Category: Ravensburger Escape Puzzle

Ravensburger – The Curse of the Wolves Escape Puzzle [Review]

by Lisa Spira, posted in Jigsaw Puzzle, Products, Ravensburger Escape Puzzle, Reviews, Tabletop Escape Game

Three Wolf Moon Puzzle

Location:  at home

Date Played: March 2020

Team size: We recommend 1-4

Duration: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Price: about $25

Publisher: Ravensburger

REA Reaction

With its nature scene in shades of blues, teals, and greens, The Curse of the Wolves was a beautiful jigsaw puzzle with the most innovative and advanced collection of escape puzzles that we’ve seen in a US-released Ravensburger Escape Puzzle to date.

Ravensburger's The Curse of the Wolves Escape Puzzle box art depicting a pack of wolves in the moonlight.

While this puzzle was given the same difficulty rating as Forbidden Basement, it was substantially more challenging than the other puzzles in the Escape Puzzle series. It wasn’t even close. The Curse of the Wolves was a harder jigsaw puzzle. It was also more difficult to find the escape puzzles with the puzzle, and a few of them were considerably harder to solve than in previous installments of the Escape Puzzle series. That’s not a knock against it. We enjoyed the elevated challenge… but it would have been nice if it were labeled appropriately.

Our biggest knock against this product was a stretch of the top edge that was nearly impossible to solve 100% correctly (because all edge pieces interconnect) that we got it approximately correct and stopped caring. There was far too much visual noise in this segment.

Overall, The Curse of the Wolves took a lot more time and effort to solve than previous Escape Puzzles. We welcomed that challenge. We highly recommend it if you’re already comfortable with and enjoy Ravensburger’s Escape Puzzle format. If you’re new to Ravensburger’s Escape Puzzle series, please don’t start here. Try out the Space Observatory for a fantastic starting place.

Series Overview

This review only covers details specific to this individual Ravensburger Escape Puzzle.

For a detailed explanation of the concept and mechanics, and a general analysis of the entire product line, check out our Ravensburger Escape Puzzle Overview.

Portion of the puzzle - a closeup of two wolves.

Story

Lost in the woods and encircled by cursed wolves, with meal time rapidly approaching, could we break their spell?

Portion of the puzzle - a closeup of of the cresent moon in the night's sky.

Analysis

➕ The puzzle art was beautiful. We loved the colors. It was a lovely image to construct as a jigsaw.

➕ This puzzle hid the escape puzzles in the jigsaw puzzle far better than any of the previous Escape Puzzles that we’ve reviewed. We really had to study the image to solve this puzzle.

➖ Ravensburger’s difficulty rating doesn’t appear to have meaning. The company rates both The Curse of the Wolves and Forbidden Basement as “level 3” in difficulty. However, The Curse of the Wolves was far more challenging.

➖ A portion of the top edge was so visually noisy that we found it impossible to solve correctly. Because every edge piece fits into every other edge piece, solvers must rely on visual cues alone. We knew that we had mistakes in that stretch of pieces. While this didn’t impact our solving of the escape puzzles, it did impact our satisfaction with the jigsaw portion.

➕ Ravensburger created some innovative escape puzzles. One favorite especially caught our eye; another favorite took us in a new direction.

➖A few of the puzzles required logic leaps. Although with enough trial and error we always landed at the solution, these puzzles would have been more satisfying with additional clue structure.

➕ The hints were detailed and clear (even if a small, inconsequential segment wasn’t fully translated into English).

Portion of the puzzle - a closeup of a wolf emerging from a cave.

➕/➖ The meta puzzle was satisfying from a narrative perspective. That said, it was too easy to recognize too early on. We fully solved it about 25% into the assembly of the jigsaw.

➖ The Curse of the Wolves Escape Puzzle was too easy to backsolve. Because of the way the escape puzzles build into a meta puzzle, this compounded on itself. The more we solved, the more we could backsolve.

❓ The Curse of the Wolves Escape Puzzle relied more heavily on color than some of the other puzzles in the series. If you suffer from colorblindness, this puzzle will be especially challenging.

Buy It Now

Pickup your copy of Ravensburger’s The Curse of the Wolves Escape Puzzle, and tell them that the Room Escape Artist sent you.

