Room Escape Artist

PAX Unplugged 2024 was a sprawling convention full of the best new board games on the market. Over the past few years, the convention has become a place where you can spend a lot of your time not just playing board games, but playing other games – puzzle hunts, escape rooms, and more – if you found yourself needing a break from everything going on in the expo hall. This year, there was even a murder mystery to solve!

Jubensha

Jubensha is a type of murder mystery social deduction game that originated in China. The vast majority of jubensha games that exist today are not in English, but KMS Games is taking steps to change that by creating games for an English-speaking audience. They were running a PAX Unplugged exclusive title called Game Over and I had the opportunity to play. Our group of six players included four strangers, which I understand is part of the allure of jubensha in Asia – the opportunity to meet new people during a fun activity and socialize afterward to discuss the game.

Game Over had an interesting mechanic, in that not even the killer knew they were the killer. Like the rest of the players, they had to work it out for themselves over the course of the game, which took about two hours to play. All of us, in fact, had no idea who we were, and the first phase of the game was figuring out who everyone was. Every player went full force into solving the mystery rather than one player (the murderer) attempting to obfuscate from the start.

As we entered phase two, we were physically led to a new “in-game” location to gather new evidence and clues as to the murderer’s identity. What followed was a series of back-and-forth accusations between most of the table until we settled on… the wrong murderer. As it turns out, at least four of us at the table (myself included) all came to the conclusion that we were the murderer and each of us led a little misinformation campaign to avoid being discovered. Unfortunately, that meant that we missed some of the clues pointing us to the real murderer who won the game by not being accused.

All things considered, we all enjoyed our time with Game Over. Unfortunately, it was a PAX Unplugged 2024 exclusive, so unless it pops up at PAXU 2025 or another convention, this was the only chance to play it. The good news is that KMS Games launched a jubensha boxed game at PAX called Secret Tribe! It is now available for purchase online.

Czech Games Edition Puzzle Hunt – Little Alchemists

Czech Games Edition (CGE) is a big enough company that they consistently have their own breakout room apart from the main expo hall. Every year, they’re pushing at least one new game. This year, they had two: SETI (which I talked about in my board game highlights article) and Little Alchemists, a junior version of their popular and complex game Alchemists.

To celebrate and promote Little Alchemists, CGE put on another one of their puzzle hunts. It was mechanically the same as last year’s puzzle hunt which was based around their game Kutna Hora: The City of Silver. Due to time constraints, my team was only able to play the first two puzzles of this year’s hunt, as it was no longer available to play on Sunday after the prize portion of the hunt ended on Saturday evening. However, the few puzzles we did play were challenging in a fun way. Like last year, each correct solve led us to a location in the convention center that would allow us to access the next puzzle.

Co-Operatives Puzzle Rooms

Co-Operatives have been setting up short form escape rooms at PAX Unplugged and PAX East for a few years now. Judging by how difficult it is to get a booking if you don’t show up right in the beginning of the day, they have been a hit with the convention attendees. We didn’t get the opportunity to play an experience of theirs this year, but they have a permanent home in Boston’s Faneuil Hall. Anyone heading to PAX East in May has a chance to play while they’re in town.

Poached Eggs

Finally we come to the wonderfully punny Poached Eggs, a puzzle hunt put on by Lockwood Immersive and Co-Operatives. A paper-based puzzle hunt has become a tradition at PAX Unplugged in the past few years, and it hasn’t failed to disappoint. Lockwood Immersive’s version was a challenging and entertaining introduction for the company. The ten puzzles and meta that made up Poached Eggs were varied both in their puzzle mechanics and in their difficulties. The ten initial puzzles each had their own aha moment, and one of them even taught us a new puzzle game; we had never played a masyu puzzle before and had to spend some time learning the mechanics before solving.

The meta puzzle had us scrambling through the expo hall searching out ten specific booths. We really enjoyed when the board game-centric nature of the whole hunt coalesced at this phase. Our prize for solving the meta was a combination that unlocked a chest at the Co-Operatives/ Lockwood Immersive table. In the chest were the eponymous eggs, each containing a raffle ticket for prize drawings late on Sunday. The large crowd gathered around the tables during the drawing told me that many, many people enjoyed the hunt throughout the weekend.

I have been being vague about the puzzles on purpose; Lockwood Immersive is selling Poached Eggs as a play-at-home hunt. The site-specific elements have, of course, been converted to something anyone can play at home.

Conclusion

I have said it before and I will say it again here: I have very much enjoyed the increasing gamification of PAX Unplugged. The various games provide a good diversion from the hustle and bustle of the convention, and give you something to do in the hotel room after hours, assuming you’re not quite ready to break into all the new board games you’ve picked up at the convention. But don’t forget that you can find some really good escape rooms in Philadelphia if you need a break from board games!

I am already looking forward to what PAX Unplugged will bring in 2025. They’ve already announced the dates and it’s earlier than usual, running from November 21 – 23. Sign up to the PAX Unplugged newsletter to be informed about their events. See you next year in Philly!

Disclosure: PAX Unplugged provided a media pass.