Forgotten Island was a different experience than my last EXIT game. I solved it in three minutes.
Let me back up a second before I explain that: After my previous blog post, the responses of my friends on Facebook suggested that they too were no longer enthusiastic about playing any more EXIT games. I had spare time today, so I decided to play EXIT: Forgotten Island while I did my laundry.
All EXIT games follow a common pattern: There’s a decoder disk with rings of symbols on them. The outermost ring contains abstract symbols that are the same from game to game (crescent, diamond, square, etc.); the three inner disks’ symbols vary from game to game. When you select a combination of symbols, the decoder disk displays a number that corresponds to a card within an “Answer Deck.”
I solved the first riddle quickly, and turned the three inner dials to their symbols. However, I misinterpreted the riddle and picked the wrong outermost symbol for the three inner symbol. By coincidence, my choice matched up with the answer card for the final riddle of the game. So I turned over what I thought was the answer to the first riddle and read that I solved the game!
I decided to go back and play the game for real. I quickly figured out my mistake and went through the entire game normally. At the end, it took me two hours and I used three hint cards, for a total score of five stars.
Those “two hours” are a bit generous on my part. There were times I got up from the game to dry and fold my laundry. I stopped the timer, but I can’t promise I didn’t think about the puzzles while I was in the laundry room. On the other side, there some “arts and crafts” activities that would have gone much faster if there were someone else with me. My real time was two hours twenty minutes, but I decided to discount the extra time because of delays due to solo fiddling with game components. If you don’t accept my adjustment, then my score is lowered to four stars.
This time, the riddles seemed fairer. When I had to resort to the hint cards, I felt that if someone else had been there to supply additional insight I might not have had to use the hints.
I’ve got one more game, EXIT: Abandoned Cabin, sitting in my game bag. I’ll see if any friends are interested in playing it at the next couple of gaming events I attend.