Game Show Battle Rooms - Scottsdale!

Game Show Battle Rooms now has a second location in Arizona located over in Scottsdale near the 101 & Frank Lloyd Wright Blvd. The new location is located at 15040 N. Northsight Blvd Suite 102 Scottsdale,AZ 85260. You'll experience a brand new location, but the same games you know and love. If you love game shows & have thought to yourself "I wonder what it's like to be on a game show" or "Wow! I'd really love to be on a game show one day", then this is the spot for you! Game Show Battle room puts you into the action and makes you feel like you are on a live game show minus a bunch of cameras in your face or studio audience. You can of course be filming your own session here if you want to have every moment captured! I know we always catch some great moments to remember when we are here. 

The last time we visited the Chandler location we did the Classic Show down challenge, so this time around we decided to go with the Prime Time Show down.   The Prime Time Show down features survey battles, match up wars & Time rush games. The Survey Battles is just like on Family Feud, you'll be presented with a question & will need to guess the top four answers. You can work together as a team to determine what might be on the board & I can tell you that the answers aren't always what you think they will be. There was a question or two that left everyone a bit stumped just because there were so many things that could fill in the blank. 

During Match up wars, one person from each team will go up & sit in chairs in the middle of the room. They will be given a word or phrase which contains a blank spot they will need to fill in, they will do so by writing their answer down on a white board. While they are writing their own answers down, the rest of their teams will be writing down what they think that person will put. Then after the answers are revealed each team will win a point for everyone who matched the answer. This spot is great for a adventure with just the adults or if can be kid friendly as well! Every game played will have different quiz answers and puzzles so it is easy to ask for a more child friendly game vs some of the more adult themed questions. Every parent has a different level of comfort so whether you ask for that or not is completely up to you! My kids are eleven and fifteen, they've both heard cursing plenty of times so we don't mind them hearing them. Our game show hosts did ask before hand if it was alright to have questions that could get naughty, for example one of the questions was "Holy ___" which depending on who was up could have been Holy Cow, Holy Moley, and even Holy Shit which of course was what everyone put aside from our friend who put "Holy Diver" after the Dio song. Each time a team wins a round of Match up wars you get to place either a "X" or "O" on a giant Tic-Tac-Toe board & the team who completes three in a row first wins. 

Last but not least you'll compete in the Time Rush Games. If you've ever watched Minute to Win It, the games played during this are similar & based of skills rather than knowing the answer to a question. There will be games such as tossing bean bags, shooting darts, or flipping buckets to gain points and take your team to victory. We stayed on the same teams we had the first time around so that we could keep the rivalry going, this time around team X Force won! The Iron Maidens came in a close second though. 

Each game show slot last for one hour & is $39.95 per person. Before you start your show time, there are non-alcoholic and alcoholic drinks available for purchase at the front. As soon as your game show session is over, you'll be ready to come back for another! It is a complete blast, you'll be sure to laugh so hard you might cry, and your group will be talking about it for weeks afterward. Our game show hosts have been amazing at both locations, I think they all do a fantastic job at making sure you & your group are not only comfortable, but having a great time as well. 

If you pop over to my Instagram page, you can find a reel with some footage from our game together! 

🌵 If you live in Arizona check out the "Things to do in Arizona" section of my blog to find entertainment, restaurants, vacation spots & more. (Click on the name or locate it on the right-hand side of my page).

Disclaimer-  Game Show Battle Rooms provided this experience to us 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.

Let's review 'Viral' the board game!

 

My family & I recently had the chance to receive a copy of the board game Viral along with the expansion Viral: The Hive to test out for a review. In this game you will play as a virus of your choice that is trying it's best to infect a patient in order to gain victory points. Along the way you may be attacked by the other viruses trying to infect the patient as well or the immune system of the patient could kick in and boot you out as well. The game can be played with 2-5 players & is played over the course of 60-90 minutes, it is for ages 12+ and can be purchased for $39.99. This game is published by Arcane Wonders & created by Mebo. 

