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Photos provided by Squonkland Company: Squonkland Games: Espresso Crunch Country: USA 🇺🇸 Language: English Type of Game: Audio Escape Room 👂 Genre: Adventure Date Played: 5/28/2021 Difficulty (based on 4 players): 6/10 Size of Team: 2-3 Players (Recommended) Time: Usually 60-90 minutes but they'll give extra time if needed Price: PAY WHAT YOU WANT or donate to one of these charities 🆃🅷🅴 🆂🆃🅾🆁🆈 There's a reviewer coming to your coffee shop today and this is your first day as a manager! Will you be able to solve all the issues before his arrival? 🆃🅷🅴 🅶🅰🅼🅴 🅿🅻🅰🆈 We met our GMs over Zoom. This is an audio escape game with minor visual clues being send over the chat box during the game. Our audio story presenter Molly was amazing. I was astonished by how quickly she was able to give us responses to our demands (we had a LOT of demands...). Scott was the other GM that assisted her with sending clue links and helping us with hints when we needed them. They worked seamlessly together to make this a great experience. I really enjoyed the fact that we were able to see them the entire time on screen as opposed to some of the other audio games we've played where the GM never shows their faces. The face to face interaction really bought out more genuine reactions during game play. I still remembered Molly's "Do you serious want me to try that?" face when we gave her our weird suggestions. 😜 As we solved the puzzles, new areas and items would become available for us to explored on until we got to the finish line. 🆃🅷🅴 🅿🆄🆉🆉🅻🅴🆂 The puzzles were top notch. After playing so many games, we've definitely seen a lot of the ciphers and puzzle design at this point yet this game still managed to surprise us with a lot of new concepts. We really enjoyed the smooth continuity of one puzzle leading to another and some how reuniting at the end to make that final meta puzzle. The puzzles will probably be a bit challenging for beginners but the good news is that you can ask for unlimited hints. Squonkland is also very generous with time as their goal is for you and your team to have fun and finish the game. We completed the game in 70 minutes with 1 hint. 🅲🅻🅾🆂🅸🅽🅶 🆃🅷🅾🆄🅶🅷🆃🆂 Sometimes a great game doesn't need all the bells and whistles and this is definitely one of them. We had so much fun exploring this coffee shop through Molly's fabulous narrations that we felt like we were playing a video game. There were items you can "collect", "use", and "interact" with throughout the game. Taking notes is definitely necessary unless you have a photographic memory. We highly recommend that you giving this game a try and if you get hooked afterwards (like we did), there's five more up their sleeves! (If you do decide to try this game, give us a shoutout or tag us on social media so we know you heard it from "ESCAPETHEROOMers"!) Disclosure: We thank Squonkland for comping our tickets for this game. Although a complimentary experience was generously provided, it does not impact our opinion on the review whatsoever. #ESCAPETHEROOMers #AtHomeGames #EscapeRooms #Squonkland #EspressoCrunch #AudioEscapeRooms #adventure #comedy #coffee #puzzle #rpg #puzzles

Company: Squonkland Games: House Hunting Country: USA 🇺🇸 Language: English Type of Game: Audio Escape Room 👂 Genre: Adventure Date Played: March 18, 2022 Difficulty (based on 6 players): 6.5/10 Size of Team: 2-4 Players (Recommended) Time: Usually 60-90 minutes but they'll give extra time if needed Price: PAY WHAT YOU WANT or donate to one of these charities 🆃🅷🅴 🆂🆃🅾🆁🆈 Your best friend calls and asks you to feed his dog Jasper in his house. He says, “The keys to the house is under the doormat!” It sounds like an easy job for you. So, you gladly accept the task and drive to his house. However, when you arrive at his house, you notice that some things are very strange. Can you find out what is going on here? Photo above is property of Squonkland 🆃🅷🅴 🅶🅰🅼🅴 🅿🅻🅰🆈 This is a live-hosted audio escape room that is provided to your team meets through Zoom. The game masters are your storytellers and the story moves on as you interact with the them. When you find something during the game, you receive links to the website showing some images or information that you found. If you are lost or you need a hint, your game masters will give you a nudge. There is no winning or losing in this game. There is no time limit to escape. I liked that we could relax and enjoy the puzzles without rushing. But at the same time, the beginning of the game was a little bit overwhelming (for me at least) because we had to construct the world we were in only by listening to what the game masters said. There was a lot of information for us to take notes of. It got better once we collected all of the background information we needed. Plus, the game masters were friendly and helpful. Sometimes they repeated certain parts of the story for us and they made sure we had the correct information. Good communication and note-taking skills were extremely important for this game. 🆃🅷🅴 🅿🆄🆉🆉🅻🅴🆂 The game had a variety of puzzles such as pencil, mechanical (in your minds), and audio puzzles. The puzzles were nicely built-in to the story of the game and were not overly complicated. As we continued on, we received the images and notes of some pencil puzzles. Those helped to expand the range of the types of puzzles available for the audio game. It was very satisfying to be able to enjoy many different types of puzzles. Because the game was in audio form and did not actually have a physical platform, we could imagine and try a lot of different things with the items and characters. Some puzzles required a unique way to solve them. Those definitely gave us Aha! Moments and made us smile. We even had a lot of funny suggestions to our game masters on what to do (you never know, sometimes those ideas just might work)! They smoothly guided us in the right direction without breaking the scenery of the game and were very witty. The theme of the story seemed a little ordinary, but the things in this game had a heartwarming charm. We had a lot of fun interacting with the characters and items. The whole game was very engaging and we enjoyed this imaginary world with entertaining puzzles a lot. Photo above is property of Squonkland 🅲🅻🅾🆂🅸🅽🅶 🆃🅷🅾🆄🅶🅷🆃🆂 “House Hunting” is a really enjoyable game to play with family and friends, not only for solving fun puzzles but also for interacting freely with the characters or items in this game. There are various types of puzzles, and those puzzles are good for all levels of players. Besides good communication skills and imagination, good note-taking skills are the important keys to success. So, why don’t you use the power of your mind and have a great time with your team on this adventure? (If you do decide to try this game, give us a shoutout or tag us on social media so we know you heard it from "ESCAPETHEROOMers"!) Disclosure: We thank Squonkland for comping our tickets for this game. Although a complimentary experience was generously provided, it does not impact our opinion on the review whatsoever. #ChikakoOmura #AtHomeGames #EscapeRooms #Squonkland #HouseHunting #AudioEscapeRooms #adventure #comedy #puzzles

Photos provided by Paruzal Games Company: Paruzal Games Games: 2021 Great Escape Tournament Country: USA 🇺🇸 Language: English Type of Game: Audio Escape Room 👂 Genre: Adventure Size of Team: Unlimited Time: 75 minutes (60 minute game play) Price: $200/ Team (entry fee) We were invited to attend the "2021 Great Escape Tournament" by Paruzal Games. Our first encounter with Paruzal Games was when we played their "Pizza Makes Anything Possible" game back in May of last year. This game won our "Best Puzzle Design" Bullseye Award Category in 2020. Since we'll be documenting our experiences with this event, our results will not be counted towards the ranking of the tournament. I'll be updating this blog as we progress through the various tournament rounds so make sure to check back on this blog for the results and reviews on each round. On March 19th, Paruzal Games celebrated their one year anniversary. The "2021 Great Escape Tournament" was announced as a celebratory event where teams from all over the world can register to compete for the "Fastest Escape Room Team on the Internet" title. Enthusiasts started to gather their teams and spots began to fill up rather quickly. Paruzal Games actually had to make a decision to cut off the registration at 37 Teams since only 8 teams can advance into the second round. They are planning to do this as an annual event so if you missed this year, make sure to sign up for their mailing list to join in for next year. They are planning to add more games so more teams can join in for 2022. There are 4 rounds in this tournament. All teams must play Round 1 ( “The Party Won’t Wait”). Eight of the fastest teams will advance to Round 2 (“Tee Party”). From there 4 teams will complete to advance to Round 3 (“Movie Mayhem”). The final two teams will compete with two 30 minute games back to back in Round 4. If you want to play these games as regular game sessions, they will be available after the tournament finishes in May. The price will be $15/pp for the regular 75 min (60 min game play) games and reduced for the 30 min games (or you can book them as a pair for the standard 1 hour game play). Majority of the players seem to be from the US (mainly California), Canada, Ireland and Sweden. Registered teams will also be receiving a swag package like pens, mini notebooks (in my opinion we needed way bigger notebook during the tournament but these are cute souvenirs), tournament progress tracker and a 20% discount code to use towards future games. 