Quiz // Abandoned Library – Escape Game

Submitted by Denise Janssen on 19. June 2021.

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When you go out with friends one night, you see an old abandoned library on your way home. What kind of treasures could these ancient walls contain? A quick look won’t hurt! When you enter the library and look around a bit, the front door swings to close with great force. You are trapped and the only way out is to find the correct combination of numbers to lock on the front door. With a well-known escape method, players in DIE VERLASSENE LIBLIOTHEK try to solve different puzzles and thus get one step closer to the exit. But how difficult is the game and for which groups of players does it fit best?

MOSES VERLAG Abandoned Library – Escape Game made available for us to review.
This does not affect our rating!

This is what the game is about

As with most escape games, players have to solve various puzzles in order to get the answer to the final puzzle. Abandoned Library can be played with 1-4 people and has an optional time limit of 75 minutes to solve the puzzles.

When playing, the game material is divided into a total of three different types of cards: puzzle cards, guide cards, and tip cards. At the start of the game, the playing deck receives four active puzzle cards on which – plus some clues – a lock is drawn. These are placed in the middle of the table. Each of these puzzle cards contains a clue card, which must be distributed on the game table. Now the task is to find the correct clue card for one or more puzzle cards.

To do this, the playing group should pay close attention to the different motifs in the background of the cards and compare the symbols of the respective puzzle. Once they find a clue card that is assumed to be correct, players can start solving the puzzle. How the playing group approaches the solving process is up to the entire group. Either they can all solve a specific puzzle or each player chooses one of the puzzles that they try to solve on their own. If the puzzle poses too much of a challenge, the playing group can discuss the puzzles with other players or switch puzzles in order to offer other ways of solving.

In the event of an emergency, the deck of cards 1-4 gives tips for different puzzles, which support the solution.

Once the supposed solution to the puzzle is found, the clue and puzzle cards are flipped over and placed next to each other so that the symbols on the back result in a number. If the solution matches, the puzzle card is set aside and a new active puzzle card is placed in the middle of the table. If the solution does not match, the puzzle card is also set aside, but no new puzzle card is revealed. If the playing deck contains too few puzzle cards due to too many mistakes, they can decide to hand over a new puzzle card, but that means ten penalty minutes must be added to the final score. When all puzzles have been solved, the backs of puzzle cards placed together must be grouped in such a way that the final lock is solved. If this is done, the game ends and the playing group checks if it has made it through the allotted time.

What’s in the box?

As usual for puzzle games, the DIE VERLASSENE LIBLIOTHEK game case contains only cards. In terms of quality, there is nothing wrong with these artworks and the card making that depicts the cards as bookshelves is very good. Plus, the toy box, which functions like a desk drawer, is definitely a great visual that matches the theme.

The game is almost entirely language-neutral. Tip cards only have writing, the rest use simple and clear symbols. The rulebook explains the game in a very structured way, so that inexperienced groups of play usually do not make mistakes in the structure.

Tags: 1-4 people, 60-75 minutes, escape room