Mystery Mansion Regina – Seen (Virtual Review)

August 18, 2020August 17, 2020 ~ EscapeAdventurer ~ 1 Comment

Location: Your Home via the Magic of the Internet!

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

Price: $20 CAD per person (About $15.14 USD at the time of writing)

Time to Escape: 75 minutes

I seen’t it!

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From the Mystery Mansion Regina website:

Searching for a job, but having little luck due to the whole COVID-19 thing, you decide to turn to Craigslist. Everything seems pretty sketchy and illegal, until you come across a posting from DirkyDirk420. The posting reads: “Babysitter needed. To watch a baby. A big one. No physical contact; only watching via video link.”A little odd, but definitely the least strange you’ve found so far. You contact DirkyDirk420 and he hires you. He says he will send you another email with more details closer to the date of the job.Fingers crossed this Dirk guy isn’t some sort of pervert. I mean, you did find him on Craigslist…***Rated 14A For Coarse Language, Dark Comedy, and Inappropriate Themes***

First Impressions:

We very much enjoyed Mystery Mansion Regina’s Night Terrors, but recently, they have made their in person room, Seen, available for online play. The most interesting thing about Seen, other than it being a horror comedy, is that there are two rooms, (side A or B,) that can be played competitively, or in our case, as a two-part online escape extravaganza!

High Points:

Our team is custom built for low-brow humor, and the comic sensibilities of Seen and our in room avatar, the aforementioned “baby,” appealed greatly to us. While Seen is still a horror room, it never ceases to be silly and all around weird. Adding to the excellence, our avatar/game master played to our enthusiasm, ensuring the jokes and puzzles continued to come at us fast and furious! Both rooms flow pretty well, and are, for the most part, fairly linear, which plays to the strengths of an online live experience. Though there is generally a fair amount to do in each room, it is generally pretty clear what comes next in the puzzling sequence, and the challenge remains in determining how to solve the various conundrums rather than sorting through too much information at any given time. The rooms themselves are more “Generation One” style escapes, consisting mostly of locks and codes, but this does not hinder the adventure at all, as these sorts of games tend to shine in the virtual space. I really enjoyed how the story had been adjusted for a virtual audience, and hamming it up with our GM was a brilliant time.

Puzzles ran a wide gamut, and there was a little something for everyone within each room, and while the experience was linear, it never seemed as if anyone was feeling left out or just waiting around for something to do. There were several ways Telescape, the inventory system used by Mystery Mansion for this room, was integrated in order to ensure the teamwork based interactions remained solvable by multiple players, as intended, and allowed us a little freedom to divide and conquer virtually. Each separate room has their own personal style, and conveys a particular facet of the overall story, ensuring that while each room works as a stand alone adventure, those that take on both rooms will get the extra bonus of seeing how everything ties together! We really loved the side that dealt with the gruesome and ridiculous traps the antagonist had been using to take out his enemies.

Low Points:

There was an instance in both sides A and B of a puzzle that relied on searching in a way that doesn’t quite translate to the virtual experience well. A small puzzle or something to direct remote players a bit more would help alleviate these choke points, as searching in a virtual game usually has to be streamlined to ensure players don’t get hung up because they aren’t physically in the room. When clues would come up in telescape during our first game, there was a fart noise that was hilarious at first, but became old through repetition, however, during our second run, it was cut down to levels that remain silly and not grating. One of the sides definitely gives off a better “SAW parody” vibe than the other, and we tended to enjoy this side more, though there have been a few updates to the other side to ensure the theme and creepy vibe carry through a bit better.

Verdict:

Seen is a great set of rooms, and we enjoyed playing through both sides in order to get the full story! We aren’t overly competitive folks, so we didn’t play competitively, but both rooms seem balanced for head to head play. I do love the asynchronous nature of the game, as it allows players like us to essentially have two different rooms to play, and for those who really love to compete, they can swap rooms afterwards. These rooms are approachable for new players, and enthusiasts will definitely get their escape room fix from Seen. I highly recommend it for folks who enjoy darker humor and horror comedies! Book your time taking care of the baby here!

8/10 (Great)

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

Pebble Escape Rooms – Gothic Horror Escape Bundle (Review)

August 13, 2020August 13, 2020 ~ EscapeAdventurer ~ Leave a comment

Location: Your Home via the Magic of the Internet!

Players: We recommend 1-2 players

Price: £25.00 (About $32.75 USD at the time of writing.)

Classic Monsters Return!

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From the Pebble Escape Rooms website:

Enjoy our classic Gothic Horror Escape Bundle as you Escape from Castle Dracula, Defeat Mr Hyde and create your own monster with Dr Frankenstein. Puzzles and brainteasers await you in this triple game bundle.

