Room Escape Artist

Midnight in the Garden Escape Puzzle is jigsaw puzzle combined with a tabletop escape game created by Ravensburger.

Format

Style of Play:

• Jigsaw puzzle + tabletop escape game

Who is it For?

• Jigsaw puzzlers

Required Equipment: pen and paper, the Internet for hints

Recommended Team Size: 1-4

Play Time: 1 hour to complete the escape puzzles, after completing the jigaw

Price: $20.99

Booking: purchase and play at your leisure

Description

This overview of the Ravensburger Escape Puzzle series will tell you everything you need to know about how this product works.

For this hivemind review, competitive jigsaw puzzler and Guinness World Record holder Tammy McLeod, solved the jigsaw puzzle and the hivemind joined in to solve the escape puzzles.

Tammy McLeod’s Reaction

Jigsaw & Escape Puzzles

As a jigsaw, it is of excellent physical quality, like every other Ravensburger puzzle that I’ve done. The puzzle image differs slightly from the box image, and it is in those differences that the escape puzzles are hidden.

As both an escape room enthusiast and a competitive jigsaw puzzler, I’ve tried numerous escape-room-jigsaw-puzzle combo games, and the focus of this one strongly leans towards the jigsaw puzzle end of the spectrum, with fairly straight forward riddles. I would consider it an escape room for jigsaw puzzlers (versus a jigsaw puzzle for escape room enthusiasts).

Cara Mandel’s Reaction

Escape Puzzles

This is now my third Ravenburger escape jigsaw puzzle so I feel like I can confidently say, these just aren’t for me. I’m not a huge fan of jigsaws in general so the opportunity to jump straight to the escape puzzles after our Hivemind colleague/ jigsaw champion, Tammy had assembled them made this endeavor more appealing. Unfortunately, I feel these barely qualify as “puzzles.” They are unintuitive, poorly clued, and usually require logic leaps in order to solve. I’ve tried several varying levels of difficulty but found all of them to be equally befuddling. I suppose these just aren’t my cup of tea but perhaps you will enjoy them?

Peih Gee Law’s Reaction

Escape Puzzles

It might be Midnight in the Garden but it’s definitely time to sunset this puzzle. I think this style of jigsaw puzzle with brainteaser puzzles on the finished image is a great concept in theory, but unfortunately, the puzzles in this series tend to be obtuse, confusing, and just plain not fun. I enjoyed exactly 1 of the 6 puzzles presented. The others either did not have enough cluing to offer a satisfying solve, or they were simple math problems, neither of which were fun.

This is primarily a jigsaw puzzle with bonus puzzles to solve after you’ve completed the jigsaw. If you’re looking for more of an escape room in a box experience with jigsaw puzzles, I would recommend an installment of the Exit: The Game series, such as Nightfall Manor.

Theresa Piazza’s Reaction

Escape Puzzles

This Ravensburger escape puzzle was another disappointment. I really liked the earlier iterations of this product line (Space Observatory, specifically!) and was hoping that The Cursed Greenhouse was just an outlier that employed obtuse puzzles as a way to increase difficulty, but it’s clear with Midnight in the Garden that this is not the case. I did not assemble the jigsaw part of Midnight in the Garden, but the puzzles were not compelling enough to make me want to complete another product in this line. Strange logic leaps and reused math puzzle styles means the solving is far from satisfying. I really miss the earlier versions of this product, and I won’t be rushing to complete any others.

Disclosure: Ravensburger provided the Hivemind reviewers with a complimentary puzzle.