🅡🅞🅤🅝🅓 ➊ - ❞ 🅣🅗🅔 🅟🅐🅡🅣🅨 🅦🅞🅝❜🅣 🅦🅐🅘🅣❞ We played "Round 1" on April 3rd and at this point many teams have already completed this round as the event started on March 19th. The round will end on April 9th so a few teams still have to complete this round. We have heard from our GM that some of the competitive teams have played all of the existing Paruzal Games just to get a feel on their puzzle style and game play in preparation for the tournament (this is serious stuff!). There are also teams that spend multiple hours prior to the game and after the game to discuss strategies and to practice solving various puzzles together. Since we went in as spectators, we didn't really "prepare" at all. Our team consisted of me, Brandon, and three of our patrons. The game was hosted over Zoom with a game master. The game master (Ben) gave us a quick backstory of how we got locked in a room after the conference and the rest of the crew already left the area and was enjoying their cocktails at the open bar reception. We had to quickly find a way to open the door or else there'll be no more free booze! I must say I'm quite impressed by the updated artwork from Paruzal Games. It's vibrant colors and detailed illustrations really made us connect with the narratives. The puzzles were clever and a lot of them made us think outside of the box. Although this is a serious competition, our game master still thought of ways to make us laugh and relax through his quirky comebacks and the embedded puns in the puzzles. If I can give you two useful advices with these audio escape games, it would be to search thoroughly and be specific with your instructions and answers. On the date we wrote this blog, the average escape time for this game was 70 minutes. Our team got out in 63 minutes and 55 seconds. If you use a hint, you'll be penalized with 3 minutes. You'll really have to think about strategy as sometimes it might be worth to use a hint rather than be stuck with a puzzle for longer than that 3 minutes. Currently the shortest time to complete this game was 37 minutes and the longest was 91 minutes. I'll report with more accurate results once they are released on April 9th. We look forward to improving our score in round 2 since now we've accumulated some strategy that we can use towards the rest of the games. Wish us luck! 𝔼𝕊ℂ𝔸ℙ𝔼𝕋ℍ𝔼ℝ𝕆𝕆𝕄𝕖𝕣𝕤 ℙ𝕒𝕥𝕣𝕠𝕟❜𝕤 𝕋𝕙𝕠𝕦𝕘𝕙𝕥𝕤 Helen B. Just when I think I have seen it all, along comes another different type of online escape/adventure/mystery and I couldn't be happier! This game, run over Zoom with a Games Master in command, starts with a short story telling you some background, we were at a work conference, no doubt listening to some boring lecture, but dreaming of the after-event cocktail party which was being held upstairs afterwards :) But we are the last to head out of the room, only to find the door is locked with a note telling us we have to beat a series of challenges to get out! How cruel and unfair! But we must want that lurid pink cocktail so bad, that we set about exploring the room for clues! The room is shown to us as an overhead first to get our bearings, and then we are allowed to ask the host to show us certain areas, and try certain things. The graphics are smart and static - nothing animates but if you hit upon a correct action then something else may be revealed as a new image. Some of things we had to do seemed immediately obvious - some we went back and forth, round and round! The puzzles were a good mixture, and quite logical, some very fun to solve too. There is a hint option where you are given a 3 minute time penalty, but if you feel like you're just not getting it, it's advisable to take the hint as we immediately moved on with the help of 2 hints. There was one thing you have to do that we probably wouldn't have come up with in a month of Sundays were it not for the hint! My advice is to try everything you can think of to do with some parts of the room! I took some photos of the screen as we went along in order to refer back to things that weren't on-screen any more (no inventory in the game but anything we found we used pretty quickly so no need to keep track) - however when things needed to be used together, the host could bring up an image that combined the two things so you could make reference without having to flick between things. Just when you think you have escaped, there are some more obstacles to overcome, but we sailed through these - clearly desperate for that drink! We never got to meet our host on camera but he was a very good GM - consistent and gave us all the information we needed, but to the point if we went down a route that was a no-go. A brilliant game that took us just over an hour, and I'd love to try out some more of their titles. Here's the Results from Round 1 With 37 registered teams and an average score (completion time plus hint penalties) of close to 70 minutes (mean=69.49min, stdev=12.56min) Andrew McManus and “Friday the 13th, Part 6” with a time of… 37:40 and no hints for a score of 37:40. Rei Matsuura and “Let Us Out” with a time of… 46:54 and no hints for a score of 46:54. Rich Bragg and “United Discord” with a time of… 38:03 and 3 hints for a score of 47:03 Brittany Fasy and “Boze People” with a time of… 50:09 and no hints for a score of 50:09. Amanda Harris and “Blue Herrings” with a time of… 54:56 and no hints for a score of 54:56. Juliet Bennett and “The Escapes of Wrath” with a time of… 58:43 and no hints for a score of 58:43. Tammy McLeod and “Team Prospect” with a time of… 54:43 and 2 hints for a score of 60:43. Kat Johnson and “Ladies and Gentlemen, the Non-Equity Cast of ‘Godspell’!” with a time of... 58:52 and 1 hint for a score of 61:52. Ace Ellett and “Team Bluefish” with a time of… 62:24 and no hints for a score of 62:24. Shelby Windom and “Escape Goats” with a time of… 54:04 and 3 hints for a score of 63:04. Gilles Duchesne and “La Compagnie Keyhole” with a time of… 57:22 and 2 hints for a score of 63:22. Raymond Geraci and “Otterpi” with a time of... 60:44 and 1 hint for a score of 63:44. Cici Cao and “ESCAPETHEROOMers” with a time of… 57:55 and 2 hints for a score of 63:55* Justyna Sniezek and “Zagadkowcy” with a time of... 61:48 and 1 hint for a score of 64:48. Melissa Kramer-Sarrett and “7th Overall!” with a time of… 59:07 and 2 hints for a score of 65:07. Ben Shpigel and “Nerd Immunity” with a time of … 65:33 and no hints for a score of 65:33. Cathy Roth and “The Elijayans” with a time of … 56:33 and 3 hints for a score of 65:33. Katherine Guinness and “MIKG” with a time of … 66:05 and 1 hint for a score of 69:05. Melissa Perttunen and “Morris Family” with a time of … 63:25 and 2 hints for a score of 69:25. Benjamin Kieran and “Lucky 7” with a time of … 63:46 and 2 hints for a score of 69:46. … and so on 🅡🅞🅤🅝🅓 ➋ - ❞🅣🅔🅔 🅟🅐🅡🅣🅨❞ Two weeks later, we played Round 2 on April 14th. The top 8 teams listed above are eligible to be competing in Round 2 for the title "Fastest Escape Room Team on the Internet". Our game started off with our GM (Guy) giving us a quick backstory. This game was staged at a Golf shop. As an employee, we needed to decorate for an upcoming event but the box of decorations went missing. If we want to get that promotion, we'll need to find that box ASAP. Our team was pumped this time as we strategized a bit prior to the game. Since we're treating it more like a tournament this time, we didn't waste time interacting with the GM like in an regular audio escape game. Guy was great with knowing just the right amount of automation that pushed us through a smooth game play. For instance, there were images that could be shown to us in a combined format if we used the right verbiage. This visualization made the "solving process" a lot more convenient for the team. From a difficulty standpoint, this one felt easier than the first game. There weren't that many hidden objects that we had to find (we also learned from the past experience and pretty much flip the place inside out) or utilize "think outside of the box" method. Most of the logic puzzles were straight to the point mixed with some light Math problems. My favorite parts during this game were actually the physical activities that we had to perform in order to gain access to the next parts of the game. The "divide and conquer" method really worked well here as we assigned certain team members to work on a particular puzzle while the rest of the team moved on to other parts of the game. I would definitely suggest playing this one first when these games open to public in May. I'm happy to report our score of 36 minutes and 37 seconds with no hints for this round! That's a Tee-rific score in my books! And now we're totally geared up for Round 3! 