Enigmida - "Escape the Plagues"

Updated: Apr 25

Photo above is property of Enigmida

Company: Enigmida

Game: Escape the Plagues

Country: USA 🇺🇸

Language: English

Type of Game: DIY Escape Kits 🖨️✂

Genre: History

Date Played: May 2, 2021

Difficulty (based on 4 players): 3.5/10

Size of Team: 2-6 Players (Ages 9-99)

Time: Unlimited (Suggested time 45-90 Minutes)

Price: $15.00 (Print-at-Home), $30.00 (Mailed-to-You)

(18% of the proceeds from Escape the Plagues will be donated to Jews of Color Initiative and Earth Guardians)

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Eli, Mika and Wanda designed a puzzle together at the Creativity Camp last summer. They thought it'll be a lot of fun to let Wanda's siblings (Sam, Wendy, and Dusty) try out their project. It's a nice day at the park and that's where their adventure will begin...

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Once you purchase the game, you'll receive a 18 page PDF in your email. If you want to have a full experience, feel free to print the entire packet (it's designed for grayscale so it won't use too much of your ink). If you want to save paper like we did, only 2 pages were really necessary as cutting was involved.

There's 5 dialogue scenes paired with 5 puzzles. Since we played this over Zoom, we each picked a character (some of us picked two since we only had 4 people) and read the conversations out loud. It was a lot of fun especially the moment when Brandon realized how he should be portraying the character Dusty. If you want the least lines and sound like you have no idea what's going on, then Dusty is your guy!

The final page of the PDF were hints and solutions printed in mirror image to avoid spoilers. Feel free to use that if you get stuck.

Photo above is property of Enigmida

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The puzzles were fairly easy for enthusiasts. Think of it more like a puzzle game made with intentions towards educational purposes rather than straight up puzzling. The game encourages discussions among friends and family on societies issues while playing the game. The first page has an area where you will record all the answers from each scene and where can check to see what the puzzles are looking for in terms of a solution. The puzzle that took us the longest to complete was the scene where we had to rearrange the Passover story since none of us were Jewish. It was nice to be able to learn about a culture while playing a game rather than reading a thick textbook. We still enjoyed the variations in puzzle types and the cute hand drawn graphics that went along with each of them. The final multi-step puzzle was a nice way to conclude the chapter.

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We haven't seen a game that incorporates history, culture and social messages all in one game before. For someone who is not familiar with Passover, we had some unexpected joyful moments. The issues that the game touched on (community solidarity, climate justice, indigenous activism, mutual aid, and Jewish anti-racism) were just some of the problems we face as a society today. It was great to be able to see the game designers at Enigmida come up with such clever ways to build awareness through the medium of puzzles and narratives. The art itself also subliminally bought out the fact that kids are the future and we must take actions today if we want changes tomorrow!

𝔼𝕊ℂ𝔸ℙ𝔼𝕋ℍ𝔼ℝ𝕆𝕆𝕄𝕖𝕣𝕤 ℙ𝕒𝕥𝕣𝕠𝕟❜𝕤 𝕋𝕙𝕠𝕦𝕘𝕙𝕥𝕤

Helen B.

I love print and solve games and this was slightly different to those I have played before in that there was no accompanying website to read or watch or add answers to.

Having read through the PDF for the game it was clear that really you can get away with printing pages 5, 6, 13 and 14 if you want to be frugal with paper and ink. Considering one of the puzzles is heavily linked to being environmentally friendly I would have thought this should be mentioned in the instructions! I am lucky that I have a tablet I can draw onto PDFs with so that gave me some benefit, but really you could get away with just using one sheet of paper and a pencil to solve most if not all of the puzzles.

There are 5 puzzles to solve in all, 4 main ones and a meta puzzle. They each take a theme from the foundations of being a good citizen and human being, and there are lots of discussion points to make this a learning experience for young people. Our team of 4 took on one or 2 of the characters each and read the story which was a nice way to make the experience a bit more complete, and then solved the puzzles together. It was a nice variety of puzzles albeit only a small amount. A very enjoyable half an hour with some lovely moral messages of being kind and sharing within communities.

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(If you do decide to try this experience, give us a shoutout or tag us on social media so we know you heard it from "ESCAPETHEROOMers"!)

Disclosure: We thank Enigmida for providing us with a sample of the game. Although complimentary experience was generously provided, it does not impact our opinion on the review whatsoever.