Decode Ann Arbor – Pt. 1: The Minerva Project (Review)

January 31, 2019January 31, 2019 ~ EscapeAdventurer ~ 1 Comment

Location: Ann Arbor, MI

Players: 2-10 (We recommend 4-6)

Price: $28 per person

Time to Escape: 60 minutes

We, for one, welcome our robotic overlords.

Theme:

From the Decode Ann Arbor website:

The Minerva Project centers around Minerva, an adolescent artificial intelligence who has ambitions that are too big for her motherboard. Will you help Minerva escape or take a risk by working against her?

First Impressions:

Decode Ann Arbor are masters of immersion, with the entire business designed to keep with the running theme of the games they offer. The Minerva Project is just the first of a three part epic escape adventure, and the folks who run the show have absolutely ensured that the story is one hundred percent immersive from the moment you step through their front door. I could tell immediately that we were in for something truly special.

Welcome to The Minerva Project!

High Points:

The storyline running through the entirety of this room is fantastic, and is further bolstered by the game master’s presence throughout the game to deliver what I felt were interactive “cut-scenes” of a sort. His enthusiasm and ability to improvise, (I like to engage actors and have a… weird sense of humor to put it mildly,) were great assets towards making this room shine. Minerva’s constant presence within the rooms is astounding as well, and her interactions with our group were a lot of fun. Affable and just ever so slightly threatening, you really become attached to this feisty AI in a way I’ve never quite seen in an escape room. All these interactions culminate in an exciting climactic choice you’ll make during the room, and the story can end in a few different ways depending on your success, failure, and choices. The way the story has been so closely integrated into the game is astounding, and Decode Ann Arbor deserves all the praise that comes with accomplishing this feat.

The adventure itself contains a dense array of tactile and engaging, non-linear puzzles, allowing for a fairly large group to keep busy for the entire experience. We had seven players, and not one of us stopped puzzling until the finale, and I’m certain that the maximum of ten would still be will entertained by the absolute smorgasbord of enigmas on offer. Of the many interactions, there are several that are technically themed takes on classic puzzle types, somehow managing to keep these much loved, but standard mind games feeling completely fresh. Decode Ann Arbor also provides a dynamic difficulty experience, ensuring that escapists of varying experience levels can all have an amazing time. Through the clever puzzles, a completely engaging story, and emphasis on a divide and conquer method of teamwork, The Minerva Project truly does evolve beyond the standard escape room game to become a true adventure.

Suit up, it’s time to escape!

Low Points:

The initial parts of the game are a bit scattered, theme-wise, though there is a perfectly reasonable in-universe explanation for this. However, it is still rather basic to start, and takes a little bit to get to the really excellent parts. Slow start aside, once it does get going, it gets going fast, so it’s a small critique. There is one crucial part of the game that I feel was a bit vaguely explained to start with, leading to some confusion when we began the game. Luckily, the Game Master provided a free hint (that we all promptly ignored until it finally clicked with us, totally our fault there,) and corrected our course excellently.

Verdict:

The Minerva Project is an amazing escape room that absolutely must be experienced if you’re ever in the Ann Arbor area. Escapist of all ages and experience levels can enjoy this room, and I highly recommend getting a team together to take this room on! The best thing about it, though, is that once you finish, the story continues! With two further entries into Minerva’s Saga, this truly is an epic experience. Book your time in Minerva’s den here!

9/10 (Excellent)

Full Disclosure: Decode Ann Arbor provided media discounted tickets for this room.

The Enigma Emporium – Blowback (Review)

January 30, 2019May 13, 2020 ~ EscapeAdventurer ~ 5 Comments

Location: Your Home!

Players: We recommend 2-4

Price: $15.00

I don’t trust the process.

Theme:

From The Enigma Emporium’s upcoming Kickstarter (Edited for brevity/errors):

Last you’d heard, J.C. was safe in witness protection. You even knew where, although you weren’t supposed to. The FBI wasn’t forthcoming with information, so all you could do was scour the internet for some mention of your friend, his family, or even The Ouroboros… (although you were careful not to attract too much attention on that front). Still, you had heard nothing, and somehow nothing was worse than something, in this case.

