ThinkFun Escape The Room Secret of Dr. Gravely's Retreat - an Escape Room Experience in a Box for Age 13 and Up

My family loves escape rooms, we have done many. We decided to give a couple of the escape room games a go. They are play once and optionally pass it on. I figured for the price it was like going to see a movie, but something we could do together.The game play was very linear, you could really only work on 1 or 2 puzzles at a time. That said, my family liked this better than all scattering to work on different puzzles like the other one we played. We felt we had to work more together. The puzzles were challenging and fun but not real hard, probably intermediate level. The game recommend 2 hours for 4 people, but we finished in 1 hour. One thing we really liked in the game is the solution wheel, it basically lets you confirm your answer before you move on to next step. The game says it is for up to 8 people but more than 4 with the linear play of puzzles would be hard.Another big plus is the online material. It was cool that they had music play lists to set the mood. The hint guide was nice and easy to use. We used it once. I like that you can get partial hints. And they had a very nice online guide for repacking if you do want to pass the game on.We liked the game enough I bought the other two from this publisher. Would definitely recommend for up to 4 players.

My family and I have played probably 10 or so "Exit the Game" games, and probably 9 "Unlock!" scenerios, but this was our first "Escape the Room" game and it was amazing!The puzzles weren't too challenging, but had this been our first game of this style, I imagine they would have been perfect. I really loved the physical puzzles you solve, (prisoner puzzles.)I also really appreciated that think fun had instructions on their website for repacking up the game so we could lend it to friends or play it again, that was a really nice touch.I highly recommend this game, it was super clever and loads of fun. The story was immersive, and the puzzles were great.

I just received this today and 72 minutes later I have it solved playing solo.The quality of the product is extremely high and should be able to be passed on with no issues as long as you are careful opening taped envelopes. This set did have several puzzles where I could see someone tearing a puzzle by accident being a bit overzealous, but I will say I liked the variety of those puzzles. Definitely on the high end of like minded products for quality / durability.As far as game play, I liked the concept, I enjoyed the variety of puzzles, but I found the clues to be a little too apparent and obvious. It was very linear and no doubt on a). that you found a clue and b). where that clue was going to be used. I would have appreciated a less linear approach with more trying to "fit the pieces together".Overall good play, but still not as good as Deadbolt Mystery Society. With ability to reuse (and their awesome instructions on repacking) it is worth the money if you have friends / family to pass on to. Especially if you are new to Escape / Mystery games.

My husband and I did this escape room together! Even though the box says 3-8 players, we were definitely fine with just 2 people. In fact, I think it would be hard for more than 2 to work on it at a time. There’s usually only one small thing to work on at a time so I think some people would be bored if you had more than 2 or 3. Anyway, we have done many real life escape rooms and really love them, but this is our first one in a box. We finished this one in about 1.5 hours. The puzzles weren’t terribly challenging but still fun to figure out. The packaging was really high quality and we loved getting to make choices in the story and see what happened! This would probably be an appropriate level of challenge for younger people, maybe around 13+ years old. I think people who haven’t done any type of escape rooms before would enjoy this too!

This would be a good escape room for beginner players. For my husband and I (we play escape rooms all of the time) it wasn’t challenging enough. Depending on the number of players, you get a certain amount of time to complete the game (ours was 2 hrs). The game says 3 or more players but we felt it was more suited to 2 players, as there isn’t much to delegate out for other people to do. The puzzles go in order, one at a time, so you can’t have multiple people working on different things. Any more than 3 I think would be tedious. The most time sucking parts of this game are the physical puzzles (if you’ve played you know what I’m talking about). It was still a lot of fun and we escaped, but for us it could have been tougher. The materials are all very high quality and you get a lot in the box. You can only really play this game once, but we are used to that with escape room games. Honestly though just play it if you like escape rooms, it’s still fun.

I have played a massive number of escape/puzzle type games. I usually play them in small groups (2-3 people) but I played this one solo, however my only regret was not sharing the fun! That was okay though, because you can follow their easy step by step instructions to repackage it back to original setup for someone else to enjoy.It was not extremely challenging, but the puzzles were fun and intuitive. I purchased the voodoo dollhouse to play with company and I just wish this developer had made more games. I have loved the Thames and kosmos exit games but sometimes the puzzles are unrealistic. I absolutely recommend this for both beginners and seasoned players.

Played with 11 year old twins and we worked nonstop for almost two hours and just made it under the timer. So much fun. Relief when we finished, but first thing they said was to order another of similar so have done that and hope it is as much fun. Stargazer's Manor just ordered. Fingers crossed it is as great. They loved it.