Buy The Curse of the Wolves Escape Puzzle

Disclosure: Ravensburger provided a sample for review.

Support Room Escape Artist’s Mission

There are lots of ways to support Room Escape Artist, like buying from Amazon or Etsy after clicking into the links included in this post or backing us on Patreon.

The money that we make from these helps us to grow the site and continue to add more value to the community that we love so much.

Ravensburger – Forbidden Basement Escape Puzzle [Review]

by David Spira, posted in Jigsaw Puzzle, Products, Ravensburger Escape Puzzle, Reviews, Tabletop Escape Game

Rich uncle’s last puzzle & testament

Location:  at home

Date Played: March 2020

Team size: We recommend 1-4

Duration: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Price: about $25

Publisher: Ravensburger

REA Reaction

Forbidden Basement Escape Puzzle may be the most escape room-y of Ravensburger’s Escape Puzzle series.

For this jigsaw puzzle-based experience, Ravensburger took a classic escape room setup, and put their own visual twist on the concept.

Ravensburger's Forbidden Basement Escape Puzzle box art depicting a ransacked basement filled with strange items.

This was an approachable, fun, and fast-solving jigsaw puzzle. There were lots of colors and overt textures that we could sink our teeth into.

The escape puzzles within the jigsaw puzzle were creative, but mostly straightforward.

We wished that the visual underpinning the meta-puzzle solve was a little sharper. It was a cool idea, but it looked kind of blurry.

All in all, if you’re a fan of jigsaw puzzles and want a little more of an escape room twist, we recommend Forbidden Basement Escape Puzzle. It worked well, solved cleanly, and while it offered up some challenge, it never once stymied us. We enjoyed the momentum.

SERIES OVERVIEW

This review only covers details specific to this individual Ravensburger Escape Puzzle.

For a detailed explanation of the concept and mechanics, and a general analysis of the entire product line, check out our Ravensburger Escape Puzzle Overview.

Portion of the puzzle - a closeup of a human skeleton with red glowing eyes and a fedora.

Story

A distant uncle passed away and left us access to his estate. If we could find his fortune it would be ours to keep.

Portion of the puzzle - a closeup of of a mouse sitting atop a bag of spilled sugar.

Analysis

➕ The art was quirky and playful. There were a lot of strange things to look at while building this puzzle. The image had depth and texture, which added momentum to the jigsaw solving.

➖ While the image worked well for puzzling, it wasn’t captivating as an image to piece together.

➕/➖ Once we’d completed the jigsaw, it was straightforward to locate and work through the escape puzzles. They solved cleanly… with one exception:

Portion of the puzzle - a closeup of a set of jars with red and blue shapes as labels.
That blue one in the center. Is that an oval or a rectangle? The answer: Rectangle.

➕ The escape puzzles took inspiration from escape room gameplay. While grounded in familiar concepts, they were varied, interesting solves.

➖ The meta-puzzle solve was conceptually cool, but the visual was far too blurry. We knew what we were looking at, but it didn’t look right. It was a less satisfying culmination of the Ravensburger Escape Puzzle experience.

❓With Ravensburger Escape Puzzles, it’s generally recommended to solve the edge later. You can read more about the oddities of the edges in our Escape Puzzle Overview. In Forbidden Basement Escape Puzzle, you can choose to solve the edge first, like you would most puzzles, and you won’t be hopelessly lost.

Buy It Now

Purchase your copy of Ravensburger’s Forbidden Basement Escape Puzzle, and tell them that the Room Escape Artist sent you.

Buy Forbidden Basement Escape Puzzle

Disclosure: Ravensburger provided a sample for review.

Support Room Escape Artist’s Mission

There are lots of ways to support Room Escape Artist, like buying from Amazon or Etsy after clicking into the links included in this post or backing us on Patreon.

The money that we make from these helps us to grow the site and continue to add more value to the community that we love so much.

Ravensburger – Vampire’s Castle Escape Puzzle [Review]

by David Spira, posted in Jigsaw Puzzle, Products, Ravensburger Escape Puzzle, Reviews

That last bite sucks…

Location:  at home

Team size: We recommend 1-4

Duration: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Price: $25

Publisher: Ravensburger

REA Reaction

We really wanted to love this puzzle. From a jigsaw puzzle standpoint, this was comfortably our favorite of the 4 Ravensburger Escape Puzzles.

