EXIT: The Game - The Lord of The Rings - Shadows Over Middle-Earth

We've done a couple other puzzle boxes like this, so it's more or less as expected. Interesting puzzles, cute LotR theming, and we had a lot of fun (four people playing). Overly dramatic readings are a must! They're single use, but for entertaining a group for the evening it's comparatively inexpensive.

This is our second Exit brand escape room and we enjoyed it very much. It was a difficulty 2, which for our group was just hard enough to be fun. We had to tap into a few clues to keep the game going, which means the challenge of it was right on. Some of the puzzles were very easy for us because we kinda knew what to look for when it came to Exit puzzles, but others were still surprising. If you like puzzles, cyphers, and games requiring keen eyes for complex clues, this is a great starter game. I’m definitely curious what the next level of difficulty will be like! FYI, these are one-time use games. You will, in the process of playing, have to destroy some of the game materials. So be aware that they’re selling a one-time experience. We have a great time and look forward to another Exit escape room game in the future.

Such a fun game! We have ordered many of these EXIT games and have not been disappointed yet!. The design of these games is amazing and a great value for the money. I have never come across any missing parts and the size is perfect to throw in your overnight bag for a weekend game to play.

This was a fun escape room to complete! I’ve completed many of the games offered by this company before, so I understand how they operate. If this is your first time using EXIT games, I would purchase another level 1 or 2 game first before tying this one. Having some knowledge of how these boxes operate first will definitely help with this one. This is rated as a level 2, but in my opinion it is level 3 given some of the complexities of the clues. Have fun!

Great gift to do with family. We did this over christmas a lot of fun. Quite difficult. Bought another now we know how they work.

We had a great time playing this game. There was 3 of us and it took us an hour and 45 minutes, we used 4 clues. Some steps were really creative and fun being equally challenging and easy enough to figure out with some persistence. Some steps were a little frustrating bc without clues we would have never been able to figure out (spoiler) something to take apart. There was A LOT of reading as compared to the Abandoned Cabin Exit game we did a couple weeks ago. It is fun for the family with older kids and adults alike!

Boyfriend and I recently discovered and loved the Hunt a Killer products and thought we would give this a try as a slightly different angle on team puzzle solving activities. This was NOT a similarly enjoyable experience. 3 stars because one or two of the puzzles were mildly satisfying and because we made great memories together bonding over how awful the game was. Main complaints are as follows. Story is insane--I am a massive Lord of the Rings fan and, while I knew this story would be outside of the material covered in the book I assumed that it would at least not contradict that material and/or not completely defy all logic presented there. This was so ridiculous it was almost a parody. Maybe that was the intent? I won't spoil all the details but as a sample of how on crack the story is, at one point it wants you to WAKE UP THE BALROG?!?! Yeah. Puzzles are not well constructed--other reviewers have mentioned the leaps in logic. Also, the instructions for many of the game components are poor and clues are not well telegraphed. Hint cards often do not help, as they frequently spelled out exactly the parts of the puzzle we had already figured out and not giving any indication about the rest. We both basically checked out early on when SPOILERS they expected us to seuay hetay oxbay. I don't actually think this is a bad thing. In fact it could have been a very good thing IF it was properly telegraphed but you are given NO hint regarding this without using a hint card which just feels like a let down. Apparently, this is a standard proceeded for this company so returning players may be on the look at for it but, for first timers, it feels like a huge cheat. puzzle components are cheap for expected use--many of the puzzles require fiddly little components which need to be folded, stacked up, rotated, balanced on things, or lined up perfectly. This already imparts a certain annoyance factor but the size and materials used made the components extra prone to fall apart, not lay flat etc, which was extremely frustrating because, even when we had an idea of what to do, it was difficult to manually manipulate the components in the expected way. Hard for more than one person to do at a time--this was by far the WORST aspect of the game. Because Hunt a Killer was non-linear, we were able to divide up the puzzles and take turns working on the different components and then share clues we'd found or swap puzzles if we got stuck, which made it a great shared activity. For this game, you had to complete each puzzle in order, before moving on to the next. Not only did this prevent you from working on something else if you got frustrated, it also made it really hard to share the labor, since the puzzle components were too small to allow multiple people to manipulate or even really look at them at the same time. There were long stretches of time of one person sitting bored while the other tried to solve things, grabbing pieces back and forth when someone got a new idea and, eventually, fighting over the pieces because of how annoying this all was. We like these kinds of activities because they promote teamwork but this did the opposite. Other reviews have said this is one of Exit's less good offerings, and specifically, that my specific areas of complaint are handled better in their other titles, but, as there are enough other sources of this kind of thing to try, we probably won't be taking a gamble on the other titles,, at least not for a very long time.

We had a blast doing this at-home escape room! It was a great date night for me and my husband. We have done one other Exit escape game (Enchanted Forest) that was also Level 2, but found this one more challenging. It took 3 hours! Knowledge of The Lord of the Rings world makes the experience more fun, but isn’t necessary.