A gentle shuffle told you that Alice, the mail carrier, was approaching, and your ears proved prescient as the soft thud of letters hitting the floor was followed by the squeak of the mail flap closing.

Your breath caught in your throat. You recognized that handwriting. An assortment of postcards–familiar yet entirely alien–tumbled into your hand. Your brow knitted unconsciously as you read, eyes flicking across the back of the first card.

“…Please help me one last time” it ended. You sat up straight, pulse-quickened. A drop of fear fell like a pebble in your gut, rippling outwards. And you smiled. This was something, and something was better than nothing.

First Impressions:

I’m honestly very conflicted about writing this review, so I’m going to use this section to explain a couple things, since it’s sort of an outlier. You see, it took me weeks to complete Blowback, when usually I spend a few hours with my fiancée solving at home puzzle experiences. This isn’t due to the level of difficulty or length of content, though I’m sure dedicated folks who eschew hints may take as long as I did. No, the reason Blowback took me so long to finally get around to finishing is that I actively despised working on this game. No bones about it, I hated it, and actively felt worse while I was playing it. I picked it up several times to push forward with my task, but almost every time, I would shake my head, say, “Nope,” and shove it back in a drawer as a problem for future me.

Now, with that vent out of the way, my revulsion towards Blowback is extremely easy to pinpoint, and if you wanted the long and short of it right away, here it is. I cannot stand process puzzles. If you’ve read my previous review regarding Wish You Were Here, you know this. Process puzzles are those which require you to first, solve the puzzle, (which is generally enjoyable,) and then apply that process over and over, (which is incredibly tedious.) Not only does the tedium grate my nerves, but it feels like homework. I finished doing homework over a decade ago, I’ve served my time! This game is almost strictly process puzzles, and therefore, I can definitely say this game is not for me.

And that’s the thing, isn’t it? This game isn’t for me. It was designed with a completely different type of puzzle solver in mind, so keep that in mind when reading this review. If you are the type that likes deep google searches, applying processes to puzzles, and doing research to solve games, and that doesn’t sound frustrating to you, you can ignore almost everything I’m about to say, Kickstart this game, and have a wonderful time. If that, however, sounds like a grind to you, first, you and I are going to get along swell, and second, this review is for you.

High Points:

It cannot be denied that The Enigma Emporium are masters at packing so many puzzles into so few postcards. Blowback contains five ordinary postcards that are filled to the brim with codebreaking and puzzles. The price is a very low barrier to entry, and you definitely get your money’s worth, quantity of puzzle-wise. There are a few clever puzzles that provide a highly satisfying break from the process based and google focused research ones, and I really appreciated those during my time with Blowback. One particular puzzle that really triggered a nice ah ha moment came after being completely puzzled by the whole interaction. Unfortunately, the rest of that process was not well clued, stymieing progress. The puzzles are easily identifiable for the most part, and aren’t hidden obtusely, you just have to derive the meaning behind them.

The beginning of the end?

Low Points:

I was sent Blowback after completing Enigma Emporium’s previous venture, Wish You Were Here. While there were points of frustration and bits from that game I generally did not like, it was overall very clever, and packed with mostly enjoyable, satisfying to solve puzzles. For Blowback, unfortunately, the problems with Wish You Were Here are doubled down on, and the things that made me ultimately enjoy the previous adventure are minimized if not totally absent. For example, one of the best parts of Wish You Were Here was the slowly evolving and mysterious story that was conveyed via solving each of the cards. Unfortunately with Blowback, the story is presented at the beginning, but does not continue until you’re already at the final puzzle.

I’ve already explained how process puzzles and research tasks dulled the luster of this game, so I’ll just mention again that they are copious and that will be that. Many points of the game do not give great feedback due to the method of solving. Without spoiling anything, I had successfully solved certain puzzles to a certain stage, but was completely unaware of this fact due to a deficiency in my background knowledge. Unfortunately, this is not an uncommon deficiency, and throws several of the puzzles into a tailspin. Luckily, the clues will point you back in the right direction, but for a game in which I already felt over-reliant on clues, going back to the well began to dull my enthusiasm for puzzling further.

