Unlock!

Unlock! is a series of cooperative card games inspired by physical escape rooms, created by designer Cyril Demaegd and distributed by Space Cowboys and Asmodee. The first title in the series launched in February 2017 and won the As d'Or Game of the Year award at the International Games Festival in Cannes that same year. Each scenario in the series is a self-contained puzzle adventure playable by one to six people working together, with a typical session running sixty to ninety minutes. Players search a deck of illustrated cards representing rooms and objects, combine items, and solve riddles to progress, retrieving specific numbered cards in the correct sequence as clues direct them. Play requires a companion smartphone application, which is used to enter solution codes, unlock audio hints, apply time penalties for wrong guesses, and track the team's final score at the end of the scenario. Unlike many single-use escape room products, an Unlock! scenario's physical components are never destroyed, marked or otherwise altered during play, so a completed box can be handed to another group of players to solve fresh afterward.