Did you know there’s a Lord of the Rings based EXIT game? Well now you do! It’s called The Lord of the Rings: Shadows Over Middle-Earth, and if you stick around you can hear what we thought of it, in a totally spoiler free way.
The EXIT: The Game series from KOSMOS features small, escape-room-in-a box style, games that usually take about an hour to play. They range in difficulty and theme. This Tolkien inspired game is on the harder side.
Disclosure: Thanks to KOSMOS for giving us a review copy of this Middle-earth based puzzle game. Some links in this post are affiliate links, using them doesn’t cost you anything and helps support this blog. As an Amazon Affiliate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
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- Learn about Shadows Over Middle-earth (Game Info & Components)
- How these EXIT games work (Rules & Gameplay Overview)
- EXIT The Lord of the Rings can be frustratingly obtuse (Review & Overall Thoughts)
- Other EXIT and escape game reviews
Learn about Shadows Over Middle-earth an EXIT game
Exit: The Game – The Lord of the Rings: Shadows Over Middle-earth like all of the EXIT games before it, and probably many after it, comes from the twisted minds of Inka and Markus Brand and is published by KOSMOS.
The box for this EXIT game lists it as being for one to four players, which seems high to me. The reason is that there’s only really one puzzle in this game where you can split up the work. We played with four, and found that some players were sitting around getting bored while other players tried to puzzle something out.
Component quality is good and matches what we’ve come to expect from the EXIT series, this particular one had quite a few “unusual objects” most of which were made of very thin cardboard, which worked well enough for what they were used for.
One thing I did really like in this Lord of the Rings EXIT Game was the unique artwork. Instead of using existing Middle-earth art, KOSMOS instead hired The Mico to do all new art. If you listen to The Tabletop Bellhop Gaming Podcast, or are a regular reader of my reviews, you know I love Mihajlo’s work. I especially loved his take on Gollum.
You can get a better look at this artwork, and the unusual objects and other components that come with this EXIT game, in our The Lord of the Rings EXIT Game Unboxing Video on YouTube.
EXIT: The Game The Lord of the Rings follows the plot of the original trilogy. The game slips you into the narrative by having you play as hobbits who are working with Gandalf behind the scenes, helping out the fellowship in ways they will never know.
How the EXIT series of escape room games play
The gameplay in EXIT The Game – The Lord of the Rings Shadows Over Middle-earth follows the standard EXIT game format and is presented in a very linear fashion. There are no branching paths here nor any exploration. You are presented with a single puzzle and when you solve that you are presented with a new puzzle.
The puzzles and clues in this Tolkien themed game are presented through a mix of a full colour booklet, a deck of cards, and a number of “unusual objects” that come in the box. Pretty much anything that comes with the game could be part of the puzzle.
The answer to each puzzle is always a three digit number which you enter on a code wheel. This will give you a card number to draw. If your answer was correct you’ll be directed to draw a new card that will lead you to the next puzzle. This continues until you get to the end.
To go with this there is also a free companion app that you can download. This app provides you with the back story for the game as read by a narrator, a how to play tutorial that repeats what’s in the instruction pamphlet in the box, and a digital timer which plays fantasy background sounds for you to enjoy while you play. When you finish the game the app will also give you a final score.
I don’t want to spoil any of the actual puzzles in this game, but I will say there are a surprisingly large number of puzzles and they come in a wide variety. Many of the puzzles in Shadows Over Middle-earth will require you to cut, fold, and/or write on game components. This means that this game can only be played once, and not just because you will know the answers to the puzzles. You won’t be able to pass this game on to another game group when you’re done.
Once nice thing in all of the EXIT games is their hint system. There is a separate deck of hint cards that provides a gradated hint system. The first card just makes sure you are looking at the right things, for example what page of the book you should be on or what card you should be looking at. Further hint cards give more information and only the final card gives you the solution to the puzzle.
EXIT The Lord of the Rings can be frustratingly obtuse
We found the puzzles in EXIT The Game: The Lord of the Rings – Shadow Over Middle-earth ranged from almost too simple and easy to solve, to completely obtuse and impossible to figure out without hints. We had to use the built in clue system to get through two of the puzzles. That said the graduated hint system worked and we never had to look up a final solution. Getting stumped like this also made the game long, and it took us over two hours to complete. According to the app we got a final score of six out of ten.
It’s probably also worth noting that my family are Tolkien Fans. We have all read the core trilogy, some of us multiple times, and we’ve all seen both the classic animations and the modern movies. So it wasn’t a lack of Middle-earth knowledge that caused this problem.