There’s also a pretty high barrier to entry for this particular entry. Though many seasoned Puzzle Hunters and at home Sleuths will recognize many of the ciphers and codes presented herein, most folks just starting out with their puzzling career are going to have a very hard time cracking this nut. At a few points within the game, the cluing that a particular cipher is meant to be used is very vague, and is sometimes absent. New players are then pretty well set adrift without taking additional clues.

Oh thank the gods.

Verdict:

As I’ve said, Blowback was not for me. It’s like Fortnite or fighting video games; possibly highly enjoyable for a certain group of players that I just don’t belong to. And that’s fine! You might be the type of person that would love this sort of experience, so definitely take that into account if you’re pondering whether to give this one a shot. If you’re like me, though, definitely give Blowback a wide berth, your sanity depends on it. While Blowback isn’t currently available for purchase, the Kickstarter is set to begin in February. You can keep abreast of the upcoming news via The Enigma Emporium website here.

Update: Blowback’s Kickstarter is here.

3/10 (Poor)

Full Disclosure: The Enigma Emporium provided a complementary envelope.

The Tower Escapes – The Castle of Loches (Review)

January 29, 2019January 28, 2019 ~ EscapeAdventurer ~ Leave a comment

Location: Raleigh, NC

Players: 2-8 (We recommend 3-5)

Price: $28 per person

Time to Escape: 60 minutes

Castles, Card Games, and Crimes Most Foul

Theme:

David Perrin, President of the Banque Nationale de Paris, has been murdered! Your crack team of crime scene investigators have been called in to the historic Castle of Loches to quickly deduce who the murderer is and bring them to justice. Your superiors want this done quickly, as they don’t want the castle’s reputation sullied by this event. Stay organized and gather the evidence, and you might just be able to solve the mystery in time!

First Impressions:

As we’ve spoken about in our previous Tower Escapes reviews, their location is quite the draw. The old water tower is great for historically based rooms, and the location for The Castle of Loches is based on an actual site in France. The stonework inside the room provides and excellent environment for this adventure, and we’re always happy to engage with a room that has roots based in history!

High Points:

The Castle of Loches is definitely The Tower Escapes’ most elaborate set, but it is still a no frills affair, with everything included in the room being important to solving the mystery. We were told up front that we should be careful and only move that which we felt we needed to, as there were clues which were in certain spots for a reason. We are generally against destructible state puzzles like this, but we appreciated the heads up, and as we progressed through the room, it became more clear what was moveable and what should stay put. For the most part, anything that needed to stay put was also affixed, keeping our anxiety about moving something important low.

This room also contained some of the most original puzzles The Tower Escapes has to offer. While there are a few excellent technical moments, the majority of the room is very mechanical, but this plays into the room’s favor as it is better able to hide the amazing ah ha moments that some of the puzzles deliver. Most interactions are highly tactile and utilize the space they are contained within well. The game itself begins with an ever so slightly non-linear run of puzzles that quickly become linear, but the linearity allows the flow of the room to be gated well, delivering new clues at a steady and appropriate pace. The final puzzle is highly intuitive and allows for a fun climax to the room, validating your sleuthing when the door satisfyingly pops open.

Low Points:

One of the worst things to come across in a room is a trick lock that isn’t clued properly. Luckily, our group has seen almost all of them and know how to open the vast majority, so half of us were able to quickly solve the one that was included in Castle of Loches. However, newer players might be incredibly lost at this point as most trick locks are designed to be puzzled over for a long time and generally aren’t a good fit for escape rooms. There’s also a very small bit of outside knowledge, but this is easily overcome at the end of the game. One puzzle is a repeat of another Tower Escapes room, damaging some of the value of having a separate game, though most casual players will tend not to come across this problem. One particular puzzle was problematic as there was exactly zero logical clues to tie into its solving, however, after chatting with the owner about this particular interaction, we’re confident that a more logical and well clued puzzle will come from a new iteration.

Verdict:

The Castle of Loches is a good escape adventure that, as of our escape, had a few bumpy issues here and there. Luckily, after speaking to the owner and giving our feedback after the game, I’m very confident that he was open to our suggestions and will iterate the room to ensure that these problems are quickly ironed out, if they haven’t been resolved already! The toughest room at The Tower Escapes, The Castle of Loches is definitely not for the uninitiated, but I think with a couple of rooms under your belt, you’ll be ready to take it on! Enthusiasts will find some really original puzzles to engage with, and I recommend giving this one a shot. Gather your team of investigators and solve the mystery here!

