Exit: The Game – The Mysterious Museum (Review)

Location: Your Home!

Players:  We recommend 1-2

Price: $14.99

Night at the Museum

Theme:

From the Thames and Kosmos website:

You are on a trip to the Florence Natural History Museum, intent on visiting the sunken treasure of the Santa Maria. Your relaxing day at the museum is quickly derailed by an incredible adventure! Can you solve the mysteries of the museum and find a way out?

First Impressions:

Leading off from where The Sunken Treasure left off, it’s time to visit the museum to have a look at the treasures we recovered! In pure Exit The Game fashion, however, a shady figure has arrived to make sure our adventures in Florence are much more interesting. As the Exit The Game series continues to innovate, it’s great to see that the stories are starting to intertwine, even slightly, so though this was the box I was the least interested in, it turns out that the game inside is easily a favorite.

It’s always pleasantly surprising how much puzzling Exit: The Game contains in such a small box!

High Points:

Like The Sunken Treasure, The Mysterious Museum is a story based, linear experience. While linearity can be a problem in escape rooms, I find that the more intimate experience of an at home game really lends itself to telling the story this way. It also allows for the most surprising and crazily themed twist of any Exit game to pop off early and take us on a much wilder ride that we initially expected! Though completely linear, the puzzles require teamwork, as well as a variety of solving styles, as the interactions are quite varied. This is one of the easier games on offer from Exit, but it’s still a fun challenge, and several puzzles are simple on their face, but throw a curve ball to players in order to keep things from being too easy.

The game flow is excellent, as always, and the blend of mental challenges with the tactile and ever mysterious props brings a sense of immersion to the game as well. Our favorite puzzles were perfectly integrated into the game materials, with a couple hiding in plain sight from the start, and one a continuation of Exit’s supremely excellent inclusion of clues where you’d least expect them. The storyline is rather enjoyable, and it’s great to see the designers are willing to include a great twist early on that expands the game so much! It was definitely not what I expected from this theme and game, and the pay off works extremely well. The climax is enormously satisfying, and adds a wink and a nod that I think serves as a fun send off.

Low Points:

One puzzle in particular relies on somewhat colloquial outside knowledge, which is more forgivable in a game like this where the timer doesn’t really matter all that much, but it could still be a frustration for some. For others, it’ll be a fairly juvenile puzzle in a game usually directed towards teens and adults. There’s another puzzle which I loved, but had some background in, which, looking back, may present some difficulty due to a small lack of cluing on how to ensure the item itself activates.

Verdict:

The Mysterious Museum is supremely entertaining, and I highly recommend this one as a starting point for new players. As one of the most approachable Exit games available, it really teaches players how to solve its mysteries intuitively. Exit experts will still enjoy the lighter, but still engaging challenge and story presented by this game, as there are still some original conundrums to solve herein. Buy your copy from your friendly local game store today! We recommend checking out Atomic Empire in Durham, NC, check out their online store here!

9/10 (Excellent)