Getting the game set up is fairly easy, if you keep each of the players starter cards & chips separated into different baggies it will help the set up go even faster. Each game is played in six rounds, and each round will have six different steps to complete that will each have one or two different things you'll need to do. It sounds like a lot, and the first time you play there will be a decent amount to learn, however after our first game the rest have been a breeze. Game time will vary depending on how long it takes everyone to debate how they'd like to complete their two changes at playing cards each round. 

The main goal is trying to control different zones of the body & the organs that are within those zones. If you are the main "owner" of a zone you will get rewarded with the points for that zone. Each game the points for the zones will change, it is completely random so you'll never have exactly the same game as you did before. You'll really need to pre-plan your moves as you'll only have two chances at playing cards each round so if the cards do not go your way chances are you won't get any points that round. The last round we played my husband kicked the rest of our butts at this game! He made it all the way to 39 points at the end of the game, and I came in second with only 27 points and the kids were just a few points short of me. Many of the little virus characters are pretty cute. We've enjoyed seeing each new virus that pops up while playing. 

There is an easy to follow game progress track on the left hand side of the board that will guide you & let you know which step of the six you are on. You will know you are on the sixth and final round when you are down to one event card. I love how they have set up the board, it really does help provide smooth progress for the game & aside from everyone deciding which cards to use the game actually does go by pretty quickly when you are moving through the steps each round. This is a fun family game and could be played during a friends game night as well. 

The Hive - The expansion pack! This expansion adds a few more cards + player chips to the game along with leveling up your virus, it will also decrease the game from six rounds down to five. It cost $15.99 for the expansion pack, I would pick it up at the same time as the base game and once you get used to the base game you can add this expansion pack to spice things up. The box is a little small & sits on our shelf oddly so instead of keeping the expansion in this box I've decided to keep everything that goes with the expansion in a baggie that I can keep inside of the original box that way I save room on our game shelf. 

Does this seem like a game you would enjoy playing? Based off of the looks, what is your favorite part of the game?

🎲 If you love board games or are wanting to get into board games but aren't sure where to start, check out some of my other board game reviews! You might find a few you want for your collection.

Disclaimer- The product mentioned above was provided by Arcane Wonders 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.

Destinies a fantastic table top game!

 

I have had the pleasure of testing out a few games sold by Lucky Duck Games & while I have enjoyed all of them, I have to say that my favorite by far is Destinies. If you enjoy a D&D style game with dice rolling, a choose your own destiny design & extremely well done figures this game is for you. Along with having a mixture of physical game parts such as map pieces, coins, treasure cards and more it also has an interactive app that really brings your adventure to life. 

You can pick up a copy of Destinies for $54.99 on their website or anywhere Lucky Duck Games are sold. To some this might seem like a high price for a board game but trust me it is worth it. My favorite part of the game is all of the figures it comes with, each one is a unique character that can be found throughout the game. For how small most of the figures are they are extremely detailed & well done, none of the feature's meld together so you can easily pick out who is who. You can't quite tell by looking at the photos, but some of the figures are actually smaller than the dice! 

The game is set up to have one to three players, since there are four of us, we swap out who would be on a team together to discuss what to do for the story. There are five different stories to play in this box, each one features three distinct characters with their own goals they must complete to win the game. Each player will get their own player board which allows you to track your abilities/strengths, how many dice you can roll, etc. each story will typically last 120-150 minutes. 

Using the app it will tell you how to set up the playable map for each story you'll play. It will show you exactly which map pieces need to be laid down to start off, then as you explore each section of the map it will tell you which figures, game pieces & map pieces to add to the map as you progress through the story. Each time you visit a new destination on the app's map you will move your real life figure to the same location on the map tiles to keep track of where you are, each player can only move a certain amount of map spaces/tiles so knowing where your character currently is will help you decide where to go next.

