

Last of the Exit games until they finish translating the next four in the series, Forbidden Castle is marked as a harder game (4/5 difficulty, where Polar Station and Forgotten Island are marked as 3/5) and is my favourite so far. It follows the usua… (more)

Exit: The Forgotten Island

Room-in-a-box, Nov 2017

It was Forgotten Island that finally made me surrender and start playing the Exit games in a way that marked the components – though so far still only in ways that I could reverse to restore everything to its original condition. But for most players … (more)