Unfortunately, once we’d assembled the jigsaw puzzle, the “escape room” puzzles were a mess. There were multiple broken or ambiguous puzzles. While it all came together well enough in the end, the mistakes were too numerous and inexcusable for us to recommend this product.

A portion of the puzzle including a few suites of armor.

Pretty much all of the issues could be fixed in a future printing, if Ravensburger gets around to it. I hope that they do.

In the mean time, I’d recommend passing on this one unless you’re keen on doing the jigsaw or you’ve played Space Observatory, Witch’s Kitchen, and Submarine and want to complete the set.

Series Overview

This review only covers details specific to this individual Ravensburger Escape Puzzle.

For a detailed explanation of the concept, mechanics, and a general analysis of the entire product line, check out our Ravensburger Escape Puzzle Overview.

Closeup of Dracula emerging from his coffin.

Story

While vacationing in Romania, we’d decided to take a hike. Along the way we’d found an old castle; we couldn’t turn down the adventure. As we entered the castle, the door had locked behind us. We slowly realized that we weren’t alone. What could we do to survive?

A portion of the puzzle including vampire bats.

Analysis

➕ From a purely jigsaw puzzle standpoint, Vampire’s Castle was our favorite of Ravensburger’s Escape Puzzles. The image was vibrant, with a lot of color and texture variation. The design kept our momentum going from start to finish.

➕ The puzzle was filled with all sorts of cute oddities and amusing details.

The Vampires Castle Escape puzzle box.

➖ Too many of the puzzles within the puzzle were problematic. A third of the puzzles worked well. A third of the puzzles were too ambiguous for my liking… and a third of them were a total mess.

➖ There was a counting puzzle that was far too fuzzy.

➖ The puzzles that didn’t work properly were baffling, I’m really confused as to how they went to print.

➕ The final puzzle was satisfying.

Buy It Now

Buy your copy of Ravensburger’s Vampire’s Castle Escape Puzzles, and tell them that the Room Escape Artist sent you.

Disclosure: Ravensburger provided a sample for review.

Support Room Escape Artist’s Mission

There are lots of ways to support Room Escape Artist, like buying from Amazon or Etsy after clicking into the links included in this post or backing us on Patreon.

The money that we make from these helps us to grow the site and continue to add more value to the community that we love so much.

Ravensburger – Submarine Escape Puzzle [Review]

by David Spira, posted in Jigsaw Puzzle, Products, Ravensburger Escape Puzzle, Reviews

Puzzle shark, doo doo doo doo doo doo

Location:  at home

Team size: We recommend 1-4

Duration: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Price: $25

Publisher: Ravensburger

REA Reaction

With a vibrant look, Submarine stood out aesthetically among the first wave of Ravensburger Escape Puzzles.

From a puzzle solving standpoint, this installment pretty much nailed it… except for one noteworthy issue: a puzzle that didn’t quite resolve correctly. While this didn’t break the game, if this were your first attempt at an Escape Puzzle, it would be a harsh and confounding ending.

If you’ve already enjoyed an Escape Puzzles or 2, Submarine would be fantastic. Just watch out for a bit of confusion near the conclusion and you’ll have a good time.

An assortment of unconnected jigsaw puzzle pieces.

Series Overview

This review only covers details specific to this individual Ravensburger Escape Puzzle.

For a detailed explanation of the concept and mechanics, and a general analysis of the entire product line, check out our Ravensburger Escape Puzzle Overview.

Story

While wandering the harbor in San Juan, Puerto Rico, we’d happened upon an old man and his submarine. He’d previously used the boat to explore wrecks, but he’d grown too old for sea adventures and had offered the sub to us. We’d accepted and he explained its inner workings to us… but we’d been bored by this.

As soon as we’d pulled away from the dock, something broke and we sank to the bottom of the sea. We had to figure out what to do to survive.

Portion of an assembled jigsaw puzzle featuring a shark, and fish swimming around a wreck.
Submarine

Analysis

➕ The jigsaw puzzle was vibrant. It featured great art.

