Unlock! Mystery Adventures: The House on the Hill

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Unlock! Escape Games are amongst the best escape room games in a box as they come! Each set includes a tutorial, which takes about 10 minutes to play so you can learn the mechanics of the game itself. You have to download the free app, which includes a timer and the following buttons: “Penalty,” “Machine,” “Code,” and “Hint.” Being able to interact with the app adds another level to this game, as you manually input answers into the Machine and Code sections, and they offer 2-3 hints per card which really helps solve the puzzle. It’s pretty intuitive and you can select from various languages before you start your game. We love that it keeps time for you as you play and also has a soundtrack to further immerse you in the story, setting the mood for the fictionalized location.

One of the frustrations with this game is the fact that you lose three minutes for every wrong guess. While not common in most escape rooms, when such lengthy penalties are applied it could prevent exploration and experimentation which are key components to great escape rooms. But trimming the time as such does give you the added pressure of finishing before the clock is up. That said, in House on the Hill you start with 60 minutes on the clock, but you will likely complete the game in less time.

The cards come in a nice box designed for easy extraction, and the cards themselves are of good quality for repeated play. The artwork on each card is beautiful, but in some cases we wished the cards were bigger so everyone could inspect the card altogether. In terms of the story, it was pretty basic: find the Book of the Dead and break the curse. There is a nice variety of puzzles, and each is fairly challenging, despite the one star difficulty rating. We are wondering how challenging the three star difficulty rating is!

Overall, our group had a very enjoyable afternoon playing House on the Hill. We would love to try out the other Unlock! Games out there. It’s even fun to play again with another group of friends who haven’t played “escape rooms in a box” before.