Horror-bly Difficult

It's been a while since I wrote about two early games in the Exit: The Game series -- a group of one-time-only games that evoke the experience of going to an escape room right there on your own gaming table. Since my blog entry, the series has expanded to more than a dozen entries. I've played a couple others without writing about them (the challenging The Pharaoh's Tomb and the less compelling but still enjoyable The Sunken Treasure). But now I've played one of the newer installments, and it seemed worthy of commentary.

The Catacombs of Horror is a double-sized Exit game. It has double the puzzles, is expected to take you at least double the time (which you can break into two different sessions), and comes in a larger box to highlight this difference. But is more better? Well... that depends on what it is you're looking for.

This game is hard. Of the five Exit: The Game experiences I've played, only The Pharaoh's Tomb is anywhere close to as difficult... and it isn't really that close. If you tried one of the other Exit games and enjoyed the concept but found it too easy for your tastes? The Catacombs of Horror is totally made for you!

Some of the challenges of Catacombs of Horror are "gettable" if you've got clever players with a variety of different strengths. Some puzzles are purely observational in nature, while others demand different sorts of deductive leaps. The diversity definitely gives more than one person a moment to shine when you're tackling the game together.

There are also some truly new and novel puzzles in this game, wholly unlike those presented in past Exit games. The entire experience's final puzzle, for example, is quite elaborate. And even as you're figuring out what it is you're supposed to do, part of you might be thinking "this isn't really going to work, is it?" It does, and it results in a unique gaming experience that I'm sure will be memorable for some time to come.

But in my opinion, many of the puzzles in The Catacombs of Horror simply don't play fair. I think it would be exceptionally rare to find a group of players who could get through it without any of the clue cards. And the clue cards aren't especially well crafted; each puzzle has a stack of three clues meant to ease you toward the solution step by step... but the first clue, without fail, tells you only information you've already figured out on your own. (And since each card counts against your final score, needing a clue inevitably means taking two -- a "double penalty.")

As a result, even though The Catacombs of Horror had some of the neatest puzzles and best moments I've yet seen in the series, it was my least favorite overall. It's a game to try after you've played other Exit: The Game products, but should absolutely not be the one you try first. I give it a B-.