I really enjoy playing this game, everything is set up to make it easy to understand. It is always fun trying to race to see who is able to figure out how to connect the in game world places, people & clues together in order to get what you need before the other players do. There can only be one winner! Sometimes depending on where you go & what you do, you might inadvertently end up giving the other players something that they need for their quest and vice versa so be sure to pay attention when the other players are going as well. My only issue with this game? I wish it had more stories to play, with so many amazing figures and game pieces it would be wonderful to have a few more stories out of it. I think after a set amount of time of not playing this that we might forget what the characters quests were & be able to play again without remembering the last role we had & what they needed/where to go. 

Lucky Duck Games has a few other games similar to this & they also have a nice variety of other game types so there is something for everyone to enjoy. If you want to check out some other board game reviews type "board games" into the search bar or look on the right hand side of my blog for a link which will take you to all my board game reviews. 

Disclaimer- The products mentioned above were provided by Lucky Duck Games 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.

Randomise the strange & fun card game!

 

When we get together as a family for a BBQ or holiday event, we like having games to play that are fast paced, easy to play & are easy enough to learn quickly that it doesn't make anyone feel confused or left out. I recently found a great game called Randomise by Gamely Games that is small enough to carry around with you where ever you go, the rules do not take long to learn and it is quite interesting to play. What is Randomized? Teams will take turns sending one player up to draw, act or describe what they are wanting their team to guess based off of the cards they receive during their turn. 

Inside of the box, you'll find cards labeled "A", "B" & "C". You will need one for each round as they each signify something different: card "A" describes you (e.g. Happy, Hairy, Vain), card "B" will tell you what you are (Person, Lion, Chicken) & card "C" will tell you what you are doing. All the cards have two sections with numbers 1-3, you will need to decide if you want to go for the top half which is Easy or the bottom half which is Hard (Your team will win a higher number of points for a harder guess), then the opposing team will give you three numbers. So, if they tell you 2,3,3 & you went with the easy descriptions you'll go with A2, B3, C3 and choose if you want to draw, act or describe what you are. 

Here is a example of what you could end up with, A hungry Wizard spinning pottery. This is one I ended up with & drew the above photo (left side) to try and get my team to guess what it was. They guessed part of it but didn't completely guess what my clues were. Sounds like it should be easy to get your team to guess everything right? Well, the catch is if you draw it, you'll have 90 seconds to complete your photo. It was more difficult than you think trying to draw someone on a pottery wheel within the amount of time given. If you act it out, you'll have 60 seconds and if you describe it, you'll only get 30 seconds. Depending on the three descriptions you are given it can be pretty crazy trying to accomplish your feat within the time frame. This game really helps keep your brain active & engaged while playing it since you'll need to quickly figure out what to draw or how to describe/act out various aspects of your teams guess with the rules provided. For some guesses such as "Robin" you might want to draw Robin's symbol from the batman series, however you aren't allowed to draw letters or numbers.

We love just how crazy & truly random the game can get, some of the combinations are downright hilarious and some make you think "what the heck". The first team to 30 points wins! The two options that were a favorite with our group was drawing it out & describing it out loud following the guidelines they have in the rules. We laughed a lot playing this game & everyone who played really enjoyed it so that was a bonus because it means they will want to play it again during another get together. Randomise can be purchased through amazon for $14.99 with free prime shipping, if you are outside of the US you can purchase it through their website. Looking for more family friendly board games? Type "Board games" into the search bar of my blog or click the board game link on the right hand side of my page to see other games I've reviewed. 

Is this a game you & your family would enjoy playing together?

Disclaimer- Gamely Games provided the product 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. 

Here is a peek of a upcoming card game: Clash at Rook's Point.

 

Have you ever wanted to be part of a brand new game coming out? There are tons of board games and card games that get their start because of Kick Starter and those who help donate towards the kickstarter get to become some of the first people to play the new games. I was recently reached out to about a card game called Clash at Rook's Point and seeing as how my family loves playing board games together, how could I refuse checking it out?  It was created by a man named Myke Greenlese, who currently has a kickstarter up to get this game off the ground and get it running at full speed! I was recently sent an early copy of the game to check out with my family and I wanted to share some photos and information on the game with all of you here!

