Tag: District 3 Escape Rooms

District 3 Escape Rooms – Something Brewing (Review)

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Location: Your Home via the Magic of the Internet!

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

Price: $22 CAD per person (About $18.07 USD at the time of writing)

Time to Escape: 60 minutes

A perfect place for coffee and dastardly plots!

Theme:

From the District 3 Escape Rooms website:

You and your friends head to a coffeehouse before the celebration. You soon find out that something is brewing, and your evening takes a turn for the worse. What crucial decisions will your team need to make, and what major outcome will that lead to?

High Points:

Something Brewing is a fast paced, puzzle packed experience, and we had an absolutely brilliant time playing through it! Not to spoil anything, but the room is replayable, with different endings depending on a particular choice that takes place about midway through the room. This choice impacts the room greatly, not only changing the ending of the room, but determining what puzzling path you’ll travel down! We have only seen a mechanic like this maybe one or two other times during our almost 400 room career, and it is implemented beautifully here! The paths for both sides are extremely well done, and signposted in a way that prevents locks or clues from the other path from getting in the way. I absolutely recommend doing both paths, as the direction that I generally wouldn’t pick first contains some of my favorite puzzles! I really loved how things were updated to keep play fresh during our subsequent play through, and we felt we got a full experience both times. The shift in the room once you discover the true purpose of this coffee shop is fantastic, and I loved how wacky the story line got. Several of the puzzles would have required us to be in room or to direct our avatar through a tedious amount of placing, but luckily, District 3 has done an amazing job of porting these puzzles over to Telescape, allowing us to work on them at our own pace, and reducing any confusion that may be resulted from trying to get our avatar to complete some of the more complicated tasks. The puzzles overall are very intuitive, and eagle eyed players will be rewarded with some fantastic ah ha moments, as there are many clues hidden in plain sight that only become obvious once a key piece of the puzzle is found. Overall, I thought this room was brilliant, with many wonderfully hidden surprises and sinister plots!

Low Points:

We played through a particular puzzle a couple times on separate weeks due to Something Brewing’s two-path nature. This particular one was really tedious and directionless the first go round, but made much more sense the second time, partially because we were familiar with it, but also because our GM included a bit that wasn’t present the first time we played, so this one hinges greatly on if your avatar remembers to use this particular opening. This room translates fine to remote play, but I feel like it’d be so much better in person! The remote version just leaves a little something missing due to how incredibly interactive and tactile portions of it is.

Verdict:

District 3 has some fantastic games, but Something Brewing really takes the cake for replayability and originality! The extra puzzles, choose your own adventure style story, and convincing set really make this one a must do! I highly recommend this one remote or in person! Book your time in the coffee shop here!

9/10 (Excellent)

Full Disclosure: District 3 Escape Rooms provided our team with a complementary game.

District 3 Escape Rooms – Interrogation Room (Review)

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Location: Your Home via the Magic of the Internet!

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

Price: $22 CAD per person (About $18.07 USD at the time of writing)

Time to Escape: 60 minutes

What do you know?!?!?

Theme:

From the District 3 Escape Rooms website:

An investigation begins the day after an attempted heist at a museum. Despite being brought in for questioning as suspects, unease led to your attempted escape. Staying too long may lead to your arrest, or perhaps worse!

First Impressions:

We were excited to be invited back to District 3 as we had really enjoyed their Haunted and Cabin rooms, so when they asked if we were interested in returning, we instantly responded in the affirmative! The Interrogation Room seemed a basic theme, but we were sure that District 3 had something interesting up their sleeves, and we absolutely weren’t disappointed with the experience.

High Points:

Interrogation Room’s set is well produced, and the sterile seeming nature of the first room is brilliantly immersive and hides many of the surprises well. As we went deeper into the room, we were delighted to find out how so much of the room was well hidden in plain sight. The story also evolves well, starting off with a standard, “you’ve been held here even though you are innocent,” theme and blossoming into areas we definitely were not expecting! The whole experience utilizes Telescape well, and presents some of the puzzle items as well as our inventory in an intuitive way that ensures we always knew what was available to us. There were also a few awesome interactive elements that made us feel like we were affecting the room from our computers. Our avatar was also brilliant, making sure to react to things in the room and keep things light hearted as we moved along the puzzling branches. Our avatar also felt more like our teammate eschewing the, “well intentioned but unbelievably stupid person in the room,” style avatar that seems to be very popular with many other experiences. We had to engage with our avatar in order to solve multi part puzzles and other such interactions, which was great, and was definitely something I haven’t seen much of. The puzzles themselves were very intuitive, and fit nicely together once all the clues were available to us. There was even a bonus puzzle for us to solve, which if we could complete within the time limit, would provide us with bonus points for District 3’s leaderboards! The game wraps up everything well within the story, but leaves open the possibility of a sequel, which we are excited to play once it arrives! The distinct, ongoing stories of District 3 are fantastic, and we really love how they have been implemented; there’s very few folks who story lines like this, and District 3 does it very well.