This Gothic online escape room bundle is available now! You can play at home, solo or with a group of friends over video chats such as Zoom or Microsoft Teams. This game works best on a laptop or tablet but it can also be played on a mobile phone.

First Impressions:

I always enjoy a good point and click adventure, as the genre has been a favorite since I was a kid in the 90s. Pebble Escape’s Gothic Horror bundle seemed to be right up my alley, with adventures inspired by Frankenstein, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and Dracula! We tried all three out one weekend, and were impressed by the 90s adventure game aesthetic!

High Points:

Pebble Escape has created these games to appeal to families and puzzlers looking for an introductory experience, and I think they are perfect for this target audience. The puzzles are simpler, introducing young puzzlers to some basic code breaking and solving, while serving up some puzzle hunt style meta puzzles that are accessible to novice solvers. The presentation is intuitive, and reminds me of late 90s early 00s adventure games, like Dark Fall or The Crystal Key, which brought back some nostalgic feelings. Interactive areas are responsive, and some of the more intricate puzzles have intuitive machines to play around with. The sense of place exuded by the artfully constructed backgrounds is excellent, and we enjoyed spotting the buried clues integrated into these scenes. In scenes that are dependent on searching for hidden objects, an optional magnifying glass is included, which is greatly appreciated. The games are strictly linear, but do have important clues woven through each scene, and players will need to carefully search each area for items they’ll need to ultimately overcome the final puzzles. The difficulty curve is gentle, but does ramp nicely towards more complex solves as players work through each scene, and the finales presented some interesting mechanics to ensure they remain engaging. Puzzles within each game are varied in order to ensure there’s several different puzzling concepts to explore, and I think families will have a great time working through them together!

Low Points:

One thing that would really help bolster the experience would be the addition of a soundtrack and perhaps sound effects when interacting with items. The immersion falls strangely flat when the game remains silent at all times. Even the addition of a suggested Spotify playlist could help players get more immersed within the world of the games. Enthusiasts aren’t quite the target audience, though if they’re looking for a game to play with their kids or family that is new to puzzling, this one will serve as a great introduction. Between the games, there are a few puzzles that repeat, which is alright overall, but the bundle does feel somewhat repetitive at times if played back to back.

Verdict:

Pebble Escape Games has created a fantastic little bundle of escape adventures for families with their Gothic Horror Bundle, which will introduce basic puzzling concepts and villains from classic literature in an accessible, spooky but not scary way! I definitely recommend this to enthusiasts who want to share their puzzling obsession with their children, as well as less experienced folks who are looking for a family focused adventure. Work through the puzzles and escape the monsters here!

8/10 (Great)

Full Disclosure: Pebble Escape Rooms provided our team with a complementary game.

Sleuth Kings – Case 202: Monster Madness Pt. 2 – DraculArt (Review)

August 12, 2020August 12, 2020 ~ EscapeAdventurer

Location: Your Home!

Players: We recommend 1-4

Price: $29.95 per box

I will not apologize for Art.

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From the Sleuth Kings website:

Sullivan King had only heard whispers about a new criminal group – until their reign of terror made things personal for him.

The group – filled with self-proclaimed zombies, vampires, and other monsters – has its hand in everything from selling drugs to abducting people. Although they have police baffled, Sullivan is sure of one thing: he’s going to do whatever it takes to stop them.

Can you help Sullivan uncover the group’s monstrous secret and bring them to justice before they hurt someone else?

First Impressions:

Sleuth Kings’ new format started out with a strange and interesting foray into investigating a group of kidnappers who proclaimed themselves to be aliens, leaving off with a cliffhanger to keep things mysterious. This time, a group of art thieves has struck, but are strangely only interested in artifacts pertaining to “vampire culture.” Seems like an oddly similar string of thematic crimes has struck Dayton, and only Sullivan King can put a stop to it, with our help, of course!

High Points:

So far the themes of Monster Madness have been weird and wonderful, and I loved the vampire based art heist being carried out during this case. The DraculArt exhibits sounds like the absolute best sort of art exhibition, and the promotional materials included within our case not only integrate into the puzzles brilliantly, but do an excellent job of world building as well. After speaking with the designer, he noted that “the line between goth and cheesy” was thinner than he had guessed, but I think he struck just the right balance to make the art direction of the whole case dark and moody without crossing over into goofiness. The story itself is self contained, but ties into the previous case as some of the mysterious strands begin to tie themselves together through the narrative. Everything slowly built until we were hit by one of the most shocking plot twists we’ve come across in a Sleuth Kings case paying off all the set up from the first two cases in spades! Everything capped off well, and though we ended off with another cliff hanger, the case wrapped up satisfyingly.

