Unlocking a Galaxy Far, Far, Away....

Board gamers looking for the "escape room in a box" experience should, in my opinion, direct themselves to the Exit: The Game series, the most consistently fun games among many in the genre. But another popular series with many installments is Unlock! And one of those installments recently brought in a license for an experience you're simply never going to be able to get from your "friendly local escape room."

Star Wars: Unlock! includes three separate one hour escape room scenarios. In contrast with Exit, which always contains everything you need in the box, Unlock! is an app-enabled franchise, using your phone or tablet to let you enter passcodes, play mini-game puzzles, and more -- all while providing an hour-long timer for your game.

Star Wars: Unlock! uses the Star Wars universe in interesting ways. All the trappings are there, from desert planets to droids to ship combat to stormtroopers... but you're simply there in the universe and not interacting with any of the major characters (an approach that may have been forced upon the designers by deal terms, but which in any case will likely thrill some and disappoint others). I almost feel like the stories could have been set anywhere, Star Wars or not, with only a little adaptation... but at the same time, they're not unfaithful to the license.

As with the other Unlock! games I've played, the puzzles can be hit or miss. The series is a lot more "observation based" than Exit, and there are more ways to simply brute force your way to answers (that consequently don't feel as satisfying to me). But some of the Unlock! puzzles are really quite clever, and two of the three scenarios here are no exception.

The third and final scenario, though, is the worst of the box on multiple levels. You're given a map that's divided into grids, and you're supposed to use it to work through a story in a relatively orderly fashion. But intriguing details are visible all over the map, and there's nothing stopping you from exploring them in any order you choose. You can thus encounter plot points out of order, be told to resolve parts of puzzles you haven't even encountered yet, and generally gum up the works in a frustrating way.

Arguably worse is the theming of that final mission. Across the three scenarios, you are cast as a group of Rebels, neutral smugglers, and Imperials. There's a clear design symmetry there, and yet Star Wars is not a universe in which the villains have ever been rounded out in a way to makes me sympathize with them. (I'm including Darth Vader there.) I'm sure some people out there want to play "the bad guys," but I'm not among them when it comes to Star Wars. I could get behind that being "just one scenario out of three" that you play... but making it the last scenario played, combined with the weird trap doors in the puzzle construction, left me with a more bitter taste for the whole box.

But... two out of three ain't bad? (Maybe they're just giving us a more authentic Star Wars trilogy experience where not all three can be truly good.) If you've played other Unlock! games and enjoyed them, you'll certainly want to check out Star Wars: Unlock! I'd give it a B- overall.