Think Fun Escape The Room: Murder in The Mafia - an Escape Room Experience in a Box for Age 13 and Up

My partner and I have done a *lot* of Escape Room-style puzzle games. This brand has consistently been our favorite. I was so excited when I saw another one had been released! I think this one might be my favorite so far of the ThinkFun ones. It was really fun how interactive the environment is, with objects to investigate and doors that open to reveal things etc. It definitely comes the closest to an actual escape room experience. The puzzles were really great too. And as always, I appreciate when these kinds of games make it easy to pack everything back up neatly so you can pass the game on to friends. It definitely makes it feel like a much better value to know that it will be replayed, even if not by me.

Much better execution of the 3D concept than the Escape the Room 'Doll House'. Although the Doll house was fun it was difficult to view the room with the shadows and small print. This one was much better with the lighting and it didn't require a lot of use of the box itself to solve clues.The puzzles were clever, challenging but not undoable. Fun story, although a bit confusing at time. Make sure you keep notes on the characters from the very beginning. The game itself was able to be completely restored to the start without destroying the content. The only issue I had with this game was the last puzzle, determining who the murderer was. The clues were a bit of a stretch.My wife and I are veteran Escape Game players. We don't compete against the clock. We just enjoy solving the puzzles without the use of hints. That said, the hint system is great. It incrementally walks you to the solution. Plan on spending a minimum of two hours immersed in this game. Well worth the money.

Having been escape room enthusiasts for years, we recently discovered the room-in-a-box variety including other games in the ThinkFun lineup (Stargazer's Manor, Dr. Gravely's Retreat, The Cursed Dollhouse.) While all the puzzles of the first two games were straightforward and fun, we found The Cursed Dollhouse to be somewhat of a tedious logical mess (albeit worthy of artistic merit.) So it was with some trepidation that we gave this latest offering a try.The good:• The puzzles are consistent with the storyline and make sense. They are challenging, but given enough time and thought, the "a-ha" moment always came.• We never resorted to the hints to solve any of the puzzles. Solutions were unambiguous: once we had a solution, we were confident that it was correct.• With some care in handling the more fragile game pieces, the game can be reset easily for future uses.The bad:• We couldn't finish this within the suggested two hours. Not even close. Being fresh off our experience with The Cursed Dollhouse, we didn't bother setting a timer. That turned out to be a good decision, as our efforts were spread out over two afternoons of a weekend. Unlike Stargazer's Manor and Dr. Gravely's Retreat, we don't think this would be a good choice for a single "game night" with guests.• The solution wheel in our game wasn't aligned well, making it difficult to see the underlying icons through the rotating cut-outs which reveal them. Some of the icons were partially obscured, making it a challenge to validate our solution to each puzzle.In the end, we felt this escape room game was an improvement over its predecessor, but not quite as fun and satisfying as the first two in the ThinkFun lineup.

The best I can say about this one is it was fine. I had some fun with it, but not $35 worth. My wife and I are both escape room junkies and this one was just not very challenging. The 3D room was a fun way to do a home escape room I will say.We far prefer the Exit and Unlock series of games to this series, but have found this series to be enjoyable enough.

Fun game and good value for the money