As a Lord of the Rings fan we were actually disappointed that nothing here was strongly tied to the famous works. These were just standard EXIT game puzzles with a slight Middle-earth theme and art. Yes there were a few tie-ins, like having to answer riddles for Gollum, and one clever puzzle featuring the gaze of Sauron, but there was nothing where knowledge of Tolkien’s works would have actually helped (or lack of that knowledge would have actually hindered).
After playing the game and seeing what other people thought of it, I even noticed some hardcore Lord of the Rings fans in the Board Game Geek comment section pointing out exactly how the solutions to some of these puzzles break canon.
Now the good thing about this, I guess, is that this means someone with no knowledge of the source material can still play the game. It could also be a possible gateway for someone new to discover Tolkien and maybe dive deeper into his works. Though honestly I think it’s more likely that a Tolkien fan is going to pick this up because they are a fan and not the other way around.
The biggest problem we had with this particular EXIT game was that some of the puzzles felt more frustrating than clever, and that was true even after learning the answers. It’s not a good thing when we read a hint and say “I would have never thought of that” The box gives this game a difficulty of two out of five yet I found it to be one of the harder EXIT games we’ve played.
Here’s a quote from my wife, who’s an even bigger Lord of the Rings fan than I am, “I found this game frustrating and frankly unfun. The puzzles weren’t really tied to the theme, they were abstract, and very vague. I think the best spoiler free way I can describe it is that many times we would see two equally viable solutions and were just guessing.”
Personally I was hoping for more interesting story bits, new pieces of canon. or at least head canon. The story here has you either following or preceding the fellowship and solving unrelated puzzles. That didn’t do it for me. I would have much preferred an unrelated tale set in Middle-Earth, or something that didn’t follow the exact sequence of events of the books beat by beat.
Another downfall is is that the story calls the players a second fellowship, which indicates that it should be a group of people playing. The problem here is that the puzzles are not group friendly. They all involved scrutinizing a specific object or small set of objects and that can only really be done by one person at a time. There is only one copy of everything in the box and because of that it’s very hard to share.
You end up with one player trying to solve the current puzzle and if they can’t passing it on to someone else, who then may pass it on to another person. Yes having multiple brains present will help and having people to bounce ideas off of is important, so we do recommend you not try this one solo. Two player would be great, and three may work as long as you don’t mind taking turns. However, we played with four of us and it felt like there were always one or two people sitting off to the side, bored and waiting for their chance to participate.
Overall, EXIT: The Game – The Lord of the Rings: Shadows Over Middle-earth was a disappointment for us. Putting The Lord of the Rings on the box set an expectation that just wasn’t met. If this was just another fantasy themed escape room game I may have enjoyed it much more. We were all very excited to do a Middle-earth based escape room game, but instead got a puzzle game with some cool Lord of the Rings artwork and a retelling of a story we already knew.
If you love the EXIT Series of games from Kosmos you will probably want to pick this one up, if you haven’t already. It fits the mold of their games well, and you will probably have an easier time with some of the puzzles due to your experience with the type of puzzles the Brands like to use in their games.
What I don’t recommend is for anyone to try this as their first EXIT game. Of all of the ones we’ve played, this was my least favourite. If we didn’t already have some EXIT game experience I think our Lord of the Rings experience would have been even worse and our game even longer.
For the Lord of the Rings Fan I recommend you skip this game. There are far better, more thematic Tolkien games out there. Though I do know many of you are completionists and will probably pick this up anyway (if you haven’t already). At least you get to enjoy The Mico’s take on Middle-earth. For those that do pick it up I strongly recommend grabbing that hint deck the moment you feel at all frustrated. The hints are there for a reason and you shouldn’t feel shamed for using them.
Reviews of other EXIT Games and other escape room in a box games.
As I mentioned earlier EXIT: The Game – The Lord of the Rings: Shadows Over Middle-earth was not our first EXIT game experience. Before playing this game we had played a handful of other games in the series (and we enjoyed all of them more than this one).
In addition we have played some other escape room in a box style games from other publishers, with each being unique in it’s own way.
If this review left you curious about the EXIT series in general, or about other escape room style games, you may be interested in checking out some of our previous reviews:
- EXIT: The Game – The Secret Lab
- EXIT: The Game – The House of Riddles
- EXIT: The Game – The Haunted Roller Coaster – a great starting point
- EXIT: The Game – The Catacombs of Horror
- Escape Mail
- Scooby-Doo Escape from the Haunted Mansion – fantastic for families
- The Goonies Escape with One-Eyed Willy’s Rich Stuff
- La Famiglia
- The Holiday Hijinks Series – Holiday themed 18 card escape room games (strongly recommended)
- An escape room game for the home with an exciting storyline based on J.R.R. Tolkein’s beloved series, The Lord of the Rings.
- Join Frodo and the Fellowship on their journey to Middle-earth to destroy the One Ring; can you decipher and complete Gandalf’s secret tasks in time?