𝔼𝕊ℂ𝔸ℙ𝔼𝕋ℍ𝔼ℝ𝕆𝕆𝕄𝕖𝕣𝕤 ℙ𝕒𝕥𝕣𝕠𝕟❜𝕤 𝕋𝕙𝕠𝕦𝕘𝕙𝕥𝕤 Kobi R. This was my first Paruzal game and reading about it I was kind of weary at first. Would this style of game fit me? It sounded like you need to think outside the box and remember a lot of things. Luckily for me, I had experienced players by my side and we had a great team dynamic, so that was a great start (also, Happy Birthday Helen!) This was a very streamlined experience, a lot thanks to Guy the GM. He didn't really push anything, but he was very responsive and nudged us when needed. I liked how it all made sense. You're actually playing a character and you're doing day to day actions. I could really imagine this as a physical location for a semi escape room and semi LARP (Live-Action Role Playing). I would definitely like to try more Paruzal games in the future. Helen B. Tee Party was the second Paruzal game I had attempted and after the first one I was really looking forward to this style of play, the graphics and humor again. And it did not disappoint! The day I played it was my birthday which made it all the more special. This time rather than escaping the room (indeed at one point it is necessary to leave the room, albeit that you can't go far for reasons you will discover!) - we had to find a box of missing items needed to set up for an important event, which had been somehow "locked away". The idea is the same - you explore the room and instruct the GM to examine items, try certain interactions and codes, no matter how bizarre your suggestions may seem they will accommodate them, albeit if this means saying "that does not work" on loop :) There was a wonderful balance of puzzles in this game with fantastic visuals as before, and the very helpful addition of being able to see certain items from your "inventory" together on screen as necessary in order to help with solving. Our GM - Guy, this time, was courteous, helpful and friendly, bringing the story to lie with his descriptions and responses. At one point we had to partake in a real-world activity in order to continue (don't worry - nothing taxing!) which added a nice touch. We flew through this one with no hints used, finding it easier than our first experience with this company, but not because the games were easier - I think we just had a good team tactic whereby some of us worked on puzzles whilst others commanded the GM to show us around, meaning we saved time and progressed quicker. A very very enjoyable experience and I am so excited to play more Paruzal games in future. Here's the Results from Round 2 3 Brackets of 24 teams went head to head in Round 2. Only Bracket A's members still qualify to complete for the real title. Bracket B/C are just competing for fun internally. We are very happy to be heading to Round 3 with our amazing result! ROUND 2 RESULTS (time+penalties=score, counted in seconds. Low score wins): Bracket A: (mean: 2396, stdev: 330) “Friday the 13th Part 6” (2347) was upset by 8. “Ladies and Gentlemen, the Non-Equity Cast of ‘Godspell!’” (2141) “Let Us Out” (2377) fell to 7. “Team Prospect” (2044) “United Discord” (2192) handily defeated 6. “The Escapes of Wrath” (3096) “Boze People” (2742) was edged out by 5. “Blue Herrings” (2229) Bracket B: (mean: 3415, stdev: 635) “La Compagnie Keyhole” (2745) proceeds to Round 3 after defeating 8. "Dream Team" (4119) “Otterpi” (2924) edged out 7. “Koalas, Mauves, and Codex” (3631) “7th Overall” (2642) triumphed over “MIKG” (4427) “Nerd Immunity” (3855) was not immune at all to the skills of 5. “The Ellijayans” (2981) Bracket C: (mean: 3405, stdev: 836) “Team Bluefish” (3375) defeated 8. “The Ghost of Mrs. Boyle & Two Pirates From Captain Redbeard’s Pirate Ship” (4108) “Escape Goats” (2968) just barely edged out “Escape Connection” (3136) “ESCAPETHEROOMers” (2197) walked all over “Pooky’s Posse” (5002) “Morris Family” (DNS) defaulted to “Test Solution Bees Ignore” (3049) 🅡🅞🅤🅝🅓 ➌ - ❞🅜🅞🅥🅘🅔 🅜🅐🅨🅗🅔🅜 🅐🅣 🅣🅗🅔 🅜🅔🅝🅐🅖🅔🅡🅘🅔❞ A week later (April 21st), our team is back and ready to conquer Round 3. A lot of our patreons have became big fans of Paruzal games and this time we added a new recruit to the journey. Since we're not playing this for real scores, we didn't really stick to hard on the strategy. If you are serious about entering your team for next year, I would recommend no more than 4 players per team. Since these games involve heavily on communication between players and GM, it's rather difficult to hear when too many people are talking at the same time. Repeating and confirming what another players have said can waste a lot of time. The backstory to this game is that we are thieves and we're here to steal the "golden reel" (the rarest film of all time). I love the graphics of the theater. They were really colorful and detailed from the snack bar to the ticket booth to the theater itself. There were many locations that we had to explore. Our first mistake was not taking a hint quickly when we got stuck early on during the game because we missed a tiny detail. The mixture of puzzles and prop utilization was well balanced in this game. I liked how we had to think about what was in our "inventory" and what we could use in all of the areas that we've explored. I would definitely recommend searching through everything first to compile all the clues together before trying out any puzzles. This one was pretty tough. Our team finished in 52 minutes and 27 second but had to take a 3 minute penalty for taking 1 hint. In the end, we had a lot of laughter throughout the game and that's all it matters. We want to thank our amazing GM Guy again for being patient with us and surrendering to our weird demands and trying those hundreds of attempts we threw at him on that directional lock! 𝔼𝕊ℂ𝔸ℙ𝔼𝕋ℍ𝔼ℝ𝕆𝕆𝕄𝕖𝕣𝕤 ℙ𝕒𝕥𝕣𝕠𝕟❜𝕤 𝕋𝕙𝕠𝕦𝕘𝕙𝕥𝕤 Helen B. Movie mayhem indeed! My third experience of a Paruzal game was just as enjoyable but tougher than the others. A nice twist to this one is starting in a location where it seems you have very little to play with - just some bits and bobs that don't seem very useful. But examine everything carefully and make good notes, because you can and will progress, even if it takes you way longer than it should (it really did!). Once in the main play area, we had great fun examining the room, realising our next steps, but getting too hung up in some areas! One puzzle in particular seemed so easy but then when the answer we were convinced was correct turned out wrong, all logic went out of the window and we began trying anything and everything somewhat desperately. This led to us giving in and using our one and only hint, which was immediately followed by a collective "ohhhh of courrrrrse" - so my tip is don't lose your head and overthink things! There is a lot of environment to examine in this one, and some clever use of the space and repetition of puzzles but with a clever twist to them. This fiendish game took us longer than Tee Party (partly due to our methods, partly due to the complexity and amount of stuff to do in the game) but was still enjoyable, coming in just under the hour with our one hint penalty. Paruzal's games are brilliantly made, always different in terms of puzzle variety, theme, complexity and methods, and the GMs do a fantastic job of bringing it all together and making sure you have fun without giving anything away. Here's the Results from Round 3 After a crazy turn of events, here's the results from Round 3 (time + penalties=score, counted in seconds. Low score wins). Once again, only Bracket A's members still qualify