Exit the Game: The Secret Lab

This is a fun puzzle solving game that emulates an escape room experience. You find yourself in a Secret Lab, and there is a notebook and a disk. The disk is your decoder ring. You need to solve riddles to get out of the room.

The game has an instruction book with an overview of the components and how they are used, as well as how to set them up. The instruction book is not part of the puzzle, so you read it before you begin. The game has three types of cards: Riddle cards, Answer cards, and Help cards. As you investigate, you find riddles to solve. When you solve the riddle, you will be able to enter information into the decoder ring, which will lead you to an Answer card. The right Answer card will lead to more riddles to solve on the Riddle cards. The game also has a way to tell you if your solution was wrong so you can take another look at the clues. If you are having trouble solving the codes you can use the Help cards. Each code has three Help cards. You can read the 1st Help card, and if you need more help, you can read the 2nd help card and the 3rd help card gives you the solution.

There are also two strange items in the Secret Lab and the game will let you know when you ‘find’ them. You can leave them in the box until then.

There is a way you can score the game at the end based on how many Help cards you used and how long it took you to get out of the lab. The instructions say not to count any Help cards that give you information you already had when scoring.

You will also need pencil or pen and paper, and a pair of scissors can be helpful, along with a way to track your time. When you play the game as designed, you will be marking or cutting materials, and it is intended for one play only.

This game is for 1-6 players. We played with two people and it took us about 90 minutes.

I found the game engaging and challenging. This is a good puzzle solving game with a story. I enjoy logic puzzles and I thought that the level of challenge in this game was just right for me, but I don’t know how to quantify that for people who are wondering if this game is right for them.

It’s hard to compare this game to an actual game escape room. I have completed one escape room and I found those puzzles to be very numbers heavy. This game had shapes and colors, and that appealed to me more. I also did not feel any time-pressure with this game compared to the escape room experience.

I like the Help card feature. If you get stuck you can get a clue without revealing too much at first, and if you are really stuck, you can get the answer to the puzzle. In this way, you can adjust the challenge level of the game.

This is the first game I have played from Exit The Game. There are currently three sets available in the US for purchase. The games are selling very well and my local game store has trouble keeping them in stock. Based on how much I enjoyed the game, I purchased the other two games the next day. There are three more games from Exit the Game due out before the end of the year.