Low Points:

.One of the puzzles didn’t work quite as smoothly online as we’d prefer, though we definitely think this puzzle would work a lot better live. It was a really cool idea, but just didn’t translate to the virtual experience quite as well as we’d like. There is one particular puzzle that can cause some confusion if an item is moved, and while we eventually solved it, it definitely was something that was easy to overlook virtually.

Verdict:

As always, District 3 has done an excellent job creating an interesting theme, engaging story, and immersive puzzling! We really enjoyed our time in the Interrogation room, and it was able to keep our group of 5 experienced escapists engaged for almost the entire hour. We highly recommend checking this one out, especially if you’ve enjoyed their previous online offerings. Get locked in the Interrogation Room here!

8/10 (Great)

Full Disclosure: District 3 Escape Rooms provided our team with a complementary game.

District 3 Escape Rooms – The Cabin (Review)

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Location: Your Home via the Magic of the Internet!

Players: 2-8 (We recommend 2-4 players)

Price: $27 CAD per person (About $19.87 USD at the time of writing)

Time to Escape: 60 minutes

Serial Kidnappers and Puzzle Filled Cabins… the new Peanut Butter and Jelly!

Theme:

From the District 3 Escape Rooms website:

There has been a series of kidnappings near a cabin. After locking your group up, the kidnapper leaves to find more trespassers. In trying to escape, you begin to learn more about who’s cabin it is, who the enemy is, why he kidnapped you, and what he is trying to hide.

First Impressions:

District 3 Escape Rooms came highly recommended to us by another escape room in the area, Mystery Mansion Regina, and I’m glad they gave us the heads up about these virtual rooms, and we had an excellent time working through an escape room double header during our lockdown! It may not be the 8-23 room marathons we’re used to, but taking on more than one room in a day helped us feel just a little bit more normal during the pandemic.

High Points:

As with most rooms we’ve experienced virtually, we would have loved to take this one on in person, but due to the pandemic, we are glad we were able to visit District 3 virtually! This room translates very well to the remote play experience, and it is, as always, a great time seeing our “Keyed Up!” team for some weekly escapes. Our Game Master/Avatar ensured we had a great time by interacting with us as we joked around, and assisted us with giving the room a thorough, streamlined search. Once we’d had a good look around, he was very responsive in reacting to our requests, and piecing together exactly what we were trying to say when we asked him to “put the doo-dad in the whatzit.” Truly, all remote escape game GMs absolutely deserve a pay raise for their long-suffering patience with us. The inventory system is great, displaying those items that were harder to read virtually, or we needed to come back to reference, and as we utilized props successfully, they automatically disappeared from view so as not to clutter up the window.

Puzzles themselves glide well across the linear game flow, and as we revealed new clues, it was fairly intuitive what needed to be done next. The breadcrumbs that have been sprinkled along the path are clear, and never become obtuse, ensuring that challenges remain fair. Though this is an older room with a few puzzles that may have popped up a time or two for expert players, these puzzles are still presented in an entertaining way, and don’t give off a feeling of “been there, done that,” but rather conceal a twist or two to ensure the process of solving stays fresh. One particular favorite of mine took a style of puzzle we’ve seen a few times, and tweaked it ever so slightly to ensure that we had to think just a little bit further out of the box than usual in order to put everything together. I thought it was a fun tweak that displayed the creativity of the designers well. As referenced in our previous review of Haunted, District 3 does a great job ensuring that the final debriefing continues the fun by presenting us with achievements that tie into their point system. It’s fun to see what sorts of milestones your team overcame during your game, and the extra personal touch to the finale is a fantastic way to cap off a room.

Low Points:

The Cabin itself was a very first generation room, and while that translate to a virtual setting well, the set isn’t quite as fancy, and the game itself is very much focused on locks, for the most part. The game can come across as a little “escape room-y” in parts, as the story tends to be more of a back drop for the puzzles rather than the puzzles being fully integrated into the story. There are a few puzzles that tie in, but overall, the story is most present at the beginning and only evolves slightly during the game. On the whole, we enjoyed the room, but the puzzles were generally geared more towards a less experienced crowd, so we didn’t happen across any particularly mind twisting enigmas or explosive moments of revelation.

