Base price: $18.
1+ players.
Play time: 1 – 2 hours.
BGG Link
Buy on Amazon (via What’s Eric Playing?)
Logged plays: 1
Full disclosure: A review copy of EXIT: The Hunt Through Amsterdam was provided by KOSMOS.
I was going to write this when I got home from my trip, and yet here I am, sitting in the airport, waiting for them to announce what’s wrong with our plane. Apparently we’re not ready to discuss how long we’re going to be delayed; we’re still waiting to learn what will be causing our airline-mandated delay, today. I don’t think I’ve been on an on-time flight in months. Can’t tell if it’s an Alaska thing or just a thing that happens when you take flights after 6AM. Oh well. In the interest of passing some time, want to hear about an EXIT game? That’s what I’ve got on the docket.
In EXIT: The Hunt Through Amsterdam, you’ve found a secret letter from Van Gogh that might change everything! Apparently he has an extra painting or something lying around? Nobody’s found it? So that’s cool. He’s long since dust, but that’s a practically priceless piece of art history. Unfortunately, practically priceless things tend to attract certain less-scrupulous types who are interested in that big payday. So you’ll have to keep your wits about you if you want to keep this treasure where it belongs: in a museum. Will you be able to find the lost art?
Overall: 8 / 10
Overall, EXIT: The Hunt Through Amsterdam is another fun entry in the EXIT series! I always like the more museum-focused entries, and this one sets up a hook for a sequel that’s almost certainly coming as you dive through a mix of art history and Amsterdam. It’s kind of nice that there’s some flexibility within the themes so that players, at this point, really have a lot of options. Not interested in Van Gogh? First, I mean, get better opinions, but also, you can play plenty of other EXIT games without much effort. It’s a rich and dense, if not venerable, series, and that’s only good for players. Doubly so since they maintain a certain quality standard that’s pretty high. This EXIT had some solid puzzles and, as always, got us a few times with how cleverly the Brands concoct their various riddles and solutions.
I’ve now played enough EXIT games to develop distinct preferences, and I think I’m starting to find myself developing a slight antipreference for the EXIT games that are a pile of different sheets in addition to the riddle cards. On one hand, it’s a great way to add some immersion and also gatelock some of the content so you gradually move through it all. On the other, if you’re a bit disorganized (like I am), you end up with a huge mess of papers on the table and occasionally lose a Riddle Card or two under the papers. That can slow you down a bit, especially when you need two specific Riddle Cards for a specific task. That’s on me, I admit, but it’s happened frequently enough that I’m starting to prefer EXITs with fewer paper elements. The cards also feel flimsier than usual, but I’m hard-pressed to complain too much about that. If you want games that are consistently $18, you have to compromise on some elements, and cutting black-core cards to shreds seems wasteful anyways.
Either way, I think this is a perfectly solid EXIT game. I’ve played a few dozen of these by now, and I’ve enjoyed them all. This doesn’t really have the “one puzzle” that I usually find frustrating in every game, which is also nice, and there were a good selection of puzzles that I enjoyed across different types of challenges. Good variety both in terms of number and style of challenges, which is always a positive of the EXIT series. Plus, for Van Gogh fans, I mean, it’s very Van Gogh-themed. So that’s something too. If that interests you, you enjoy a casual escape room game, or you just wanna run through Amsterdam, EXIT: The Hunt Through Amsterdam is a nice time! I had fun with it.
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