The game flows well, per usual, and despite a small logical speed bump we came across during the second half of the game, everything was immediately intuitive. We appreciated the difficulty curve, which started with some quick challenges, but ramped up into some difficult, but immediately engaging conundrums that were a pleasure to solve. The creativity and variety of the puzzles also ensured that the experience remained fresh for the entire play time. I especially enjoyed some tactile puzzling that was included at the end of the case, which utilized some pieces of evidence I had not expected to be used in quite the way they were! The meta puzzle for this case was well implemented, with a little bit of subtle cluing, and I really liked how it tied another of the long running Sleuth Kings characters into the mystery!

Low Points:

One particular clue is something that folks will either get right away because it is something they’ve done before, or will need a hint to get things going. There may be a few folks in between, but it is a very specific cipher. A few of the codebreaking points in this box lend themselves a little more towards solo play, and one of us had to wait after we figured out the method of solving while the other finished up the process of decoding. One of the clues in the later game is a bit of a logical leap, and needs just a bit more cluing to ensure it isn’t too vague.

Verdict:

After Case 201, we were interested to see what would happen next, but this case truly finished off with us completely invested in knowing how this story continues, and ultimately finishes up! I have a few theories about what’s going on, but knowing Sleuth Kings, when the big reveal comes, I’ll be thrown for a loop. I definitely recommend picking this one up after working through Case 201, as the blend of engaging story telling and clever puzzling is to die for! You can purchase this and other previous cases from the Sleuth King’s archives here, and if you’d like to subscribe to upcoming adventures, you can use the promo code ESCAPEADVENTURE to get $5 off your subscription here! You can also read the rest of our Sleuth Kings reviews here!

8.5/10 (Great)

Full Disclosure: Sleuth Kings provided a complementary box.

Complex Rooms – Legends of Canada (Review)

August 11, 2020August 11, 2020 ~ EscapeAdventurer ~ Leave a comment

Location: Your Home via the Magic of the Internet!

Players: We recommend 1-2 players

Price: $15.00 CAD per connected device (About $11.27 USD at the time of writing.)

Oh, Canada!

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From the Complex Rooms website:

As proud Canadians we at Complex Rooms believe that our stories deserve a world stage in a venue that rivals the richest kingdoms of all time! Since we don’t have that sort of budget… We built an escape room instead!

This game replicates the in-room experience and challenges you to explore the legends, solve the puzzles and escape. No knowledge of Canada is required but, if you learn a thing or two… don’t blame us! So how would you like to play?

First Impressions:

A lot of businesses have created online point and click escape rooms in order to provide escapists with a fun outlet during the pandemic, but I hadn’t come across one that was based off a physical escape room just yet. I was interested to see how Complex Rooms converted their Legends of Canada room to this format, and I’m happy to say it translates pretty well!

High Points:

Legends of Canada is based off Complex Room’s live escape experience, and it definitely shows within the online version. The puzzles are a lot of fun, and certainly feel like they belong within a physical escape room. There’s a large variety between each puzzle, and things are never bogged down within repetition of the same style of puzzle. With this sort of variety, multiple folks can take on the enigmas that appeal to them, and enthusiasts will discover a wide range of engaging interactions to solve. The set up is simple, but well implemented, and we really loved how players are subtly encouraged to search the room, and then begin making connections between the locked boxes and the displays throughout the experience. These displays include some fantastic subtle cluing, and the signposting is well implemented, ensuring that while the puzzles are a challenge, determining where the solutions are to be entered is streamlined and easy to determine. The displays are also densely packed with interesting Canadian facts, which are all well incorporated into the puzzling threads, making the room educational without feeling banal.

Making connections is a major theme within this room, and there are several points at which things just click together, revealing a satisfying moment of revelation. I played this game solo, and thought it worked perfectly for an enthusiast, but the puzzles also work well as teamwork based interactions as the group comes together to figure out how everything interacts together. The game flow is mostly non-linear, ensuring there aren’t any choke points, and the hint system further alleviates any worry about being stuck by providing increasingly revealing nudges for players. The hint system is also very directed and graduated, ensuring that you only get help with what you’re looking for, when it is needed. The difficulty curve works fantastically, with a few quick wins to get things going, building towards some more challenging puzzles as the adventure progresses.

Low Points:

One particular puzzle wasn’t very intuitive overall, there were certain extraneous bits as well as a couple similar pieces that could go in a couple different places which threw us off a lot. It is overall a good puzzle however, but a little bit of tightening up of the cluing would make this one a bit more intuitive without sacrificing the challenge. Enthusiasts might blow through this one, so $15 CAD might seem a bit steep for an online point and click game that cannot be replayed, but I think the price is on the whole, fair for new players or folks looking to scratch the escape room itch on their own time. Some boxes have a question mark button on them, and it seems like they might tie into a puzzle, but the boxes are triggered via a different method, leaving these buttons to be red herrings. The removal of these would prevent players rushing down unintended rabbit trails and remove some frustration caused by red herrings.