The copy I received is just a prototype, when the actual game comes out the cards will look even better than they already do on better cardstock. Even being just a starter copy of the game, the artwork created for these cards is beautiful & really feels as if you are playing with characters from out of this realm. 

Rook's Point is the epicenter of this universes world it is where power, magic and mystery can be found in overflowing amounts, the one who controls Rook's Point controls the world. It is a two player game where players will go head to head using a deck of 25 cards along with three characters of their chosen faction to fight for control. 

One card deck is enough for two players, if you would like to play with up to four players you will need to purchase a secondary deck. Every deck comes with four different player factions to choose from; Wardens of the light, Chaotic Lords, The Fallen, and Caldera's Phalanx. Each faction has three playable characters, You can select your faction based off of their strengths or simply select your faction based off of how they look which is what I did because I love how Mistress Ambrosia looks. 

Both players will receive a deck that contains twenty five cards, each deck is the same so it is up to the luck of the draw & the wits of the player that will determine how the game goes. Cards in the deck can be played at different points in the game, there are attack cards, defense cards and abilities. However only four cards will be in your hand at one time so you'll need to think of the best strategy to use what you have at hand.

You will play this in rounds, each round the player whose turn it is will choose two actions to complete during their turn. You can choose between - Discarding a card & selecting a new one, Performing and action on one of your cards, or Attack one of your opponents characters. How do you determine who to use and who to attack? In the top left corner of all the cards you will see a "P=" this is how much power that card has, you can use cards to stack onto your characters already existing power or chose to attack a lower powered character with just the strength your character already has. If your power is higher and your opponent has no cards to counter your attack, you win and that character is exhausted. When a character is exhausted you will turn the card ninety degrees to show they are hit, if they are hit again before they heal they become wounded and you'll turn the card another ninety degrees (so it is upside down), then one final blow will knock the character out of the game at which point the card will be flipped over.

After both players have gone, the rounds start again and exhausted characters are able to be turned up normally while wounded characters can only be brought back with help of a card from your deck. Knocked out characters will remain knocked out, the rounds will continue until one player has all three characters knocked out. 

The cards are fantastic to look at, I like how there are a few different artists who contributed to the artwork for this deck, once the kickstarter of the game is completed and a retail version of this game comes out a few minor details such as the white boarder around the cards will be cleaned up. The first & second time you play through it goes a little slower because the players are still getting used to the cards & figuring out how everything works. Once you have everything down the rounds progress much faster making this a fun and quick game to play anytime you are up for a challenge. We play a lot of board games together as a family, but sometimes one or two people don't want to play so this will be great to have as a one on one game when only two people want to play something. It is also the perfect size to pack for a trip. 

Clash at Rook's Point is almost to their kickstarter goal, if you want to check out more about how to play the game, see more cards or contribute to this upcoming game check out their kickstarter page by clicking on this link. 

Disclaimer- Clash At Rook's Point provided the product 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.

Heroes Welcome - A board game Review!

 

Ever since my kids were young we've always enjoyed playing board games together as a family. When they were younger we played simple games like Monopoly Jr., Who Shook Hook, etc. however now that they are older they are able to play more complex games. Today I have a fantastic game from Pencil First Games called "Heroes Welcome" to share with all of you. It is family friendly & a blast to play, we've played it almost every day since we received it last week. Our kids are nine and thirteen, both love playing this game and were able to pick up the rules quickly without feeling overwhelmed or confused. The base game and expansions can be bought at various retailers, amazon seems to be the best price at $35 for the base and $15 for the expansion. 

