Not Alone: Sanctuary

• Designer: Ghislain Masson
• Publisher: Stronghold Games
• Players: 2-7
• Age: 10+
• Time: 30-60 minutes
• Played with review copy provided by Stronghold Games

Not Alone: Sanctuary is an expansion to the all-versus-one game, Not Alone which we had reviewed recently.  This expansion gives the Hunted a new path to victory as well as many new cards to give all the roles added abilities and possibilities.  This in NOT a standalone expansion, so you will need to have a copy of the base game to play this.

There are a number of new components included in the box – some which are added to the base game and other which essentially replace components from the original.

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Blaze

• Designer: Heidelbaer Games Team
• Publisher: Heidelbaer Games
• Players: 3-5
• Age: 10+
• Time: 20 minutes
• Played with advance copy provided by publisher as well as online during their online convention

Blaze is a modified version of Durak – which according to Wikipedia is: “is a traditional Russian card game that is popular in many post-Soviet states. It is Russia’s most popular card game, having displaced Preferans. It has since become known in other parts of the world.  The objective of the game is to shed all one’s cards when there are no more cards left in the deck. At the end of the game, the last player with cards in their hand is the durak or ‘fool’.  The game is attributed to have appeared in late 18th century Russian Empire and was popularized by Imperial Army conscripts during the 1812 Russo-French war. Initially a social pastime of uneducated peasants and industrial workers, after the October Revolution Durak has spread to numerous social levels by mid-20th century to soon become the most popular Soviet card game.”

Blaze adds on a scoring system and a bit more structure to the game.  Blaze is played in two rounds – each round has a set of scoring cards which are laid out at the start of the game.  There will be enough scoring cards for everyone except for one player to gain one in each round.

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EXIT: The Sacred Temple

• Designers: Inka and Markus Brand
• Publisher: KOSMOS
• Players: 1-4
• Age: 10+
• Time: 2-3 hours on the box (98 minutes IRL with our group of 3)
• Played with review copy provided by Thames&Kosmos

The EXIT series was one of the original puzzle-game franchises to hit the market when the escape room game craze took off a few years ago. To date, my family and I have been able to play all of the ones released here in the US, and this is a series that we continue to look forward to future installments. While there are many worthy competitors in the genre, the EXIT series is possibly the best known of the bunch – due in part to the initial set of games being awarded the 2017 Kennerspiel des Jahres award.

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Playground

Players: 2-10 (4 in our case)

Time: no more than 60 minutes (44 minutes in our case)

Location: the Cincinnati location of the Escape Game (one of 20 possible locations!)

Difficulty: 6/10 

Link: https://theescapegame.com/cincinnati/

So, we have a lot of escape room fans here at the Opinionated Gamers. We’ve done our fair share of escape rooms, remote escape rooms during the pandemic, board game versions of escape rooms, and countless board game versions (EXIT, Deckscape, Decktective, Escape Tales, Escape Room in a Box, Unlock, Escape the Room, Unlocked, and many others)…

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EXIT: The Gate Between Worlds

• Designers: Inka Brand, Markus Brand, Ralph Querfurth
• Publisher: KOSMOS
• Players: 1-4
• Age: 12 min
• Time: 1-2 hrs on box, 44 minutes IRL for 3 players
• Played with review copy provided by Thames&Kosmos

The EXIT series was one of the original puzzle-game franchises to hit the market when the escape room game craze took off a few years ago. To date, my family and I have been able to play all of the ones released here in the US, and this is a series that we continue to look forward to future installments. While there are many worthy competitors in the genre, the EXIT series is possibly the best known of the bunch – due in part to the initial set of games being awarded the 2017 Kennerspiel des Jahres award.

Continue reading →