This is a spoiler page for the puzzle Dragon Laboratory in the Ravensburger Exit / Escape-series.
Here is a link to a high-resolution image of the finished puzzle.
The edges were especially difficult, and I’m not sure if the left edge is 100 % correct.
There are six puzzles in this image.
Hints for the puzzles provided by Ravensburger (in English). If you want another language version, go to the help front page and click on the appropriate flag.
Puzzle 1
Here you are supposed to read the text as one long string of characters, and then pick out every third character:
MANGNOG
and then every fourth character:
RYGIG
and finally every fifth character:
LONG
These “words” can be found on books in the image, and each book also has a number. The numbers on the book are 2, 4 and 8, and the answer id 248.
Puzzles 2 & 3 are so well explained on the Ravensburger help page that I don’t feel I have anything to add.
Puzzle 4
Here you just need to follow the three strands of the plant, starting from the left. If you follow the vine on the left, it ends in a 9, the one in the middle ends in a 5 and the one on the right in an 8. Answer 958.
Again, puzzles 5 & 6 are well explained in the Ravensburger hints.
Solution
I can’t be sure, but I think this is where the solution is supposed to go, to cover up the text that is apparently summoning a dragon. If you have another theory, I would be happy to hear it!
Puzzler1909 
[…] There are further details and spoilers about the series on the dedicated page. There is also an individual spoiler page for this […]
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All is perfect, but why the purple dragon has run away? End – it’s not understandable – do we have to find the exit or to give something to the big dragon?
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I don’t know about the purple dragon, and you’re right, the end isn’t all that clear. According to the instructions, you should find and deactivate an artifact. I think the artifact is the stone with (partly) glowing text. I think that’s summoning the dragon, and to make it stop, you have to cover it with the solution pieces. Or that’s my theory at least. I agree it’s not all that satisfying.
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When I bought this puzzle it came with the wrong instruction booklet (for The Observatory instead of Dragon Laboratory), so I don’t have the instructions to solve the puzzle myself (everything I can find online is about the solution, and I don’t want to spoil it!). I’ve tried contacting Ravensburger multiple times to no avail…
Could you post/email me a photo of the English instruction page? Thanks in advance! 🙂
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I’m sorry to hear Ravensburger has been unhelpful (I sent you an email with a photo of the English page). Personally, I think Ravensburger should post all of these materials (they’re of no use if you don’t have the puzzle), but since they’re all copyright by Ravensburger, I don’t quite have the nerve to post them myself. Happy puzzling!
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Does anyone know where to find this puzzle? I’ve looked everywhere to no avail.
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Puzzle-Offensive has it in stock, and they do ship worldwide. (For some countries the shpping costs are currently insane. Something to do with Covid-19.) https://www.puzzle-offensive.de/Puzzle/19954-Exit-Puzzle-Im-Drachenlabor-2025994.html
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I found it on Amazon. It was listed as German but the puzzles are in several languages, so it didn’t matter.
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We have just finished it. Such a delusion…the edge was so bad (you could swap a lot of pieces without any clue that they were wrong); a lot of unuseful rectangular pieces (ok, it’s written not to take care but c’mon remove them before packing!! They are the edge of the edge…let inside just to save money).
The story was without an end (thank you for your interpretation… it makes sense but it’s not immediate. I thought the pieces were coordinates for an object, or that by combining the final pieces we would have obtained the artifact or something. Instead nothing. And what about the family member?!).
Even the solution was just a list of the pieces but with no story and without the explanation about how to disengage the artifact.
There is no key for the dragon enigma (puzzle1)…Why should I pick up letters 3 4 5 and not others?
We love both puzzles and escape rooms, but this was such a bad experience that I would not buy any ravensburger escape puzzle anymore and I will suggest not to buy them.
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All of the the Ravensburger Escape puzzles work the same, and the edges are indeed problematic in them all, although this puzzle being so dark, I felt it was worse than most. The object is always to identify pieces, with which you can then build some sort of solution. Sometimes it makes sense, but the solution for this seems really stupid. And the back stories often make no sense at all. Somehow, I still enjoy these puzzles though, and the jigsaw-aspect is always more important to me than solving the puzzles.
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You could take the III, IIII, and IIIII on the dragon cages as a hint for the 3rd, 4th, and 5th letters (since the order you retrieve them in doesn’t matter, unlike the eggs) – otherwise, I agree it’s not clear. I played with the letters, and one message backwards was ‘no hints’!
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My mistake: the order does matter, to get 248.
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I didn’t like the letters 3rd-4th-5th, no clue was given. The cages was the solution to another riddle so doesn’t qualify als clue. If the book “Dreki” had number 5 in stead of 2 it could be a clue, then the three books “drago”-“drachen”-“dreki” and would be 3-4-5.
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