Base price: $18.
1+ players.
Play time: ~20 minutes.
BGG Link
Buy on Amazon (via What’s Eric Playing?)
Logged plays: 1 

Full disclosure: A review copy of EXIT Kids: The Great Bee-scape was provided by KOSMOS.

I’m not usually this late, but when your friend wants to have an all-day TV-watching marathon and they’re in from out of town, you make some compromises. So here I am, roughly starting my reviews at midnight rather than finishing them up. I knew I was going to be in trouble as soon as we got back from dinner at 10PM. But what can you do? There’s work, there’s life, and there’s balance. This is part of the balance, at times. I appreciate your patience and I apologize to any of my night-owl readers (or early morning fans in other parts of the world) who are waiting for these promptly at midnight. I’ll do better … next week. Probably. In the meantime, though, there are a lot of deduction, puzzle, and mystery games to review, so let’s check some of them out! I’m excited to head back to the EXIT Kids series with EXIT Kids: The Great Bee-scape! There’s another spooky one coming down the pipeline as well to look forward to.

In EXIT Kids: The Great Bee-scape, players are trying to help Betty Bee get home! She needs to get back over the hedge, but without any pollen, her trip will have been a waste! Somewhat luckily, some friendly bugs and critters have offered to help her get what she needs, but they’re tricky! They want you to solve their riddles and beat their puzzles in order to get the pollen and get home!

Unlike standard EXIT games, EXIT Kids games are entirely replayable, and they don’t require you to destroy anything to solve the puzzles. As with the previous one I reviewed (and the follow-up), you can just … redo them with a different set of riddle cards, as many times as you’d like, until you’re done with it. The answer dial has also been simplified, as when you enter in a three-critter combination for a certain color, you can just flip it over and it’ll tell you if you’re right or not. That knocks out Answer Cards and Help Cards, since the game is, well, for kids. So can you help Betty Bee get back to her hive? Or will you end up stuck in the hedges, with less pollen and more problems?

Overall: 7 / 10

Overall, I think EXIT Kids: The Great Bee-scape is fun! It’s a bit of a mixed bag, but I do think that the recommended riddle order is the right way to do things. The first couple “riddles” aren’t as much riddles as they are a set of instructions to follow or pattern-match. It’s not bad, per se, but it’s definitely targeted at a pretty young player group. And yes, I’m aware the game is rated for 5+. They can’t all be full-on EXIT puzzles. Even so, the puzzles early in the game feel like they move from “things that are fun to do with kids” to “things that are solely fun for kids to do”. That’s not always the direction you want to head in. There’s also a lot of emphasis on distinguishing between colors, which may lead to some issues for players who struggle with that sort of thing. It’s a bit odd how many of the puzzles hinge on color. Thankfully, the game’s riddles improve significantly as the game progresses. Lots of pattern-matching and some fun art identification. It’s very neat.

Without revealing anything particularly interesting or spoiling things, the finale of the game is what really sets it apart. It’s not, you know, ground-shaking or Earth-shattering, but it’s good and silly and fun in ways that I really enjoy. I think it’s the perfect ending to a cute little game for kids, but I think I would have enjoyed it the same amount if it had been in a standard EXIT game as well. So, that clears the bar: it’s just good. As for the rest, I don’t think that this does as good of a job as MicroMacro Kids at prepping kids for the standard EXIT games, but I am hoping that EXIT Family does a little bit more along those lines. I’ll have to see when I play next (and I suppose you’ll have to wait for my next review to find out).

In the meantime, this roughly resolves where I expected: I’d recommend The Great Bee-scape if you’re looking for an entertaining activity for kids that requires minimal involvement from adults to keep things moving. You can answer questions or offer some advice, but they should be loosely independently playing this one without much input from you. If you’re reading this review and you’re five, well, assume I’m talking to a parent, but also nice work! A random readability checker online rated this review at a sixth grade reading level, so, you’re punching well above your weight class. I do think that there’s some interest in having games that get kids excited about a genre or style of game so that you can move them to more complicated stuff in the future, and this might be a solid entry-level title. You’re not going from this to Kronologic or Turing Machine, but you might see kids who see you play an EXIT game and want to get involved, and giving them this is a great way to meet them where they are so that they can help out with the next one or try MicroMacro. I am hoping EXIT Family bridges the gap further, though, because I’d like to see what that progression looks like. In the meantime, if you’re looking for a game for your kids that they can puzzle through, you want to teach them some pattern matching and how to follow instructions, or you just like bees, EXIT Kids: The Great Bee-scape might be a good entry point! It’s low-complexity but still has some fun points to it.

If you’re looking for more mystery or puzzle games to play, check out my Puzzle and Mystery Games Hub for recommendations!

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