Verdict:

The room is a good time, and is a solid experience, but is definitely more geared toward newer players, and enthusiasts might find it a bit easier. We enjoyed our time (virtually) inside The Cabin overall, however and would recommend it to players looking for a more introductory style room. Enthusiasts will still find a lot to like, as there are some good surprises and fun interactions to be found. Book your time escaping the mysterious kidnapper here!

7.5/10 (Good)

Full Disclosure: District 3 Escape Rooms provided our team with a complementary game.

 

 

 

District 3 Escape Rooms – Haunted (Review)

~ EscapeAdventurer ~ 4 Comments

Location: Your Home via the Magic of the Internet!

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

Price: $27 CAD per person (About $19.87 USD at the time of writing)

Time to Escape: 60 minutes

It’s actually a real nice house if you can overlook the murders…

Theme:

From the District 3 Escape Rooms website:

The family of this home is searching for a good trustworthy group of people to house-sit their manor for the Winter. During your time there, you learn about the caretaker and the family, the manor’s secrets, and that maybe this isn’t the dream stay you were after.

First Impressions:

District 3 Escape Rooms was recommended to us by the folks at the astounding Mystery Mansion Regina, so we couldn’t wait to see what their neighbors had in store! The spooky theme of Haunted called to me, being a horror themed game, and the sneak peeks I saw of the set during the intro video on their website looked great!

High Points:

The set design of Haunted is really great, starting off in a large room that is just filled to the brim with doors. The massive amount of doors is somewhat unsettling, and gives the experience somewhat of a surreal feeling. There was always the feeling that something horrifying could be around the corner of the balcony or behind any door, and the sense of unease can be palpable. Audio effects came through fairly clearly, though we had to ensure we stayed fully quiet during these moments, as sound came mostly through the room and was therefore slightly muted. Our Game Master/Avatar did a great job of searching the room for us and responding quickly to our directions, even when our directions were largely unintuitive nonsense, along the lines of “push the thingy!” They also did a fantastic job of ensuring that any time something exciting was triggered, the camera was in just the right place to appreciate it. Theming was excellent, and as the story continued to descend into madness, each new room displayed new horrors and surprises to enjoy! There were several awesome moments that were triggered by our progress, and it was interesting after the game to see how it all worked to create an amazingly immersive haunt.

The game flows excellently through a linear progression, and the game translates well to the virtual space. We enjoyed working together through many of the teamwork based puzzles in order to uncover the many secrets this otherwise unassuming house was hiding, and many of the interactions provided great ah ha moments that left us feeling satisfied. Clues were included subtly, but were clear enough to ensure each part of the process of solving the room was intuitive, yet challenging. One particular puzzle I really liked incorporated a lock itself into the puzzling, something I can’t say I’ve seen done before in any of the escape experiences we’ve done! Other puzzles are just as creative, with some solutions hiding deviously in plain sight, we just had to figure out how to find them. At the end of the game, we received points based on our time and how well we completed the room, with achievements for no hints, escaping with a good chunk of time left, and being the Online Division leaders for the room! I love District 3’s point based system, and the achievements were a lot of fun to see as well, as it added a extra special personal touch to the conclusion of the game.

Low Points:

Being one of District 3’s older rooms, it isn’t quite as evolved as some of their newer rooms may be, but we feel this works to their advantage as these sorts of rooms tend to work well virtually. Despite the more solution to lock style of gameplay, we had a great time, but I do know that some enthusiasts prefer a different style of game. Some puzzles may feel familiar to veteran solvers, but overall, I think District 3 does a good job of ensuring these interactions stay fresh as possible. One particular puzzle is a great idea, but suffers from players having to kitbash a method to ensure it is audible viturally between multiple remote sites. It may be helpful for there to be an additional inventory item once teams have demonstrated they know the concept of what is to be done, just in case audio degrades.

Verdict:

Haunted is a great spooky virtual game, and we had an amazing time working through the mystery of the Manor! This game would be perfect for players of all experience levels, as it challenged our group of veterans, but never becomes so difficult as to be obtuse. We had an awesome time with our Game Master, and cannot wait to see what District 3’s next online game is like. I absolutely recommend this room, and you can book your time house sitting here!

8/10 (Great)

Full Disclosure: District 3 Escape Rooms provided our team with a complementary game.