Escape Tales (by LockMe) - "The Awakening" & "Low Memory"
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Escape Tales (by LockMe) - "The Awakening" & "Low Memory"

Updated: Mar 12



Photo above is property of Escape Tales (by LockMe)


Company: Escape Tales (by LockMe)

Country: Poland 🇵🇱

Language: English/ Polish

Type of Game: Escape Room Card Games 📬

Size of Team: 1-4 Players (Age 16+)


Escape Tales currently offers 2 games (The Awakening and Low Memory) with a new one on its way (Children of Wyrmwoods). We played both of their available games and below are our thoughts.

Photo above is property of Escape Tales (by LockMe)


Game: The Awakening

Genre: Mystery

Date Played: June 22, 2020

Difficulty (based on 2 players): 6.5/10

Time: Approximately 3-6 Hours of Play

Price: $24.29 on Amazon


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Sam's daughter fell into a coma 2 months ago and no one knows why this is happening. Our goal is to find out the mystery behind this occurrence and hopefully save his daughter!


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The packaging was well made. The games were shipped to us from Poland and they were in perfect condition when they arrived. This game had the following components: 122 game cards, 9 doom cards, 18 location cards, story book, game board, 18 action tokens. All the cards were made with colorful glossy prints. We found that this design element worked well with the game play since the cards were not sticking onto each other. The tokens were made from wood pieces. Since they were quite small, I would keep them away from children. We didn't actually use all of it for the entire game, so if you lost 1 or 2 of them, you'll still be able to complete the game without the entire set. There was a game board that hosted all the location cards. This was made to feel like a mini board game.


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I'll give you guys a quick summary of the rules of the game here so you can save 15 minutes of reading time and go straight to game play. Your first step is to read the first page of the story book. At the end, you'll get a page number to read in the story book. From there you'll be instructed to place locations cards (cards that start with the letter L), game cards (cards that start with the letter C), and action tokens. The next step is to set up the location cards on the game board. Once that's done, you can follow the instructions on the story pages and place the action tokens accordingly. If there are no specific rules on where to place them, you can chose a grid box you like to explore (just like how you will do a search in a real escape room) and see what you'll discover. You'll need to open the game app at this point. Each game card you accumulate will have symbols on them which will coordinate to symbols on the app. It's best to check to see how many C cards you'll need for that specific puzzles as you might have all the pieces already to solve it. Once you correctly enter an answer on the app, you'll be awarded with another page number to continue on with the story. If you run out of action tokens, you'll have to use a doom card to get more (we didn't feel like there were any negative impact for us to take zoom cards in this game). During the game, you'll also run into choice cards and exit cards where you will have to chose different scenarios or give up the room entirely and enter a new location.


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It took us a bit to get use to how we were suppose to play the game. Initially we were a bit lost on how we were able to solve the puzzles by the C cards that were given. It became much clearer once we found the correlation of the symbols on the C cards to the app symbols. It was really helpful to check the app for how many cards were needed for that puzzle. The self guided hint system was very easy to use on the app as well. If you really couldn't figure out the mini hints, the answer will be revealed to you on the final hint. We enjoyed the mini puzzles as they varied in difficulty and type. Some were as easy as color recognition and others were multi layered puzzles. We can't believe how many puzzles they were able to fit on these tiny cards! Since some were actually really tiny, we had to use a magnifying app on our phone in order to visualize it better.


We developed a system where I would be reading the stories and Brandon would be in charge of placing all the cards and entering answers in the app. It worked well as a two player game. Be prepared on how long the game would take as we didn't realize 4.5 hours had passed by the time we finished. It was hard to stop on this game as we got more into the story line. We did take a little snack break but got confused on where we left off. Our suggestion is to take a break when you "exit" a location and write down the page number of where you'll need to go next.


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This was the first time we've tried an escape room card game. We were surprised by how much detail went into the game. When we finished the game, we felt like we just watched an entire movie. The choice element made the game more engaging since we felt like we were part of the game when we made choices for the characters. It also bought out the curiosity out of us. There were a few times we went back to see what would happen if we chose the other ending. Since we didn't use less than half of the cards because of the decisions we made, we'll definitely go back to replay this game one day!


Photos above are property of Escape Tales (by LockMe)

 

Photo above is property of Escape Tales (by LockMe)


Game: Low Memory

Genre: Mystery

Date Played: June 24, 2020

Difficulty (based on 2 players): 6/10

Time: Approximately 6-9 Hours of Play

Price: $28.61 on Amazon


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This story happens in the year 2060. Elizabeth was supposed to go on a family trip with her husband but because of work she stayed behind. The next morning, she woke up with a terrible headache and couldn't remember anything. We need to help her regain her memory from the memory scanner.


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Refer to "The Awakening" to see details on the packaging of the game. This game had the following components: 148 games cards, 19 locations cards, 14 stress cards, 24 action tokens, 4 progress tokens, 1 game board, 3 story books, and 1 rule book. The progress tokens were just like the action tokens except they were blue. We did use them throughout the game so try not to lose them.


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If you have played "The Awakening" before, the rules were very similar. If you haven't played "The Awakening" yet, read the above review to get a quick overview on the rules. The only differences in this game versus "The Awakening" were: 1. Doom cards were now called stress cards 2. You could only activate something if you filled your progress cards with progress tokens (which you'll earn as you solve puzzles) 3. There were no exit cards 4. Story cards will be used when time comes.


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The puzzles felt like they were in the similar format as the previous game but we're glad we did not see any repetitiveness in the designs. We still had some minor issues with seeing some tiny items on the cards at times but the magnifying app definitely helped. With the added progress token and no exit cards, we felt like we needed to strategize more in this game. When we used the stress cards, the story line was actually impacted by our decisions. We didn't feel it as much in "The Awakening". This made us become more cautious when we decided on which areas to pick to explore since we only had limited action tokens. We enjoyed how Escape Tales were able to create this type of "search and find" and "piece and solve" format throughout the game which really made us feel like we're in an actual escape room.


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We enjoyed this game more out of the two. Since there were 3 stories in this game box, we were able to finish the first one in 2 hours or so and it was very easy to continue with the other two the next day. Each story had a mini ending so we didn't feel like we had to continue to the next one right away. For the value, this game felt like we bought three games for the price of one. Since the story lines were not connected with "The Awakening" and "Low Memory", you could play them in different orders. "Low Memory" also felt like it had a better flow in terms of the puzzle design but it could also be that we are quite use to the game rules by now. The stress card usage also made the story line easier to follow and most importantly it made sense. The choices we had to make in this game became more difficult due to these stress cards. The twisted ending gave us a surprise. We hope it's not because we chose the wrong path. Since there were still a lot of cards we haven't used yet, we're eager to find a "better" ending for our character.


Photos above are property of Escape Tales (by LockMe)

 

Check out our interview with the creators to understand more on the development side of the game:



Video above is property of ESCAPETHEROOMers

 

(If you do decide to try this game, please remember to let them know that you heard it from"ESCAPETHEROOMers"!)


Disclosure: We thank Escape Tales (by LockMe) for providing us with samples of the game. Although a complimentary experience was generously provided, it does not impact our opinion on the review whatsoever.


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