to complete for the real title. Bracket B/C are just competing for fun internally. Bracket A Completion time + penalties = score (rendered in seconds): 8. "Ladies and Gentlemen, the Longest Escape Room Team Title in all of Recorded History” (2867) unseated 5. “Blue Herrings” (3837) 7. “Team Prospect” (2090) eked out the win from 3. “United Discord” (2461) Bracket B: “La Compagnie Keyhole” (3775) fell to 5. “The Ellijayans” (3029) “Otterpi” (3951) suffered defeat at the hands of 3. “7th Overall!” (3525) Bracket C: “Team Bluefish” (4381) gave the win to 5. “Test Solution Bees Ignore” (4116). “Escape Goats” (3017) were victorious over 3. “ESCAPETHEROOMers” (3327) 🅡🅞🅤🅝🅓 ➍ - ❞🅣🅗🅔 🅐🅝🅝🅤🅐🅛 🅟🅘🅒🅝🅘🅒❞ 🅐🅝🅓 ❞🅣🅗🅔 🅔🅐🅖🅛🅔 🅗🅐🅢 🅛🅐🅝🅓🅔🅓❞ May 1st marks our final leg of the journey with the "2021 Great Escape Tournament". In this round, we had to complete two 30 minute games back to back. By this point, we are all pros at "Paruzal Games" and as you can see, many of our Patreons have also became big fans of their game. It was a lovely surprise to have our first game's GM, Ben accompany us to the finishing line. We started with "The Annual Picnic" and were told that we were 6th graders trying to learn about various cultures from different countries with our pen pals. The school has an annual picnic where we get to show off what we've learned during the school year. This game was actually designed for a particular school that had this tradition so it felt really real to be following through with the storyline. The puzzles felt easier in terms of the level of difficulty since it was designed for students. We finished this game in 18 minutes and 41 seconds with no hints. "The Eagle Has Landed" was also staged in a school. We were in charge of bringing the paint to draw the eagle mural but forgot them at home. Our art teacher has the paint supplies stashed in the room but they're all locked up. We have only 30 minutes to find a way to retrieve them. This game had a few areas that were graphically similar to "The Annual Picnic" game but the puzzles were all different. It was interesting to see how they were able to utilize the same "cluing image" but form a completely different set of puzzles. We took some time on two of them due to the fact that we were still remembering what we had done in the previous game. For this game we took 32 minutes with no hints. Both games didn't have "hidden items" that we had to search really hard for like in the first game. It just shows that Paruzal designs all of their games in various styles so you wouldn't really know what type of game you'll be playing until you actually play them. The graphics were nicely done again here. I especially liked the feeling of being able to "collect" the items along the way. One thing I would suggest to the creator is to add an ending "victory image" for both games as we didn't know that the game had ended. Of course there's also that feeling of secretly wishing that they haven't ended as we can't get enough of these Paruzal games! For anyone who couldn't join the tournament this year, they'll be releasing all of these games to the general public in late May. You should definitely give them a try. Don't say I didn't warn you. They're quite addicting! 𝔼𝕊ℂ𝔸ℙ𝔼𝕋ℍ𝔼ℝ𝕆𝕆𝕄𝕖𝕣𝕤 ℙ𝕒𝕥𝕣𝕠𝕟❜𝕤 𝕋𝕙𝕠𝕦𝕘𝕙𝕥𝕤 Helen B. - The Annual Picnic This was my 3rd Paruzal game and I had no doubt it would be just as good fun and a challenge as the previous ones. The theme for this one was a beautiful story of middle schoolers holding an annual picnic to celebrate friends around the world. We learned afterwards that this was written for an actual event of the same theme, so it made it all the more special. So rather than escaping, you have to find the hidden, locked away supplies for your picnic hidden around the room. Again a beautifully drawn, beautifully written game with a lovely mix of puzzle types - morse code, word puzzles, numbers and even a crazy puzzle including sausages! We seemed to make short work of most of the puzzles, which I think were on the slightly easier side due to the original audience, but still amazing fun and our GM Ben was just as good as last time, providing just the right level of information and responses to our crazy suggestions for where to look and what to try!!! We got out in a very respectable 18.41 with no hints, and I thoroughly enjoyed the topic, the gameplay and the whole experience yet again. Can't wait for my next Paruzal! Helen B. - The Eagle has Landed My FOURTH game with Paruzal and now very used to the mechanics of their games we went into this one with just as much excitement and anticipation! Our theme for this one again was to find hidden supplies rather than escape. A refreshing change! But I wish someone wouldn't keep tidying away our stuff behind puzzle locks! So inconvenient!!! Again set in a school but this time for older children, our room consisted of various items from around the school - an eclectic mix of artefacts that all needed to be figured out. We came a bit unstuck on two of the puzzles! Both were a case of interpretation of the clues we had found, and we thought we had exhausted every combination before finally hitting the right one. SO close to asking for a hint but we prevailed! A very nice use of "props" in this room to provide some challenges that we hadn't come across before and despite a lot of back and forth, another enjoyable game that really challenged our logical thinking and saw us obtain our goal in just over 50 minutes. Kudos again to GM Ben who did a sterling job. Have loved all Paruzal's games and really want to do more now! Here Are the Final Results (please note DNS means "Did Not Start" as some teams have not completed some of the rounds yet) Congratulations to "Team Prospect” for winning the "Fastest Escape Room Team on the Internet" title!!! Bracket A (Winner: “Team Prospect”): Friday the 13th, Part 6 Round 1: 2260, 2347, 3067, DNS Let Us Out 2814, 2377, 3527, DNS United Discord 2823, 2192, 2461, 1958: for a total of 9434 seconds Boze People 3009, 2742, DNS, DNS Blue Herrings 3296, 2229, 3837, DNS The Escapes of Wrath 3523, 3096, DNS, DNS Team Prospect 3643, 2044, 2090, 1570: total 9347 Ladies and Gentlemen, the Non-Equity Cast of ‘Godspell’! 3652, 2141, 2867, 2505: total 11165 Bracket B (Winner: “The Ellijayans”): La Companie Keyhole 3802, 2745, 3775, DNS Otterpi 3824, 2924, 3951, DNS 7th Overall! 3907, 2642, 3525, DNS Nerd Immunity 3933, 3855, 3951, DNS The Ellijayans 3933, 2981, 3029, 3317: total 13260 MIKG 4145, 4427, DNS, DNS Koalas, Mauves, & Codex 4525, 3631, 3071, 2785: total 14012 Dream Team 5105, 4119, DNS, DNS Bracket C (Winner: "Escape Goats”): Team Bluefish 3684, 3375, 4381, DNS Escape Goats 3784, 2968, 3017, 3142: total 12911 ESCAPETHEROOMers 3835, 2197, 3327, 3011: total 12370 Morris Family 4165, DNS, DNS, DNS Test Solution Bees Ignore 4512, 3049, 4116, DNS Pooky’s Posse 4643, 5002, 4526, DNS Escape Connection 4817, 3136, 3609, DNS The Ghost of Mrs. Boyle & Two Pirates from Captain Redbeard’s Pirate Ship 5101, 4108, 6171, DNS *** We regret to inform this company has closed its doors *** Disclosure: We thank Paruzal Games for comping our tickets for this game. Although a complimentary experience was generously provided, it does not impact our opinion on the review whatsoever. #CiciCao #AtHomeGames #AudioGames #ParuzalGames #USA #ParuzalsGreatEscape2021BirthdayParty #adventure #comedy #solve #competition

