Welcome back to Cooperative Comics month! Earlier this month, we looked at a cooperative Spider-man miniatures games! Last week, we looked at a cooperative racing game in the DC universe! This month we look at something unique and different in the cooperative comic book sphere!
Escape Comics: The Alien Ship is a cooperative Escape Room game that was on Kickstarter back in April 2026. It’s an Escape Room in a comic book!! What does that mean??
This promised delivery in November 2026, and it arrived at my house in late September 2026! What??? A Kickstarter that’s months early? Holy cow!
We paid $83 for the Captains’ Pledge (with some digital content). I think if you see this in retail, it will be cheaper (like $49?)
What on Earth is this strange thing? Well, it turns out you aren’t on Earth … Let’s take a look!
Unboxing and Gameplay
This is an Escape Room game! The game presents puzzles that players must solve to advance! And I feel like I can’t show too much of the game! Part of the fun of an Escape Room game is the newness and cool stuff! I can show a little: see the box opened up with a can of coke for scale.
We will show a few components (below and beyond) so you can get a sense of the game, but no real spoilers. If you want to be COMPLETELY surprised and just see what we thought of the game, scroll down to the Conclusion section. If you prefer to see just a little bit (with no real spoilers), continue with us!
The very first thing you see is a “how to play” sheet on top of the box explaining how the game unfolds.
All puzzles in the game will be solved using the Clair computer (the puzzle wheel) above. After aligning symbols, the wheel gives you a number, which you look up on an answer card. This system reminded me a lot of the Exit games. That’s a good thing, as those are great Escape Room games!
At the end of the day, the most important thing in the game is the comic book. See above! The comic book presents the story and puzzles unfold along the way. “Usually” you can’t turn the page until you have solved the puzzle on that set of pages!
Below of a quick snapshot of the comic: it gives a sense of the art in the comic book and the sense of the game. There’s no real spoilers on the pages below, but if you want to be completely surprised, scroll by quickly.
It’s a comic book! The storytelling tropes of comics are all there! ZZZAP! KABLAM! Over the top little vignettes! It’s a comic book story, interspersed with puzzles.
The puzzles are presented in envelopes: you have to open the envelope to see the components of the puzzles. Each puzzle is very different!
The components for this game, without showing too much, are pretty awesome. The puzzle envelopes have some great stuff inside. And the comic book was a comic book! It revealed a story (with comic book art) while also forcing players to solve puzzles along the way!
It was exactly what it promised: a comic book Escape Room game!
Playthrough
We ended up with a 3-Player game playing through this. I think the game will play four players, but more people will make this harder … because it’s physically more difficult for everyone to see the comic!! For a 3-Player game, we had to squish together around the comic book (on one side of the table) so we could all read it together! I think four people might have been too much: you’d probably have to pass the book around to four players? As it was, we three players all squished together and it worked for us; this may or may not work with your playgroups.
The Kickstarter showed the playtime at 4-8 hours (see above). We ended up playing the whole thing in one night in 3 hours.
The thing is, I think Escape Room games are easier with more people because more brains can work on the puzzles! A solo or 2-Player game might take 4-8 hours because you have fewer a-ha moments with fewer brains! A 4-Player game, even with more brains, still has to contend with passing the comic book around so everyone can see it, so that will slow the game. I think we had an optimal experience at 3-Players and squishing around one side of the table. Your mileage may vary.
Hints
There is a hint system. We did not use it? It looked liked it worked, but we kind of preferred to solve things ourselves, even if we had to bang our heads against the table!
It is VERY important for an Escape Room game to have a Hint system. We have been sitting on a review here at CO-OP Gestalt because we got stuck in a game … and there’s no hint system. So, that other game sits in Limbo.
Luckily, there is a hint system for Escape Comics: The Alien Ship: If you get stuck, you can still move forward.
Puzzles
I was surprised how much I liked the puzzles in this game! They weren’t too hard, and they weren’t too easy! We made it through all nine? ten? puzzles (depending on how you count them)! Sure, we had to play with components and think and talk along the way, but that’s what you do in Escape Room game!
The puzzles were interesting and had high-quality components associated with them. The hardest puzzle was the last one .. as it should be!
Reset?
The game is completely resettable. After you are all done, you can reset the puzzles (put them back in their envelope), and reset the game. Then, you can pass this along to your friends, or keep it for three years after you’ve forgotten everything and replay it!
Adult?
There’s a couple of moments in the game that are a little graphic and perhaps a touch adult. So, just be aware this isn’t necessarily kid friendly, even though it’s a comic book. I don’t want to show anything, but the 13+ on here might be a little more applicable than other games.
Conclusion
Escape Comics: The Alien Ship was the funnest experience I have had with an Escape Room game in quite some time! The puzzles were just challenging enough to be interesting, but not too easy! The components of the puzzles were also pretty high quality. The only complaint might be that the puzzles had to be solved in linear order, but to be fair, that’s the way they came out in the comic book!
The comic book vibe of this game is totally on point! The game really uses the comic book well! Like, really well! I can’t say much more, because it might spoil some things, but the immersion and use of the media was done extremely well. I was initially bummed I couldn’t show the comic book on a video screen, but I think you NEED to be immersed in the physical book itself to get the full experience! You need to embrace this as a comic book you touch and feel!
To that end, I think the game is best at two or three players. Solo will work, but it can be easier to get stuck on puzzles because you only have one brain; luckily, the hint system looks good. Four players might be too much, because it’s harder for everyone to squeeze around the comic book and read it? You can always pass the book around with four players, but I think the strength of this game is reading and experiencing the story (and puzzles) together.
After the very disappointing Abyss Echo from a few weeks ago, it was great to see a real Escape Room game with real puzzles and a real story! The comic book system totally works in this game! 8.5 / 10.