Verdict:

Legends of Canada is an enjoyable experience that will appeal to escape room enthusiasts and new players alike. I think this one works best for a solo enthusiast or a group of newer players, but either way, there’s a lot of fun to be had in this Canadian focused room! As someone who enjoys a good point and click adventure, it was very satisfying to work though the room, discovering the surprises Complex Rooms has implemented, and absolutely recommend giving it a shot. Book your time discovering the Legends of Canada here!

7/10 (Good)

Full Disclosure: Complex Rooms provided our team with a complementary game.

Blue Fish Games – The Hincks Gazette (Review)

August 6, 2020August 6, 2020 ~ EscapeAdventurer ~ 1 Comment

Location: Your Home!

Players: We recommend 1-2

Price: $22 for 3 months, $36 for 6 months

Talking Plants, Messenger Quails, and Robot Servants, oh my!

Theme:

From the Blue Fish Games website:

Hello, Puzzler. I’m Mr. Hincks. Are you up for a challenge? Excellent. Subscribe and I’ll send my Mysterious Puzzle Newspaper to your door each month. Grab a pen and maybe a friend, and spend an hour or two puzzling out its secrets. You may just add your name to the Hincks Hall of Fame! Until then! Stephen P. Hincks

First Impressions:

It is no secret I really love Team Blue Fish’s fantastic puzzling products. I’ve heartily recommended The Curious Elevator of Mr. Hincks here and in any Facebook puzzle group that’ll have me. Honestly, it’s an addiction with no cure. Luckily, I can get my monthly fix through The Hincks Gazette!

High Points:

Each issue of the Hincks Gazette is a puzzle hunt style run of several multi-layered puzzles, hidden within the pages of Mr. Hincks’s Hincksville Newspaper. The paper itself is a humorous read, and the personality of Hincks and his quirky town are fabulously exemplified in all of the stories and blurbs. Puzzle games and Escape Rooms struggle sometimes to perfect comedic themes, but Team Blue Fish’s games have made me laugh out loud on numerous occasions. (A favorite joke of mine appeared in June’s issue, and is a blurb about the weather report. The fact that a side comment about the weather can be so funny is impressive.) The puzzles are phenomenal, some of the best I’ve tackled during the pandemic this year, and flow excellently from one to the next. In many cases, they interact with the puzzle that comes next intuitively, ensuring that the game is well directed without holding the player’s hand. These games are a master class in signposting and cluing, and at no point did I feel like the flow of the game stalled or became obtuse in any way. The difficulty curve of the puzzles was smooth across the board, beginning with identifying the starting point, and weaving through the subtle clues and satisfying solutions until the final password has been solved. Some of the late came conundrums and metas were insanely clever, requiring some truly out of the box thinking, and solving these is always enormously satisfying.

Each Hincks Gazette mostly uses wordplay and code breaking to challenge puzzlers, but each level of the game is incredibly creative, mixing things up to ensure that every interaction remains fresh. I am frequently impressed by new and interesting ways the designers have hidden the codes and messages within the Gazette, and have discovered a puzzle I’ve never seen before three months running. Each issue is a challenging new diversion, and is easily my most satisfying hour, puzzle-wise, every month. When the final password is entered and I put my name on the leaderboard, (which is a great touch, set up like a guestbook,) I am left wanting more in the best possible way! Overall, The Hincks Gazette is a funny, clever, intricate run of satisfying puzzles and silly news. I love it, and cannot wait for more.

Low Points:

In a couple of instances, there are a few times we needed to complete an anagram, but the words are complex or use strange enough combinations of letters that though I knew what to do, I needed a little outside help to determine what the answer was. Not a big deal, there’s a reason we have those tools at our disposal, but just a heads up for folks who really want to solve things themselves.

Also, it only arrives monthly, and the anticipation for next month’s issue is palpable.

Verdict:

So far, I have adored the Hinck’s Gazette. The puzzles are beautifully thought out, multi-layered masterpieces, and provide a brilliant challenge every month! The samples Team Blue Fish sent along were so fantastic, that the day after completing them, I immediately signed up for a six month subscription! Each month’s issue has been even better than the last, and that’s saying something. The puzzles are challenging for enthusiasts, but new puzzlers will still find them approachable, and I wholeheartedly recommend subscribing, especially if you enjoyed The Curious Elevator of Mr. Hincks. Subscribe to Mr. Hinck’s fun and informative newspaper here!

10/10 (Phenomenal)

Full Disclosure: Blue Fish Games provided complementary copies of May and June’s Gazette.