➕ It was a moderately challenging, but fair assembly. There was a lot of blue, but there were also lots of fish and details to help pull everything together.

Ravensburger's Submarine Escape Puzzle box art. depicts the 759 piece count and an undersea view filled with fish and a shark.

❓ We found most of the “escape room” puzzles to be a touch easier than those in the other Escape Puzzles released in Ravensburger’s first wave.

➖ The story in the instructions featured a choppy English translation.

➖ One of the puzzle solutions was at best lacking a significant clue… but it was probably just an incorrect inversion of the numbers. This was disappointing, but it wasn’t game-breaking… especially if you’ve played other Escape Puzzles and have a sense of how they work.

Closeup of a puzzle element depicting three different types of fish.
If you’re struggling on this puzzle… you’re probably right and the game is wrong.
Broken Puzzle:

The actually correct answer to the above fish puzzle is 846.

For unclear reasons, the game reports the correct solution as 462. We stared at this thing with a few really experienced puzzlers (including 2009 US Sudoku National Champion, Tammy McLeod) and we couldn’t imagine a way to get 462. I have to believe that this was a typo.

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➕ The concluding meta-puzzle was another clever solution. Ravensburger pushed this game mechanic considerably farther than we’d expected.

BUY IT NOW

Buy your copy of Ravensburger’s Submarine Escape Puzzle, and tell them that the Room Escape Artist sent you.

Disclosure: Ravensburger provided a sample for review.

Support Room Escape Artist’s Mission

There are lots of ways to support Room Escape Artist, like buying from Amazon or Etsy after clicking into the links included in this post or backing us on Patreon.

The money that we make from these helps us to grow the site and continue to add more value to the community that we love so much.

Ravensburger – Witch’s Kitchen Escape Puzzle [Review]

by David Spira, posted in Jigsaw Puzzle, Products, Ravensburger Escape Puzzle, Reviews

Cat and a hat.

Location:  at home

Team size: We recommend 1-4

Duration: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Price: $25

Publisher: Ravensburger

REA Reaction

Witch’s Kitchen Escape Puzzle was playful and colorful. It offered solid puzzle play throughout all phases of the game.

While we think that this puzzle would have benefited from a just a touch more vibrancy in its coloration, this was without a doubt our puzzle group’s favorite Escape Puzzle.

If you’re thinking about attempting a Ravensburger Escape Puzzle, Witch’s Kitchen would be an enchanting place to start.

Series Overview

This review only covers details specific to this individual Ravensburger Escape Puzzle.

For a detailed explanation of the concept and mechanics, and a general analysis of the entire product line, check out our Ravensburger Escape Puzzle Overview.

Portion of an assembled jigsaw puzzle featuring a kettle over a fire surrounded by magical ingredients and books.
Witch’s Kitchen

Story

While wandering through the woods, we’d decided to sample some of the local mushrooms, as one does. The wild mushrooms had had unexpected effects, as they often do, and we’d felt faint and stumbled into a hollow.

As we came to our senses, we’d realized that we were in the home of a witch… and if we were ever going to get out, we’d need to find the antidote for the poison shrooms.

Portion of an assembled jigsaw puzzle featuring a a witch's hat and a rat.

Analysis

➕ As a jigsaw puzzle, the image was entertaining with a lot of details to enjoy.

➖ The image was pretty brown. It felt like the box art was more vibrant than the puzzle itself.

➕ The variation between the box art and the jigsaw puzzle was fantastic. We found the differences in this puzzle more playful than in the other escape puzzles in the series.

Portion of an assembled jigsaw puzzle featuring a magical books and ingredients.

➕ The “escape room” puzzles were clear and solved cleanly.

➕ The culminating meta-puzzle was clever.

Buy it Now

Buy your copy of Ravensburger’s Witch’s Kitchen Escape Puzzle, and tell them that the Room Escape Artist sent you.

Disclosure: Ravensburger provided a sample for review.

Support Room Escape Artist’s Mission

There are lots of ways to support Room Escape Artist, like buying from Amazon or Etsy after clicking into the links included in this post or backing us on Patreon.

The money that we make from these helps us to grow the site and continue to add more value to the community that we love so much.