Above photos are property of Paruzal Games Company: Paruzal Games Game: Game 04: Pizza Makes Anything Possible Country: USA 🇺🇸 Language: English Type of Game: Audio Escape Room 👂 Genre: Puzzle Story Date Played: May 12, 2020 Difficulty (based on 6 players): 7.5/10 Size of Team: Unlimited Time: 75 minutes (Escaped in 63:23) Price: $15.00 pp This is our first audio led escape room experience. We still had to book a time and date for this game as a game master will be with us the entire time. Instead of being in a physical escape room, the clues and puzzles are told by the "game mistress" through a story telling format on Zoom. You will also have access to drawings that will help you visualize the room. As the game started, we were greeted by the "clue genie" and "game mistress". Depending on how competitive you are you can chose to be on the standard leader board or the "no hint" leader board (which means you can not use the "clue genie"). Since we had two puzzle masters with us, it was an easy choice to go for the "no hint" option. We ended up having "half of a nudge" being stuck on a puzzle that we felt needed some clarification (this has since been corrected by the owners). There was a lot to do and we were fully occupied for an hour or so. Although this form of game might not be enjoyed by some escape room players since they are not seeing too much real actions like in a remote escape room, I myself quite enjoyed the fact that you are able to use your imagination and think outside the box throughout the game. For instance, in a real escape room I would not be able to put a piece of paper on a stove and see if it will reveal something but I'm able to ask the "game mistress" to do that. It is then up to the "game mistress" to be creative and come up with an amusing answer. The "choice" aspect of this game (which led to different paths and new discoveries) is what makes this game different than the others we've seen. If in the future we can see a bit more visualization, (maybe a prerecorded video of the unlocking of the lock or pizza being made) it could add more entertainment for the players. Although that pizza photo was enticing enough for us to order a pizza that night for dinner! Above photos are property of Paruzal Games *** We regret to inform this company has closed its doors *** Disclosure: We thank Paruzal Games for comping our tickets for this game. Although a complimentary experience was generously provided, it does not impact our opinion on the review whatsoever. #CiciCao #AtHomeGames #AudioGames #Mystery #Fun #ParuzalGames #USA

Photo above is property of Paruzal Games Company: Paruzal Games Game: Game 13: Ready, Set, Launch! Country: USA 🇺🇸 Language: English Type of Game: Audio Escape Room 👂 Genre: Adventure Date Played: September 1, 2021 Difficulty (based on 4 players): 4/10 Size of Team: Unlimited Time: 60 minutes Price: $15.00 pp 🆃🅷🅴 🆂🆃🅾🆁🆈 Oh no! Your alarm didn’t go off this morning and you are late to attend the campus tour today. Rushing to campus, you arrive in the room for the tour and it looks like the group has already moved on. You need to solve the puzzles if you want to catch up to them! 🆃🅷🅴 🅶🅰🅼🅴 🅿🅻🅰🆈 This game was commissioned by the Santa Clara University so there were many Easter eggs to the university in this game. That did not take away from the game play though as it was still quite entertaining. One of the things we enjoy about Paruzal is that they commission a different artist for each of their games. Each game then has a different feel to it. As the banner picture shows, this game had a fun appeal to it. Most of the pictures were an overhead view of the room as we travelled from building to building. We were then allowed to interact with whatever we would like, usually with another picture which was a close up of the item. Photos above are properties of Paruzal Games 🆃🅷🅴 🅿🆄🆉🆉🅻🅴🆂 The puzzles in this game were not overly difficult. Most of them consisted of finding items and knowing what to do with them or deciphering codes. That being said, there was definitely a lot to do and see as you had to navigate through many of the buildings. We would recommend having a pen and paper handy as you go to keep track of items. Some of the actions that had to be done were quite creative, even for an audio escape room where pretty much anything goes already. 🅲🅻🅾🆂🅸🅽🅶 🆃🅷🅾🆄🅶🅷🆃🆂 This was a little easier of a game that required less puzzling than most, but still a great time to play. We all thought for a Monday night game, it was satisfying to complete without having to overly exert ourselves. My tip for the game would be to travel and explore everything before solving things. We did end up stuck a few times not sure if we missed something only to discover, the item we needed was much later in the game. There were also some peculiar items and actions that could be found and done in this game to keep it exciting, which on that note, if Santa Clara University does not already have a rocket ship to help you travel around campus, it absolutely should! *** We regret to inform this company has closed its doors *** Disclosure: The tickets to this game was part of our RECON Play Pass. #MatthewLui #AtHomeGames #AudioGames #ParuzalGames #Adventure #USA

Photos above are property of Paruzal Games Company: Paruzal Games Game: Game 06: The Java Shop's Perfect Grind Country: USA 🇺🇸 Language: English Type of Game: Audio Escape Room 👂 Genre: Adventure Date Played: September 4, 2021 Difficulty (based on 2 players): 6/10 Size of Team: Unlimited Time: 60 minutes Price: $15.00 pp 🆃🅷🅴 🆂🆃🅾🆁🆈 As the owner of several coffee shops, you are delighted that a famous critic is coming to taste your delicious coffee and baked goods this morning! You head to the shop early to make sure everything is prepared just so. But - what a disaster!! Someone has broken in and ransacked the shop, including stealing all of your specialty coffee beans! Fortunately, you know your manager has hidden a secret stash somewhere, you just need to figure out how to find them...before the critic arrives in 60 minutes. No pressure! 🆃🅷🅴 🅶🅰🅼🅴 🅿🅻🅰🆈 This is an audio escape room, where your host presents you with still images of the room and things you find along the way. You let the GM know what you would like to do, and they tell you the outcome. Everything is very scripted out, and the GMs are very professional, with smooth onboarding to help out any beginners. In comparison to some companies that are known for their wacky GMs and interactions, our host kept pretty strictly to the script. The art style is quite simple but effective in providing you the info that you need. It took us 54:17 to finish; while we did not request any hints, the GM did provide some nudges along the way. 🆃🅷🅴 🅿🆄🆉🆉🅻🅴🆂 You will want some pen and paper handy! While there is an underlying story, the puzzles are clearly the focus of this game. There were a variety of puzzle types, from word and cipher to spatial and auditory. One thing we really appreciate about Paruzal is that they always will provide compiled pictures of items once you have found everything you need (and realize that they go together). So, rather than having to write everything down, or try to go back and forth between multiple images, you can see everything in one place. In this game, there were a few places where there could have been a bit more signposting (rather than just guessing the desired approach). However, we really liked how some components were unexpectedly used several times in multiple ways. Overall, we enjoyed the puzzles. 🅲🅻🅾🆂🅸🅽🅶 🆃🅷🅾🆄🅶🅷🆃🆂 In preparing for this review, I discovered that this game was commissioned by someone as a means to propose to their girlfriend! So cool! However, we had no idea while playing, and they have obviously revised the final puzzle so that it didn’t say “MARRYME.” Otherwise, that might get awkward in a public game...While this was not our favorite of the Paruzal games that we have played (our favorites are toss up between "Tee Party" and "Trapped Under Water"), we still had a great time finding those beans! Paruzal’s approach makes their games suitable for players with a broad range of experience, and I love the backstories of how many of their games were originally highly tailored commissioned experiences. Definitely a fun date-night for us! *** We regret to inform this company has closed its doors *** Disclosure: The tickets to this game was part of our RECON Play Pass. #DaveBristol #AtHomeGames #AudioGames #ParuzalGames #Adventure #US

Photo above is property of Paruzal Games Company: Paruzal Games Game: Game 14: Bear To Dream Country: USA 🇺🇸 Language: English Type of Game: Audio Escape Room 👂 Genre: Adventure Date Played: April 23, 2022 Difficulty (based on 4 players): 5/10 Size of Team: Unlimited Time: 60 minutes Price: $15.00/ pp Note: "Game 14: Bear To Dream" and "Game 15: Re-Writing History" are styled in very similar ways with regards to puzzles and structure. "Game 14: Bear To Dream" had a harder difficulty level while "Game 15: Re-Writing History" offered a lighter puzzling experience. If you are interested in this style of game, choose between them based on what level of puzzling you are looking for. 🆃🅷🅴 🆂🆃🅾🆁🆈 After an enjoyable weekend, you return to school excited to get to work. As you arrive at the administrative center, you discover your professor has laid out an array of curious puzzles for you to solve before school begins. The prize? Delicious treats! Time to shake away those weekend cobwebs and get to work! 