7/10 (Good)

Full Disclosure: The Tower Escapes comped our tickets for this room.

The Tower Escapes – The Secret of the Tower Keeper (Review)

January 24, 2019January 24, 2019 ~ EscapeAdventurer ~ 1 Comment

Location: Raleigh, NC

Players: 2-10 (We recommend 4-6)

Price: $28 per person

Time to Escape: 60 minutes

Climb the tower, find the grail!

Theme:

From The Tower Escapes website:

The downtown water tower was abandoned in 1924, its tank removed and a larger metal tower erected further west.

The city long considered demolishing the earlier structure, but in 1938 sold the property to Raleigh architect William Henley Deitrick. Deitrick, who was garnering a regional reputation for modernist design, chose to convert the aging tower into his architectural offices.

William had a great interest in Medieval history, crusades, and historic artifacts, some say he spent most of his life in search of Holy Grail.

You have an hour to find out the secret of the Tower Keeper.

First Impressions:

Speculative fiction themed escape rooms are usually a lot of fun, but when you couple that with being in the actual structure the story is based on, it adds a whole new level of immersion to the game! This was the room we were most excited about when visiting The Tower Escapes, as we were assured we’d be climbing the tower as we solved the puzzles!

The escape room is in the back there. Don’t see it? It’s that giant tower.

High Points:

The storyline is imaginative and clever, and it luckily doesn’t end the second you begin the room as some promising themes tend to. In fact, the experience feels like a Da Vinci Code-esque adventure in the middle of downtown Raleigh. Wrapped within the original stone walls of the water tower, the sense of immersion is truly quite high. The story is delivered via the linear gameplay, which works well to gate off new revelations as you progress through the story. Puzzles are mostly intuitive, and the game flow works well between each point, giving great feedback to keep players on track. The puzzles sprinkled throughout the rooms are very original, with hand built tech keeping the whole thing feeling authentic. Several points along the way provide great reveals, keeping the surprises coming and the enigmas rolling along at a steady clip. The room itself isn’t overly cluttered, and it always seems like what you find is important, as long as you can make the connections. Signposting for hints is superb, with small details providing huge ah ha moments. Overall, the room is just satisfying to play through, puzzle-wise.

Low Points:

Some information is provided via stickers, which seems a bit out of place overall and make the props look worse. The linearity is a double edged sword and can bottleneck groups, causing larger parties to have folks that are standing around waiting for puzzles to be solved. One particular part of the game involved entering a code into a randomly placed input device; I’ve never seen something like this hidden quite so strangely, and we were lucky to spot it. The ending is somewhat anticlimactic, with the story just coming to a sudden halt. Because of this, the room feels much shorter than expected, with everything stopping just as it feels like the game is picking up speed.

Verdict:

With a highly original mix of puzzles and an engaging storyline, Secret of the Tower Keeper shows some real promise. While we found it to be a bit on the easy side, our group of enthusiasts had a lot of fun climbing the old water tower in search of the Holy Grail. A good choice for new players and enthusiasts looking for something out of the norm, I definitely recommend checking this one out! Book your time investigating the Tower Keeper’s secrets here!

7.5/10 (Good)

Full Disclosure: The Tower Escapes comped our tickets for this room.

The 7th Guest: The Board Game (Review)

January 23, 2019January 28, 2019 ~ EscapeAdventurer ~ 1 Comment

Location: Your Home!

Players: We recommend 2-4

Price: $69.95 MRSP

Old Man Stauf he built a house, and filled it with his toys. Six guests were invited in one night, their screams the only noise.

Theme:

The granddaddy of PC horror games, The 7th Guest has been adapted into a puzzling tabletop game! Take on the role of one of Henry Stauf’s guests, attempt to solve his puzzles, and leave Stauf Manor with your heart’s desire, or die trying.

Ah, the thrill of wandering around Stauf’s creepy manor returns!

First Impressions:

As a fan of The 7th Guest and The 11th Hour, I was very excited to see that Trilobyte games was releasing a board game based on these properties. When the call for reviews came out, I jumped at the chance to give it a spin. At first I was cautious as the computer games have been dear to my heart since childhood, but my expectations were definitely exceeded with this game!