One of the first things I noticed and liked about this game is the fact that you can play it with as few as two players or up to five. We usually play games together, but sometimes one of us has something else to do or just doesn't feel like playing board games so we can sit out while everyone else still has fun playing. We haven't played a one on one match yet, but the next time the kids are at their grandparents or don't want to play, I look forward to seeing who wins, my husband or myself. 

The goal of this game? The mission/goal you are playing towards is seeing who is able to become the master merchant reaping the most coin and points before you reach the end round. It is crazy just how close some of the games we've played have been, we've had several times where two of us have tied and we have to resort to tie breakers. Typical games can last about ninety minutes, the first time we played it took an extra thirty minutes for us to play so that we could learn the rules and go over everything with the kids. After that it has taken no time at all to get everything set up each time we play, and we all know what to do now so the game goes a bit quicker. The rules are laid out so that everything is quite simple to understand, and the game is pretty straight forward.

After the first time of going through and setting everything up, it will go quicker every other time you play. It takes us three to five minutes setting everything up together, which includes setting up the boards, and setting up our own characters areas. If I set up the game on my own, it takes me five to ten minutes. In this game you will not get your own character piece to move around the board, instead you'll pass around a token that says "Master Merchant" so you will know whose turn it is. 

Every player will start off with one item, a set amount of coins, two scam cards and a mastery card which I will go over later on in the review. Each round you'll be able to play any scam cards you have and do one action for your turn which can be one of the following options: 

• Run a shop - To do this you'll move the heroes token to any open shop and perform the function of that shop which can earn you items, tokens and even upgrades.
• Visit a Guild - This option allows you to collect more scam cards, upgrade your specials, build another shop, and more.
• Craft for a customer - The main way to earn "VP" which are the points you'll need to win is to craft for customers. Each customer requires a certain amount of items to be trade in for their card which in turn give you Vorpal (victory) points and tokens. 
• Call for end of round - Self explanatory. 

A tid bit about scam cards - While the name might sound a little ominous these cards are actually quite helpful. They can help you move around the board, ignore closed shops, and more.

Mastery cards - These specialty cards give you extra bonus VP for completing the task on the card. Every player starts off with one that comes with their merchant and extra cards can be gained during the game. Each card has a different task, for example the Red Shard Mastery gives you an extra 2 VP for turning in three red shards during a craft session.

So how long does a round last? That entirely depends on the players, to start off with there will be four customers on the board that you can build for. Each player starts out with one item, however that isn't enough to craft anything, which means you need to start collecting more items. Certain shops allow you to buy the items currently in a heroes backpack, you'll notice in the image above there is a rectangular board which shows three characters - Olaf, Moonbeam & Knives, these are the heroes of our game. On their board they each start off with two items which can be purchased by or traded with the players. Every shop on the board will tell you what you are allowed to do, for example the Peddler allows you to purchase one item from a hero for one gold. 

Once a shop or guild has been used by a player it gets a "closed" sign places on its tile and the hero token stays on the last shop that was used, players can no longer use this shop unless a specialty scam card called "Late Nightshift" is played which allows you to ignore the closed sign and use the shop anyway. Players are only allowed to visit a shop that is located adjacent to the current shop the heroes are at.  You might be thinking "Hey Luna, what happens if you get stuck with nothing but closed shops around you and all the guilds are also closed?". If there is an open shop on the board you can move closer using scam card, however if you have nowhere to go and no cards to use, you can call round end. If another player is able to do tasks still, they can "bribe" you with an item to continue the round, in which case you cannot refuse it and it becomes their turn no matter the order they fall in.

On your turn instead of visiting a shop or a guild, you can choose to craft for a customer instead. The game starts off with four customers waiting for items to be crafted for them, they start off only needing two to three items per craft at first and continually require more as the game moves on. If you have enough to craft an item for the customer those items get placed back into one of the loot bags, a monster token gets placed into the dungeon and it moves to the next players turn. 

