Time To Escape I Think?
Kosmos’ EXIT games are one of my favourite series of games out there, I’ve played about half of them over the last couple of years and I’m never left disappointed. As one of the newer (May 2024 UK release) EXIT games out there, EXIT Prison Break came up with a unique way to play compared to the previous installments, but don’t be fooled, this game has nothing to do with the TV series you may have heard of.
Game Unboxing and Setup
EXIT games are all really easy to unbox and set up. Inside the EXIT Prison Break box you’ll find your three decks of cards (riddles, answers, and help cards), a couple of “strange items”, a few folded sheets of paper/card, and not one but two decoder disks. Why two decoder disks? Because in EXIT Prison Break you’ll be playing your game as two teams who need to solve riddles together and decode the puzzles seperately. You’ll only need the two decoder disks and the letter to begin play, the rest of the contents will need to be set aside within reach. I would always recommend having a pencil or pen, some paper, and some scissors handy before you begin too.
Gameplay Overview – You Will Be Warned Before Spoilers
EXIT Prison Break is advertised as the new Team X-Treme game, a concept new to Kosmos’ series which requires players to form teams for part of play which is why this one is not suitable for solo play unlike other EXIT games.
Time To Escape I Think?
Kosmos’ EXIT games are one of my favourite series of games out there, I’ve played about half of them over the last couple of years and I’m never left disappointed. As one of the newer (May 2024 UK release) EXIT games out there, EXIT Prison Break came up with a unique way to play compared to the previous installments, but don’t be fooled, this game has nothing to do with the TV series you may have heard of.
Game Unboxing and Setup
EXIT games are all really easy to unbox and set up. Inside the EXIT Prison Break box you’ll find your three decks of cards (riddles, answers, and help cards), a couple of “strange items”, a few folded sheets of paper/card, and not one but two decoder disks. Why two decoder disks? Because in EXIT Prison Break you’ll be playing your game as two teams who need to solve riddles together and decode the puzzles seperately. You’ll only need the two decoder disks and the letter to begin play, the rest of the contents will need to be set aside within reach. I would always recommend having a pencil or pen, some paper, and some scissors handy before you begin too.
Gameplay Overview – You Will Be Warned Before Spoilers
EXIT Prison Break is advertised as the new Team X-Treme game, a concept new to Kosmos’ series which requires players to form teams for part of play which is why this one is not suitable for solo play unlike other EXIT games.
Play begins with a mysterious letter found in the a prison cell left behind by it’s previous occupant which presents you with a conundrum to solve and leaves you splitting your player group into two, each team getting a carefully ripped up half of the escape plan and their own cell in the prison. The two teams are instructed not to show each other their game materials, but they can talk and discuss things as much as they like, which is necessary, as each team only posesses half of their clues needed to solve the puzzles.
SPOILER ALERT – If you don’t want to learn too much about the puzzles in EXIT Prison Break, skip this paragraph.
By reading out loud, players can piece together the entire escape plan, and solve two riddles right off the bat. At first glance, the drawings all over the prison cell walls look random but they will need to be studied and spoken about to solve one of the puzzles, and the mysterious markings in red will be the most important guide to solving the other puzzle, both of which require significant communication from one team to another. Once these two puzzles are solved, each team will have further puzzles to complete, communicating with all players to solve them together, before players are able to reunite outside their individual cells and begin sharing resources and solving the same riddles together.
The game ends when players successfully solve all the riddles to excape from their prison cells, navigate the prison itself, and drive off in their getaway car.
Final Thoughts
Given that EXIT Prison Break is designed to played in teams, I’m surprised the player count is still only up to 4 players, I honestly think 6 would be fine. Playing with an even number of players works best for the puzzles where you are split into teams but 2 players seems too few as we struggled to piece together some of the clues when we weren’t allowed to show each other our items.
SPOILER ALERT – If you don’t want to learn too much about the puzzles in EXIT Prison Break, skip this paragraph.
I particularly love how Kosmos keep coming up with new ways to fool our brains and make us think. I’ve had previous experience where the game box was used to solve a riddle and the rulebook contained some clues, but Kosmos go one step further in EXIT Prison Break by actually making you turn over a help card to get an answer, yes, that’s right, one of the puzzles requires you to open a medicine cabinet and the only clue you are given as to how, leads you to the first help card for the riddle, thankfully, they wrote into the card that if you intended to turn it over as part of the puzzle and not because you genuinely needed help, it doesn’t count towards your final score at the end of the game! They also cheekily stuck a sticker over a clue on the game box, love it!
Despite the difficulty of these puzzles (because they were most definitely harder than we were ready for) we really enjoyed the concept of the team play and the featured storyline.
My Own Playthrough Score?
Shockingly bad! As a team of just two, which is how we usually play EXIT games, we did appalling! Knowing that this one was designed for teams we really should have gathered up two extra players to crack the code but we didn’t. With an estimated play time of 1-2 hours and a possible 12 stars up for grabs, just how bad were we? Well with a time of 2 hours 11 minutes, and a total of 7 help cards used, we earned ourself 3 stars. Those of you familiar with EXIT games might be thinking “hold on, a total of 12 stars, they usually only go up to 10?” Well that’s because you can earn yourself a bonus two stars for solving the penultimate riddle quick enough. How quick is quick enough? 12 minutes. How long did it take us? 32!
So How Replayable is EXIT Prison Break?
EXIT Prison Break was designed to be a single use game. As with other EXIT games, the components are meant to be written on, cut up, folded, and otherwise destroyed. If you’re careful, you can solve the puzzles without damaging any of the parts too much, which means you can actually play more than once if you want to, but let’s face it, once you know the answers there isn’t any need to play again, is there?
