My wife and I played The Cursed Labyrinth last night for our date night. We were having fun and enjoying ourselves, as we usually do with EXIT games, until we got to one particular riddle, and then we were just plain infuriated after reading the Solution Card. My wife almost quit playing after that. In spite of what the box says, this is *NOT* a novice-level game. Beginners, you have been warned! The only reason (that I can think of) why this game is rated Level-2 difficulty and not Level-3 is because the riddles are linear, i.e. you get all the clues for one riddle, solve it, then receive all the clues for the next riddle, solve it, etc. You are not allowed to turn to the next page in the book until explicitly told to do so during the course of the game. In the higher-difficulty games, on the other hand, you accumulate "pieces" of several riddles concurrently and have to determine when you have everything you need to solve one. The entire game book is at your disposal from the start. If it weren't for the linearity, however, I don't see how The Cursed Labyrinth could be considered anything less than Level-3. That's in my opinion, of course. [For the record, my wife and I have played every EXIT game except The Catacombs of Horror, or any of the new ones with jigsaw puzzles.] ***** POSSIBLE Spoiler Alert ***** People who aren't familiar with EXIT game mechanics should probably skip this section. Experienced vets may continue unscathed. One of the comments I made in my review of The Cemetery of the Knight was that it went overboard with riddles involving "packaging material" (game box, rule book, advertising copy, etc). So, too, is the case with The Cursed Labyrinth. To me--and again, this is solely my opinion--that practice detracts from the game (the "immersion" factor), and the designers seem to be using it as a crutch lately, as if they're running out of ideas for regular riddles and clues. The "infuriating" riddle I mentioned earlier is one of these types of riddles; and man, you wanna talk about obscure?! ************************************** Okay, so the game is more difficult than it should be for a Level-2 game, and one of the riddles was infuriating, but was it _all_ bad? Certainly not. There were two riddles I can remember off the top of my head that I thought were neat, one of which is the one my wife and I voted as "the coolest riddle was" on our certificate; and recall that I said earlier that my wife and I were enjoying ourselves until we hit that one riddle. So yes, there are enjoyable elements to The Cursed Labyrinth. I liked the overall theme in The Cursed Labyrinth--trapped in a maze with gargoyles and other mythic creatures--and I liked the story line to some degree, but in the end the game was disappointing. It's not the worst EXIT game out there (that would be The Stormy Flight), but it's on par with The Cemetery of the Knight and Theft on the Mississippi.