🆃🅷🅴 🅶🅰🅼🅴 🅿🅻🅰🆈 This online audio escape room takes place on Zoom where you are greeted by your game master. Before you game begins, your game master will provide you with an introduction to the story and offer a brief tutorial of how an audio escape room works. You will be provided with images of various parts of the room, but your main game play involves interacting with these images through your game master. In a physical escape room, you will pick up an object or flip through a book; in an audio escape room, you tell your game master what you want to do and they will respond with what happens and in some cases reveal more images of the item upon inspection. When you think you have solved something, you prompt your GM with the answer and what you want to do with it and you will be guided onto the next task. Whenever you get stuck you can ask the GM for a hint. The key with these styles of game play is to talk about your puzzling aloud with your group. If you have an idea, tell the game master - the worst that happens is nothing happens! Photo above is property of Paruzal Games 🆃🅷🅴 🅿🆄🆉🆉🅻🅴🆂 The puzzles in "Game 14: Bear To Dream" are relatively light. They vary from searching puzzles, pattern identification, ciphers, and logic puzzles. The main trick is to make associations between found items and clues left for you. Make sure to check all areas of the room and ask questions to ensure you are not missing anything. Having a pen and paper is good to note patterns and numbers you noticed as you navigate across the illustrations. We ended up using one hint for this game but we realised immediately what we were doing wrong right after - in this case, try something a few times before moving on. Photo above is property of Paruzal Games 🅲🅻🅾🆂🅸🅽🅶 🆃🅷🅾🆄🅶🅷🆃🆂 "Game 14: Bear To Dream" is a cute audio adventure filled with a mix of traditional and creative puzzles that aid collaborative puzzling with friends. It’s a great game to play after a long day with friends that is playful and fun with a minor difficulty level. This is the kind of game where exploring the room and engaging with the game master can really make the experience. The theme was adorable and fit for all ages. I recommend having a sweet treat nearby when you finish this game because, after finishing, I was craving a delicious sugary snack to reward myself with a job well done! *** We regret to inform this company has closed its doors *** Disclosure: We thank Paruzal Games for comping our tickets for this game. Although a complimentary experience was generously provided, it does not impact our opinion on the review whatsoever. #JillianRaymond #AtHomeGames #AudioGames #ParuzalGames #Adventure #USA

Photo above is property of Paruzal Games Company: Paruzal Games Game: Game 15: Re-Writing History Country: USA 🇺🇸 Language: English Type of Game: Audio Escape Room 👂 Genre: Adventure Date Played: April 24, 2022 Difficulty (based on 5 players): 4/10 Size of Team: Unlimited Time: 60 minutes Price: $15.00 pp Note: "Game 14: Bear To Dream" and "Game 15: Re-Writing History" are styled in very similar ways with regards to puzzles and structure. "Game 14: Bear To Dream" had a harder difficulty level while "Game 15: Re-Writing History" offered a lighter puzzling experience. If you are interested in this style of game, choose between them based on what level of puzzling you are looking for. 🆃🅷🅴 🆂🆃🅾🆁🆈 Coming back from a long weekend, you are eager to join your friend in the school’s theatre. You have plans to tackle recreating a classic fairytale, but you're struggling to give it the special twist that you know it deserves. Yet, as you enter the room to greet your friend you find no friend in sight… but, instead, a series of puzzles to get your brain juices flowing! Will you be able to solve all these puzzles and find your friend? 🆃🅷🅴 🅶🅰🅼🅴 🅿🅻🅰🆈 This online audio escape room takes place on Zoom where you are greeted by your game master. Before you game begins, your game master will provide you with an introduction to the story and offer a brief tutorial of how an audio escape room works. You will be provided with images of various parts of the room, but your main game play involves interacting with these images through your game master. In a physical escape room, you will pick up an object or flip through a book; in an audio escape room, you tell your game master what you want to do and they will respond with what happens and in some cases reveal more images of the item upon inspection. When you think you have solved something, you prompt your GM with the answer and what you want to do with it and you will be guided onto the next task. Whenever you get stuck you can ask the GM for a hint. The key with these styles of game play is to talk about your puzzling aloud with your group. If you have an idea, tell the game master - the worst that happens is nothing happens! Photo above is property of Paruzal Games 🆃🅷🅴 🅿🆄🆉🆉🅻🅴🆂 The puzzles in "Game 15: Re-Writing History" are relatively light. They vary from searching puzzles, pattern identification, ciphers, and logic puzzles. As you circle around the room, there's puzzles & clues on each wall that will allow you to associate with others that you'll find along the way. When it comes to searching, anything goes. So be sure to ask the game master to check all areas of the room to ensure that you are not missing anything. We highly recommend having a pen and notepad available to jot down any information that you find. Photo above is property of Paruzal Games 🅲🅻🅾🆂🅸🅽🅶 🆃🅷🅾🆄🅶🅷🆃🆂 "Game 15: Re-Writing History" is an excellent game option to help introduce people to escape rooms with its focus on working with the GM and encouragement to ask questions and collaborate aloud. This game is tailored for a young audience and provides plenty of different styles of puzzling to encourage inquiry and problem-solving. If you are interested in one with a bit more of a challenge, check out "Game 14: Bear To Dream", which follows a similar structure. *** We regret to inform this company has closed its doors *** Disclosure: We thank Paruzal Games for comping our tickets for this game. Although a complimentary experience was generously provided, it does not impact our opinion on the review whatsoever. #JillianRaymond #AtHomeGames #AudioGames #ParuzalGames #Adventure #USA

Videos/ Photos provided by Castle Escapes Company: Castle Escapes Game: Hunt for the Crimson Fang Country: USA 🇺🇸 Language: English Type of Game: Audio/GM led Escape Room 👂 Genre: Vampires Date Played: 7/17/2020 Difficulty (based on 3 players): 5.5/10 Size of Team: Up to 8 Players Time: 60 Minutes Price: $95.00 (Up to 6 Players)/ $125.00 (Up to 8 Players) We've been recruited by The Nocturnal Underground Tactical Squad (NUTS) to assist one of their rookie vampire hunter to "Hunt for the Crimson Fang" ("The Master"). The experience started with an intro video of the back story and seamlessly connected us with the avatar starting off in a bloody butcher shop, or so we thought... The set design was amazing. The blood splatter, body parts, knives created a perfect stage for a horror movie. It's not surprising since one of Castle Escape's co-creator's family owns a haunt production company. There were definitely moments of us saying: "Wow, did he just do that? Was that real?". Even though I was behind the camera, I felt like I had to be prepared for jump scare moments. Our avatar was hilarious. He was very clever with comebacks during the game. Everything was great until we started to ask him to roam around the room and solve puzzles. At first, we saw some lag time on the camera screen when we asked him to look to a certain location or open some items. At other times, he would ignore some of our requests. He also proceeded to lock up all the opened locks but later explained that he was trying to cover his tracks. In our minds, we were thinking perhaps we were solving the puzzles too quickly and he was intentionally trying to drag out the time. The puzzles were not different and many had added humor in it. There was one puzzle we thought needed some outside knowledge so definitely ask the GM for help if needed. The big reveal was at the end of the game when the game master informed us that the entire game was prerecorded! All of a sudden, the "strange behaviors" from the "avatar" now made sense. Every time he had to return to the same location and then go to where we were telling him to go because the next video always started from the beginning position. He also could not take out certain objects when we told him to since the room wouldn't look right on the next recording. Essentially we felt like we had to play the room according to the order that the videos were recorded in. I do have to give props to the GM who had to keep us entertained while search for the right video to play among hundreds of videos. Our initial categorization of the room was remote escape room but have since corrected to audio/GM led escape room experience. Even though there were visuals of the room, the avatar was not