Thinking outside the “Escape Room in a Box”- Exit: The Enchanted Forest Board Game Review

From a game mechanic and execution viewpoint, The Enchanted Forest...

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Has anyone played the newest wave of these? I'm amazed at the strides that have been made. You can pick them up for about $10.00 each at the discount online places. I think these will be my new planned game night obsession. ⁸

I've never played one of these, but the low price has me thinking that I will, soon. Thanks for the review!

I’ve played a couple of the Unlock! boxes but I definitely want to try one of these.

I've played all of the Unlock! games (except for the last two Star Wars missions) and they greatly improved through the middle, but have fallen off to focusing on gimmicky use of the the app. The first Star Wars mission was painfully easy and even bolded the relevant text on each card. Unless the other two are a big improvement, it will probably be the worst in the series for us (BGG has it with the lowest rating by far).

For Exit, I just picked up Enchanted Forest and Cemetery of the Knight, but have played all of the other ones. The quality started to drop off, with the notable exception of Catacombs of Horror, though the last couple were an improvement. I hope Enchanted Forest and Cemetery of the Knight continue the recent improvement.

The first few waves of each series had us strongly preferring Exit due to the much stronger puzzle design, but then they started to become more stable while Unlock! was doing some interesting things with puzzles and the app to play with expectations.

So far, the Exit games have only used the app as a timer and to read you the instructions.

I bought and played this tonight with 4 players. We took about 2 hours with 3 clue cards (6/10 star finish rating). We enjoyed it. I thought the final puzzle was stretching it a bit for what was required, but I guess now I know what to look out for in the future. If the two star difficulty tripped us up this much, I imagine the higher level ones are impossible for our feeble brains.

Thanks for the review.

Disgustipater wrote: I bought and played this tonight with 4 players. We took about 2 hours with 3 clue cards (6/10 star finish rating). We enjoyed it. I thought the final puzzle was stretching it a bit for what was required, but I guess now I know what to look out for in the future. If the two star difficulty tripped us up this much, I imagine the higher level ones are impossible for our feeble brains.

Thanks for the review.

So, did the final puzzle require you to pull a clue card? We loved the final puzzle because it was so outside the box but, at the same time, felt so "right." We were working out way there, just to the point of frustration when it finally clicked and I can still see everyone glancing around the table with joy when it finally clicked. We jumped into (review incoming soon) The Cemetery of the Knight, which is rated 3 out of 5 for difficulty but, IMHO, the difficulty jump is only in that it doesn't follow a direct linear path from start to finish and hits you with that "outside the box" moment much sooner.
Our final score for The Enchanted Forest was 5 out of 10 stars with it taking 116 minutes (and 48 seconds) and 4 help cards pulled, so we are right there with you with our "feeble brains." I'm glad you enjoyed it!

WadeMonnig wrote: So, did the final puzzle require you to pull a clue card?

Yeah. And I didn't mean to sound like we didn't like it; we did.


We also stumbled on the first puzzle and needed a clue card. Sometimes it helps to get a feel for what kind of stuff you'll be asked to do before the process clicks.

WadeMonnig wrote: Our final score for The Enchanted Forest was 5 out of 10 stars with it taking 116 minutes (and 48 seconds) and 4 help cards pulled, so we are right there with you with our "feeble brains." I'm glad you enjoyed it!

That's basically what we had. Your time and clues falls under 6 stars (<=120 minutes and 3-5 Clues)