Feeling loooooooonely?

High Points:

My fiancée and I tried The 7th Guest out one evening, and once we’d given it a quick run through on the quickest game mode, “The Nickle Tour,” we were hooked! We immediately spent the next couple hours running through “The Grand Tour” and have played it many times since. Backing up a bit, the game is based on basic board game mechanics of rolling a special die, (This one is a d6 based on the Ouija board from the original game, and features only the numbers, 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, and 11, which is an odd choice, but somehow works,) and moving towards a destination in order to solve Puzzler cards. Your destination on the board is determined by a number of randomly dealt out Destination cards, (anywhere from 5 for a 2 player 30ish minute game to 18 for a 2+ hour game,) and the Puzzler cards are a mashup of trivia, cryptic clues, mind games, and horror themed puzzles. Each time you reach a room and successfully solve a Puzzler, you discard your current Destination and begin the trek towards your next one. Once you’ve run out of Destinations, you move to the Little Room at the Top of Stauf Manor to solve one final Puzzler and win the game!

It’s a simple game, but is so much fun, especially for a 7th Guest enthusiast. You don’t have to experience the original computer game to enjoy this one however, as my fiancée, who doesn’t really enjoy horror that much, also loves playing this one! Moving around the house is a joy for fans, and all the hidden passages and rooms are detailed just as they were in the game. Some of the best scenes from the game continued to pop up in my head as I played, and every so often a Puzzler would contain a well placed easter egg, so there’s a lot of excellent nostalgic nods for long time fans. The Puzzlers are great fun as well, and are a mixed bag of difficulty, running the gamut from basic trivia to mind melting riddles. Even when it isn’t your turn, these moments remain engaging as you might have a chance to steal the Puzzler if the current player answers incorrectly, so you’ll be wanting to formulate the solution as well! If you do successfully steal, you’ll get to discard your current Destination and begin on your next one, an awesome mechanic to ensure the game moves at a fairly quick pace!

The miniatures themselves are fantastically detailed renderings of the six original guests from the game, as well at the infamous Lady in White ghost from the upstairs hallway. These look great on their own, but I think they’d also work well painted, and would love to work on doing so if I ever get the chance. Puzzler, Destination, and Mystery Spell cards are all lovingly detailed with renderings from the game and spooky artwork, and set the creepy tone for the game immediately. Every part of the game is infused with the love you’d expect from Rob Landros, designer of The 7th Guest computer and board game!

Want a balloon, sonny? Nah… Nah, I’m good.

Low Points:

For the most part, we absolutely love this game, and are having a great time playing it beyond the need to do so for the review, but there were a few small things we think could be improved on. The die itself does not denote whether the nine is a six or nine with the standard line marking the bottom. It’s easy to remember once you know that all the numbers are odd, but it still confuses us from time to time. The Little Room at the Top mechanic is a great way to end the game, but in order to win, you only have to solve a standard Puzzler. It can be a bit anticlimactic when you get thrown a softball by the Puzzler deck, but I understand why it is handled this way.

With 300 Puzzlers, we will get a fair amount of play out of The 7th Guest, but it’s slightly disheartening to know we will eventually run out. Luckily, there are plans for expansions to ensure this game won’t be a finite experience! Finally, the Ghost mechanic is bafflingly punitive, but luckily optional, so we do not play with it. This mechanic involves a player becoming possessed and being unable to progress in the game until they pass along the affliction to another player by landing on the same square or room, or getting a random Mystery Spell to release their spirit. The mini is the absolute best one in the box, however, so we always use it as one of the player pieces instead.

Beware The Lady in White!

Verdict:

The 7th Guest: The Board Game is a surprisingly entertaining game, even 27 years after the PC game’s original release. Fans of the game will find a lot of value in the nostalgia present, as well as the ability to revisit Stauf Manor one more time for this new experience! The game is also very approachable and intuitive for those who aren’t long time fans, and just pure fun to play regardless. The game is set to begin shipping to Kickstarter backers soon, so I expect this will be available to the general public shortly! You can pick up your copy here!

9/10 (Excellent)

Full Disclosure: Trilobyte Games provided a complementary copy of this game.