physically there in real time taking the players through the game. Even though those "stall moments" were a bit discomforting, the whole production was still pretty amazing. Because the videos were prerecorded, they were able to utilize props and special effects we would normally not be able to use in an escape room. The professional actors also connected us closer to the story. Our favorite part was the ending. The choices and different alternative endings set the game apart from a room with a normal exit door. If you are an enthusiasts that will be playing the game solely for puzzles, you might get a bit frustrated because of the delays. But if you want to try to enjoy the acting and the story line, you might see this experience in a different light! We are excited for Castle Escapes's two other new experiences coming out around Halloween and we hope by then it'll be a smoother game flow. *** Please note that some parts of the game might not be appropriate for kids. The company website recommend players to be 14+. Disclosure: We thank Castle Escapes for comping our tickets for this game. Although a complimentary experience was generously provided, it does not impact our opinion on the review whatsoever. #ESCAPETHEROOmers #AtHomeGames #EscapeRooms #CastleEscapes #DarkCastleSC #HuntfortheCrimsonFang #audioledescaperoom #Avatar #Dracula #Vampires #Supernatural #Horror #escapegame

Photo above is property of Castle Escapes Company: Castle Escapes Game: History Heist Country: USA 🇺🇸 Language: English Type of Game: Audio/GM led Escape Room 👂 Genre: History, Time Travel, Sci-Fi Date Played: May 15, 2022 Difficulty (based on 5 players): 5/10 Size of Team: Up to 8 Players Time: 60 Minutes Price: $80.00/team (Up to 6 players), $100.00/team (Up to 8 players) *This is our third game with Castle Escapes. Read our reviews here on "Hunt for the Crimson Fang" and "Alone in Ward 6". 🆃🅷🅴 🆂🆃🅾🆁🆈 After years of hard work, Dr. Jellingham has finally created time travel! Unfortunately, looming debt and a loss on investors means Dr. Jellingham and her android assistant are unable to add the finishing touches (ie. make the time travel safe for humans) and are desperate for funds. They need your help to travel back in time to steal Dr. Jellingham’s lost family heirloom, "The Golden Gravy-boat", to help fund this outstanding invention! What sounds like a smooth sailing adventure across history, though, turns into a wacky journey to save reality! Get to it! 🆃🅷🅴 🅶🅰🅼🅴 🅿🅻🅰🆈 This game takes place entirely on Zoom. You are given an overview of how to play, with the new Zoom feature of annotation being emphasized. All information and notes you gather with the android assistant as your avatar will be shared using the chat feature of Zoom. You are free to ask questions and engage with the character. In this kind of room, I highly recommend speaking with your avatar to build the immersion. NOTE: Hints are available and can be provided when you ask your guide! Photos above are property of Castle Escapes 🆃🅷🅴 🅿🆄🆉🆉🅻🅴🆂 The puzzles in "History Heist" varied from pattern recognition, logic, and searching that really encouraged players to keep track of their exploration across the room. There are quite a few puzzles that require background information but access to links and information to help will be provided in the chat once you make a connection. I found the puzzles to be fun - once I got the “aha”, each puzzle was smooth in their assembly. Towards the end of the game, the puzzle difficulty ramped up a little as you were bouncing across scenes to put information together which I thought was a great way to build tension. I recommend to voice your line of solving aloud not just for your group but also for the avatar. If you have a question, give it a try! This is especially key if you aren’t actively googling things on your own as the guide will know what you need. Overall, the puzzles weren’t too hard and I can definitely see this being a more family-friendly experience in comparison to their two other horror games. 🅲🅻🅾🆂🅸🅽🅶 🆃🅷🅾🆄🅶🅷🆃🆂 "History Heist" is another Castle Escapes adventure that combines fun puzzling and engaging guides that keep you on track and moving through an adventure at a smooth pace. I never felt rushed and could really enjoy the experience. If you like a story with cinematic cutscenes, collaborative puzzling, and a strong guide character, I think this is a great addition to your puzzle TBP list! If you have friends and family interested in trying online escape rooms, this is also a good on-ramp as it requires very little setup and you have a guide you can speak to as part of the adventure. I will say this was a bit easier than their previous games, but the family-friendly vibe comes from Castle Escapes branching out. After finishing this game, I cannot wait to see what more they are going to offer in the future! *** We regret to inform this company has closed its doors *** Disclosure: We thank Castle Escapes for comping our tickets for this game. Although a complimentary experience was generously provided, it does not impact our opinion on the review whatsoever. #JillianRaymond #AtHomeGames #DigitalGames #AudioGames #CastleEscapes #SciFi #TimeTravel #USA

Photo above is property of Castle Escapes Company: Castle Escapes Game: Alone in Ward 6 Country: USA 🇺🇸 Language: English Type of Game: Audio/GM led Escape Room 👂 Genre: Horror, Thriller Date Played: 1/28/2021 Difficulty (based on 4 players): 6.5/10 Size of Team: Up to 8 Players Time: 80 Minutes Price: $125.00 /Team 🆃🅷🅴 🆂🆃🅾🆁🆈 You've finally had time for a lunch break as an intern at Marley Center for Mental Health. The doctor wanted you to take some investors around the facility when everything went wrong. Kevin, the institutes most dangerous inmate has escaped his cell and you're trapped in Ward 6 with him! Will you be able to make it out alive or will you be his next victim? 🆃🅷🅴 🅶🅰🅼🅴 🅿🅻🅰🆈 Your guide throughout the game is the intern at the Mental Health Center. You're able to communicate with him through Zoom on what you like to search, open, implement, etc... This is a very different experience than a typical escape room. During the game, the avatar will take you around various areas and rooms within Ward 6. You'll be able to see and have close encounters with Kevin and other personnel in the Ward. There's definitely a cinematic feel to the game. We felt like we're in a horror movie. There are times when my heart was beating so fast as the avatar was trying to hide from the psychotic killer. 🆃🅷🅴 🅿🆄🆉🆉🅻🅴🆂 There was no inventory system for this game. All the documents that needed a closer look was send as PDF formats through the Zoom's chat function. It would've been a plus if there could be an easier interface for the players. It would be easier on the players if the used clues could be removed versus having so many tabs open on the side. This way the player could have more time to concentrate on the actions on Zoom instead. Although this wasn't too much of a bother as there weren't too many files that required heavy reading. We always enjoy the innovative concepts at Castle Escapes. They used props we normally wouldn't be able to use in an escape room in their "Hunt for the Crimson Fang" game. In this game, not only did we have to figure out puzzles, we also had to figure out a way to save ourselves at the end. This really bought out the immersion aspect. The creators put the avatar in a real life situation and we felt like we were right there with him. One of our favorite moments was when the avatar informed us that we have to be radio silent while solving a puzzle (we can only communicate by text) as Kevin was in the room with us. 🅲🅻🅾🆂🅸🅽🅶 🆃🅷🅾🆄🅶🅷🆃🆂 Castle Escape improved a lot since their last game on the game flow. If I don't tell you that the entire game was prerecorded, you probably wouldn't even notice. Our game master did a great job with leading the game vocally. He knew exactly when to release the next video according to our commands and when to put in the right joke if certain demand could not be implemented. You might only notice a few hiccups during the game play as he'll have to cover up certain items or lock up an item again because he has to replay a certain clip. If you're usually impatient with a slow avatar, try to put your focus on the story line for this game a bit more than rushing to get that final time. Since the company did extend the game play to 80 minutes instead of 60, you'll have plenty of time to escape. The game master also did a great job at giving subtle hints on what we should focus on and what's not part of the game play. If you're looking for something a bit different than your usual remote escape room then give this game a try. We had a great time and thanks to our awesome P.I.s, we escaped with 10 minutes and 40 seconds left! 