Mystery Mansion Regina – Night Terrors (Review)

Location: Your Home via the Magic of the Internet!

Players: 2-10 (We recommend 2-5 players)

Price: $26.25 CAD per person (About $19.33 USD at the time of writing)

Time to Escape: 75 minutes

Sweet dreams…

Theme:

From the Mystery Mansion Regina website:

After finding one of his childhood drawings, Alex is suddenly plagued by nightmares of the “Sleepyman.” Seeking to rid himself of these nightmares, Alex turns to a hypnotherapist.

Playing the role of his subconscious, you will need to help Alex figure out what is causing his nightmares… before it’s too late.

First Impressions:

Night Terrors was one of those games I’ve had my eye on since first seeing that it was being advertised in one of the many Escape Room Enthusiast groups I’m a part of. The creepy theme and promise of a seventy five minute room is always an easy way to capture my attention!

High Points:

I was thrilled to find that Night Terrors was designed exclusively as a remote escape game. While a lot of games being offered remotely are existing live games that have been adjusted in order to cater to a remote audience, I’ve not seen very many games of this sort that were built from the ground up to be played online. This ensures that every puzzle is integrated excellently for a zoom call, and the story line is set up brilliantly in order to immerse players within the world of The Sleepyman. From the word go, we became Alex’s subconscious, greeting him when he awoke in his nightmare, guiding him around in order to discover the many puzzles, and disturbing him with eerily accurate Old Gregg impressions. Alex remained in character the full time, delivering an immersive and character driven experience, despite our constant joke cracking, and we had a great time leading him through his nightmare, uncovering old memories, and unlocking the secrets he thought he’d forgotten! Points during the game where Alex recovers specific memories are well implemented, mechanically and thematically, and there were always astounding new surprises to find within the creepy bedroom. Atmosphere is excellent, and ensures that players are kept on their toes, waiting for the next horrific shoe to drop. The climax of the room is fantastic, tying off loose ends and keeping us guessing until the end.

The game flow of this room is astounding, with subtle cluing and excellent gating that ensures players remain focused on the task at hand, while providing an excellent challenge throughout.  There are certainly enough puzzles to keep a team busy for the full seventy five minutes, and while the game is mostly a linear experience due to the nature of online escape rooms, I never felt like there was a moment in which we weren’t engaged. Interactions are insanely clever, with some fantastic thematic touches here and there, as well as a penultimate puzzle that ties together a few bits we thought were just presented in passing to keep things spooky. Even the linear game flow focused through a single GM allows for moments of teamwork, which is always a triumph of design, and honestly, even times where I tried to step back a little to watch others work, I still felt fully involved with the game. A few of my favorite puzzles included small hints as to how they worked, and deducing their importance provided some great moments of revelation! On the whole, working through this room was immensely satisfying, and will remain one of my favorite escape adventures during this quarantine.

Low Points:

Really, the only thing I can think of we weren’t quite so keen on in this room was there is a particular clue that is somewhat vague, and seemed to communicate one thing to us, when the opposite was true. This led to us spending a fair amount of time spinning our wheels until we finally took a clue to clarify things. We spoke with the owners however, and they seemed interested in clarifying this clue in order to ensure it wasn’t confusing.

Verdict:

I’d love to see the world of The Sleepyman explored more, and would jump at the chance to play another room that relates to this story, as the puzzles were just as clever as the story! Night Terrors is one of the most immersive remote games available to date, and highly accessible to new players while simultaneously delivering a challenge worthy of a veteran group. I absolutely recommend giving this game a shot as soon as possible. Book your time within Alex’s nightmare here!

9.5/10 (Excellent)

Full Disclosure: Mystery Mansion Regina provided our team with a complementary game.