Escape the room at home with Escape Notice Games.

 

Have you ever wanted to do a Escape the room, but either didn't have enough people to go do it or weren't sure how well you would do? You can now have an escape the room experience at home thanks to Escape Notice Games. They started their company during the pandemic as a way to help people have some fun at home while keeping their minds engaged, they have a 100% female staff that creates and puts together these kits by hand to ensure that everything is just right. They currently sell two different themed games and a party pack for their Stolen at Sea escape box. They are recommended for ages 14 & above, we played this with just the four of us - my husband, my two children ages eight and twelve and myself.

Today I will be covering their Stolen At Sea escape the room box along with the party pack that is available for it. The main game box can be purchased for $44.95 and the party pack is an additional $19.95, it may sound like a little bit of a steep price for a game you can only play once however; 1.) You can play with up to six people, if you were to take that many people to an actual escape room you'd be paying 2-3x that price. 2.) You may only be able to play this once, because once you are done you already know the outcome, but the game is re-usable by others. They include a set of instructions of how to reset everything and it has a spot inside for different teams to write their scores so you can pass this game onto friends or family to play too. 

The Party pack contains six different characters that each come with a backstory card and some kind of trinket that goes with the character. This party pack is great for anyone who likes to roleplay or would like to roleplay while playing this game, instead of picking our characters we decided to just reach our hand in the bag and see what fate dealt us. I ended up being Professor Oliver Edwards, whose character comes with a bowtie to wear. His character card shows he had a mustache, so before we started playing I snuck into the bathroom and drew on a fake mustache using some of my eye liner. I was laughing so hard it came out a little crooked, but it gave my family a good laugh too. 

Now let's dive into the actual box itself, it has way more packed into it than I had expected it too. All of the materials provided in the box are high quality, from an actual book being used to the thick cotton bags with real locks everything looked fantastic. We laid everything we needed for the game out on the table and kept the un-needed items in the box until the end which included the re-set instructions and selfie signs. 

Their home page describes this as a "Challenging mysteries delivered" and boy they weren't wrong. Some of the puzzles included in this took a few minutes to figure out, while others were more complex and really made you have to stop and think about the answer without trying to rush through it otherwise you might end up with the wrong answer. Getting stuck on a riddle can be trouble some as the game has a sixty minute time limit for you to complete it in, of course depending on how you want to play you can always take your time and just have some fun playing a detective. The goal in the game is to figure out nine different riddles that each give you one number once solved, these numbers open up three different bags that have locks on them. Once the third locked bag is open, you have won the game. 

It is fun trying to figure out the different puzzles, but to help everyone get involved I might have a specific person or set of people figure out one puzzle while someone else works on the next step. Otherwise you might have one or two people just sitting there not doing much if they are stumped on the current riddle trying to be solved. Both our kids are smarty pants and play advanced table top games with us so they themselves each helped solve a riddle, but then there were several even my husband and I were stumped on so the kids just kind of sat and waited for us to figure it out. I think it would be awesome if they could also come up with a game for families with younger children who would like to do an escape the room type game as well, but are too young to take to an escape the room.

You'll need a range of different skills to figure out the clues in this game, some of them involve decoding messages, some are math problems and others are simply trying to fill in some blank answers to figure out where the passengers were to get the answer you are looking for to get the locks open.

If you get to the point where you are beyond stuck and have no clue how to move forward they have a set of "M16 Intelligence" cards that give you hints to help guide you through the game if needed. Not going to lie, we used them once or twice when we didn't see a clear direction of what step needed to be completed next. After our game was finished and we got the last bag open, getting everything re-set and back to how it was when we started was quick and simple! The game comes with a dry erase marker and the papers you need to write on are laminated and can be wiped clean, which means everything still looks brand new and it is perfect for re-gifting. 

You can tell this team of intelligent ladies put a lot of time, thought and effort into creating these games from the clues to each character and the actual materials included in the sets. Their customer service is quick and friendly, we had a small issue with the box we had received and they solved the problem right away. I look forward to seeing what else they come up with.

What is a theme you'd love to see be featured in a game like this? 

Disclaimer- Escape Notice Games provided a the items mentioned above for the review free of charge no other compensation was provided. However, no product compensation will influence the outcome of any review. My honest opinions are used in all reviews, they are solely my own & they may vary from others. My reviews are posted for readers in order to provide an informed decision before purchase.