If there are only four customers on the board and each hero only has two items to start off with, how the heck do they get more? This is where the end of the round comes into play, once there are no longer any moves or materials to be collected on the board a player can call for the current round to stop. When this happens, all of the closed signs get removed, the monster tokens get flipped over to show which hero gets a "level up", a new shop gets built and a few other tasks covered in the book. Each hero also gets items equal to the number of the level they were able to level up to, with the help of additional tokens that can be earned from one of the shops this is how heroes get more items to sell. Then it is time for the next round to begin. 

This continues on until you reach the 16th customer who is the "boss", once the boss is defeated and end of game is called players can do one last craft or trade in tokens to earn some last minute "VP". After the last-minute build/trade is done, the player with the most VP wins and is the victor! 

Along with the base game they also have an expansion pack which adds some fun new elements and items to the game along with a new customer. If you are a board game fan, or just getting into board games you'll find you will run out of shelf space quickly, which is why I love the fact that they thought ahead and left space inside of the base game for the expansion pack to sit snuggly in, so it won't take up more shelf space. As someone who likes keeping their board game pieces organizes, I love that they also included baggies in the base game to sort the pieces into.

Now that I've blabbed on so much about how the game play works, I bet you want to know what we think about the game? We have found that it is set up so that it is quick and easy to learn even for slightly younger kids. We received the game to check out for review about a week ago, and I think there has been maybe two days since then that we hadn't played a round, otherwise we pretty much play one round a day. The creators and the artists who helped bring the imagery to life did a fantastic job on this game and it is one that should be part of every board game collection! I look forward to seeing if the creator of this puts out anymore board games in the future. 

I hope that you enjoyed my board game review of Heroes Welcome, and that I didn't muddle anything up! If you enjoyed this review & want to see what other games we've played there is a link on the right-hand side of my blog you can click to see other reviews and keep an eye out for new board game reviews.

Disclaimer-  Pencil First Games provided the products 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 purchasing the product.

Puzzlcrate Review!

 

The holidays are coming up which means it is time to start thinking about gifts for the ones you love, a great idea for a gift is a subscription to something that relates to a interest of your loved one. There are so many awesome subscription boxes that cover a number of things, today I am going to be sharing a subscription box with you called PuzzlCrate. Each month you'll receive a box that comes with two different puzzles and a collectable pin, each box is $35 monthly or you can save a few dollars if you subscribe for a longer plan. They offer six and twelve month subscriptions along with one for month to month.

I was gifted a box to check out and share with all of you, as you can imagine my kids were pretty curious what was in this box when it arrived. It drove my husband and kids a little nuts because I waited two days before opening it! 

Inside I found two very unique puzzle cubes, a really cute puzzle pin, a sticker and two papers explaining each cube. The first one I pulled out is called the Mefferts Curvy copter, the design on this is actually quite pretty it reminds me of a four leaf clover. The way this puzzle moves is crazy, there are so many moving pieces that can be moved around at once. Everyone was passing it around playing with it, and between more than one person trying to turn it different ways, it actually ended up with two pieces being completely stuck and jammed, my husband ended up taking it apart and putting it back together to fix it. (which was neat seeing what was inside). 

Once back together you can't even tell it was ever taken apart and we are back to having fun with it trying to figure out how to get all the sides back once we mixed it all up. 

Next in line is a puzzle called the Duomo Pyraminx. I really enjoy trying to figure this one out, its movements are quick and make a nice sound when figuring out the puzzle. Even with as much fun as both of these are they make me realize I really suck at trying to figure these out, hahaha, but that won't stop me from continuing to try and maybe one day I will manage to get it figured out. 

There was also a cute collectable pin that looks like a puzzle cube and a sticker featuring the Puzzlcrate logo. Looking at their website at some of the past crates they send out some pretty crazy looking puzzles, I've never seen a large majority of them before so I think this crate is a great way to discover new puzzle cubes you've never heard of. 

Have you ever figured out how to solve any kind of puzzle cube?

Disclaimer- Puzzlecrate provided me with a one month box for free in exchange for a review , 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. 

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.