We have recently been playing some print-at-home escape room games, fun puzzle-solving games that are great entertainment. But the few that we have played recently have been for the kids, so we thought that we would up the difficulty a bit with one for suitable for teens and adults. After recently playing School Escape, we tried another game from PaperEscape, Library Escape Room.
PaperEscape specialise in print-at-home escape room packs for children and adults. They are DIY at home escape room packs for immediate download after purchase and printing yourself so that you can play immediately. Purchase, print, play and escape for fantastic fun. Suitable for parties and groups of any size.
Print-at-home escape room packs are becoming very popular. You buy and download a game, print it and then cut out the clues and puzzles and put them around your own room for the players to find, solve and escape the room.
We chose to play Library Escape – purely because I love books, reading and have even volunteered in a small library and the game appealed to me straightaway. But if libraries aren’t your thing, PaperEscape have other titles that will appeal, including an Abandoned Warehouse, Kidnapper Chase, Mental Hospital and many more.
Library Escape is an escape room challenge with a difficulty rating of 3/5. It features 13 puzzles/challenges to solve and complete the game successfully. It has a playing time of approx. 1-2 hours (depending on how fast you solve the puzzles).
Once you purchase Library Escape from the PaperEscapeCo website you will instantly receive an email with 5 PDF files:
- How to Play – includes information on how to set up the game for play and how to play.
- Clues – includes all the clues required to play the game and the answer sheet for the players to fill in.
- Answers – includes all the answers for the ‘clue master’ to check.
- Hints – includes hints for the ‘clue master’ to give out when players are stuck.
- Story – a quick introduction that tells the players what they need to do (not a story as such).
Once you receive the email, download the files and print them out (ideally, the clues should be printed in colour). When everything is printed, grab your scissors and cut out the different clues (around the blue dotted lines).
The idea of the game is to solve all 13 clues with the ultimate goal of escaping and finding the name of the person who has trapped you in the library..
To play the game, you need a ‘clue master’, someone to give out hints and check if answers are correct. You can play without a ‘clue master’ but once somebody checks an answer, they are out of play solving the puzzle if the players got it wrong (as they will know the answer). We found it best to have ‘clue master’, someone impartial to direct the flow of the game and give out hints when needed. The clues can be solved in any order without impacting how the game is played and there are no red herrings, all clues will need to be solved.
To solve the puzzles, players must use decoding/deciphering skills and try to work out what clues go together and what are standalone clues. Game play takes about 1-2 hours to solve all the puzzles and find that all-important hidden name needed to escape the library! There are number puzzles, word puzzles, observation puzzles and more to put brains to work.
Overall, we found this to be an excellent escape room game for older teens and adults as the puzzles are reasonably challenging and fun. All you need is access to the internet to purchase and download the files, a colour printer to print out the files, pencil and paper and of course, a group of like-minded players to play it. Apart from pencil and paper, no additional materials are required to play.
Setting up is easy. It takes approximately 15-20 minutes to print and cut out the materials. You can watch a quick YouTube video of how to set up the game if you want a more visual aid at tinyurl.com/PaperEscapeCo.
This game comes with a few story cards to introduce the story and explain what is happening and what the players need to do. It also explains, if you complete the game successfully, why you were locked in the library.
The puzzles are excellent, good challenges that are of a medium difficulty. There are plenty of book and library related clues to try and solve using maths, decoding and observation skills. Can you solve what books to shelve or work out library fees?
We would have liked more story cards to expand the story somewhat and make it more immersive, but the puzzles are well thought out and put together, and there is always the help of the clue master if and when you do need that little bit of extra help.
We would also prefer the background colour on the pages to be removed to save ink when printing – or maybe include a low ink version in the pack. Whilst the pages do look a lot better with the background image, it is a lot of ink to use.
PaperEscape’s Library Escape is a fun and entertaining puzzle game and an excellent social activity for teenagers and adults. If you are looking for something fun for game nights, birthday parties or even team building exercises for work colleagues. Library Escape is excellent enjoyable and entertaining fun that will engage, and sometimes frustrate the players (especially when you can’t see the obvious – but the lightbulb moment when you work it out is excellent).
Rating: 4.5/5
RRP: $13.99 USB (approx. £11.38 at time of writing)
For more information or to buy for instant download, visit paperescapeco.com.
DISCLOSURE: We received this product for free for the purpose of writing an honest and impartial review. All thoughts and opinions are our own.
