Room Escape Artist

Prison Break is a tabletop escape game created by Exit: The Game.

Format

Style of Play: tabletop escape game

Who is it For?

• Puzzle lovers
• Best for players with at least some experience

Required Equipment: pen & paper, scissors

Additionally, this game requires both a stopwatch to record overall play time and a countdown timer for one section of the game.

Note that you need a bit more table space than these games typically require.

Recommended Team Size: 2-4

Play Time: about 3 hours

Price: about $15

Booking: purchase and play at your leisure

Description

Having been wrongfully imprisoned, we needed to work with our peers in other cells to follow the escape plan of a former inmate. As in other Exit: The Game installments, we used riddle cards and strange objects to help us solve puzzles. However, in this game, we divided into two sub-teams with access to separate sets of game materials, entering our 3-digit solutions into TWO decoder wheels instead of one.

Cindi S’ Reaction

Prison Break introduced a unique mechanic to Exit: The Game’s typical play style by having players split into two teams for part of the game, similar to an in-person prison-themed escape room. Each team had partial information, requiring sharing and working together to understand and solve the puzzles. The split start was nicely done, though challenging, as we stumbled a bit with the first puzzles. There were a lot of puzzles in this small box, ranging from easy, quick solves to ones nearly impossible to get through without hints. Observation and paying attention to details, which were sometimes really tiny, was crucial. The more difficult puzzles took quite a bit of time, either through trial and error or eventual hint cards. We also found at least one red herring and some misleading cluing, but overall, the puzzles made sense. Prison Break put a creative spin on a familiar escape room theme. If you think Exit: The Game installments are typically too easy, this one’s for you. And while most Exit: The Game installments can be played with 2 players, I’d recommend 3-4 players for this one, for the extra puzzling power. By the end, my brain hurt; remaining locked up would surely have been easier!

Theresa W’s Reaction

Exit: The Game is constantly evolving their escape room series, and Prison Break is no exception. The game starts off in a prison in which you find yourself talking to the other cell block’s inmates while in the yard. As your players return to the cell blocks, the split game mechanic breaks out, complete with player screens to block the view of your game materials from the other cell block. The storyline is driven home by the gameplay decisions throughout the experience. Each puzzle feels at home in the setting, yet one late-game puzzle sequence was frustrating, punishing, and repetitive, especially with a lower player count. We really appreciate the way Prison Break decided to break up gameplay in a unique way, and can’t wait to see what they do next to push the boundaries on split-team games!

Sarah Mendez’s Reaction

While Exit: The Game’s first split information endeavor didn’t bring anything new to the split information genre, the genre does bring something new to Exit. The goals, challenges, and theme of this format were all quite familiar from IRL escape rooms, but the adaptation to the Exit universe of strange objects and mysterious disks felt fresh and interesting for the series, especially mixed with the higher difficulty ranking indicating more figuring and less instruction. Unlike easier games in the series, this one left room to meander a bit, working for our ahas in some parts and blazing through rapid-fire puzzling in others. Overall, it lived up to its promise of difficulty…for both welcome and frustrating reasons. While we appreciated the extra opportunities to discover our goals without explicit instructions, the puzzles often lacked reinforcement that we were on the right track, leading to several costly false starts. The game took us twice as long as most other Exit: The Game installments. I generally enjoyed trying out different ideas, but my partner tired of it early, and neither of us had patience left for the complexity and fiddlyness of the finale. However, for fans of the series with interest in a prolonged challenge, it delivers.

Notable aspects of this installment:

• Split team communication challenges
• A particularly dense section of time-limited puzzling, one of the more invigorating sections in any installment
• Significant 3D manipulation opportunities
• A high difficulty level (and potentially longer play time)

Disclosure: Exit: The Game provided the Hivemind reviewers with a complimentary play.

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