𝔼𝕊ℂ𝔸ℙ𝔼𝕋ℍ𝔼ℝ𝕆𝕆𝕄𝕖𝕣𝕤❜ ℙ.𝕀.𝕤❜ 𝕋𝕙𝕠𝕦𝕘𝕙𝕥𝕤 Evan M. Castle Escapes' game format is unlike anything I've personally ever played before. There are definitely tons of influences from traditional escape games, but Castle Escapes is able to present something that took full advantage of the remote platform. The presentation felt extremely smooth - in no small part due to the stellar improv talents of our host! Some things I'd like to mention, in no particular order: -Perfect amount of things to focus on at any given time - not too many so that we get overwhelmed, not too few so that we can't divide up the work -Puzzles felt like just the right difficulty, and not every puzzle required the host to keep the "camera" on it (taking notes and using the provided "scans" of game items helped immensely!) -The format of the game does restrict truly out-of-the-box curiosity; if a player wants to look at or try something unexpected, the host needs to redirect somehow or just provide a verbal no. Hurts immersion a bit, but really did not affect our enjoyment in the long run -Can't stress this enough - having a great host absolutely made this game for me. Being able to converse smoothly eliminated all the issues I have with the remote escape game format Overall, this was a fantastic experience and I would gladly recommend it to any escape room fans. I would say that this is not the best game for a team of complete beginners, but if your party has at least a bit of experience, you'll do fine. Good luck, and have fun! Evan P. This is a fun and creative horror escape. All of the puzzles were eventually solvable, especially on a four-person team, although alone I'd probably have missed a few things. It was a relief that the narrator/avatar will flat-out tell players if there's nothing to find in a certain corner of the room; red herrings will take up your time, but they don't grind progress to a halt. The combination of pre-recorded video clips with live narration felt close to seamless, and little glitches didn't detract from the narrator/avatar's authenticity. Pay attention to cut scenes; there are clues there. As a horror fanatic, I accept that anything goes in the genre as long as it's scary. As a thoughtful critic, I do find the storyline to be pretty ableist. The treatment of mental illness could definitely have been more nuanced; Nonetheless, this is a very clever and very fun remote escape room, and if you're unbothered by some worn-out and problematic tropes of the horror genre, it's a great time. *** We regret to inform this company has closed its doors *** Disclosure: We thank Castle Escapes for comping our tickets for this game. Although a complimentary experience was generously provided, it does not impact our opinion on the review whatsoever. #CiciCao #AtHomeGames #EscapeRooms #CastleEscapes #DarkCastleSC #AloneInWard6 #audioledescaperoom #Avatar #SerialKiller #Survival #Escape #Horror #escapegame

Photo provided by Puzzle Punks - Dubrovnik Escape Room Company: Puzzle Punks - Dubrovnik Escape Room Game: Save King's Landing Country: Croatia 🇭🇷 Language: English, Romanian, Croatian Type of Game: Remote Escape Room 🗣 Genre: Adventure Date Played: 3/28/2021 Difficulty (based on 4 players): 5.5/10 Size of Team: Up to 6 Connections Time: 60 Minutes Price: €60 per game / €100 both games (Up to 6 devices) 𝔼𝕊ℂ𝔸ℙ𝔼𝕋ℍ𝔼ℝ𝕆𝕆𝕄𝕖𝕣𝕤❜ ℙ.𝕀.𝕤❜ 𝕋𝕙𝕠𝕦𝕘𝕙𝕥𝕤 RJ Story: We play the imaginary friends of an ordinary fool who has been tasked with acquiring a specific green potion that is desperately needed elsewhere. Gameplay: This is a remote style escape room which is guided by an avatar. In this case, the avatar is a fool, so he needs your guidance as his imaginary friends. The game also makes use of their own inventory system and room view. The room view is a 360 shot of the room that you can navigate around and zoom into the particular pieces of interest. For the inventory system, one player is selected as the inventory manager before the game starts. That person is responsible for inputting any items found in the game into the inventory when the time comes via a 4 digit code plastered on the item in the real world. Everyone else can then see large images of the items in the shared inventory. Any player can then delete used items out of this inventory. Puzzles: Much like the experience as a whole, the best feature of the puzzles in this game was their visual design. From the smallest of notes to the large engineered replicas, everything in this room was beautiful. Even via the remote camera, we could appreciate the care and detail that was put into each and every part of this room to make it really fit the Game of Thrones theme. The puzzles themselves weren't very difficult and we had an experienced 4 person team so we finished with a good chunk of time remaining. All of the data in the room was easy to connect with the appropriate puzzle and there was very little extraneous information which made the process very smooth. Conclusion; Even as someone who has never seen Game of Thrones, the experience was still very enjoyable. The characters and references didn't land like they would for someone who has seen the show, but that didn't make it any less fun. The role that the avatar played fit well since they were just a lowly fool. The room made excellent use of the Game of Thrones assets to make a room that exemplified the medieval theme. I would highly recommend this game to Game of Thrones fans and anyone else who has a love for finely crafted rooms. Kobi R. Save King’s Landing is a remote escape room adaptation of a real-life escape game created by Puzzle Punks in Dubrovnik, Croatia. This is played with a Remote Avatar, a 360 view of the room and an inventory system. The inventory is relatively straightforward, as you type in codes to get the items you see in the room. Your quest in the room is to find Wildfire, It doesn't require any knowledge of the series or the books, but fans will enjoy both the theme and the avatar's acting. The gamemaster anticipates your moves which is great for some, but could be too much for those who don't want any interference at all. A lot of the riddles are very interactive and physical, they were translated to digital, but I feel some of the experience of those was lost. All in all, this is a very fun remote escape room full of different riddles. I would recommend to Play in the near future as it might close soon Jacqueline G. I absolutely LOVE the theme of this escape room. Even though the ending of Game of Thrones was a disappointment to most who grew to love the franchise this escape room shines in capturing the essence of Westeros! This being said I think this game would have been even better in person. The camera or room lighting (maybe both) definitely needed some improvements, thankfully we had an online inventory so it wasn’t completely necessary to see the items clearly in the room. The fool had all the character you want and hope for in a host for a game of this type, phenomenal. The only thing I wish could have been different (besides the camera visuals) was that we didn’t need to ask to see things or do certain things as the host kind of kept us on track. I like to play escape rooms as if the person moving my hand is controlled only by my (and my teammates) brain(s) and has no free will so that I get the most of the experience without any help from the GM unless absolutely necessary. That being said I would absolutely recommend this escape to my friends, this room would be fun for people who haven’t even seen the show but an absolute delight for people who have. Helen B. The link we were given took us to a very clear and helpful website that explained the mission and how the game would work. I enjoyed Game of Thrones when it was on TV so was pleased with the theme! As I was the first one into the Zoom Room and having read the instructions, I logged in as the Inventory Master rather cheekily before the others arrived, but all that really gifts you with is the task of entering codes throughout the game so the others didn't really mind! Once all four of the PI team were assembled we had a look around the room in advance using the 360degree room view where you can examine certain items and areas. It felt a little like cheating to get a head start like this, but it doesn't reveal anything obvious and is like that first moment when you enter a room and take everything in mentally before you start "rummaging" :) Pretty soon Ser Dontos, our avatar and guide, had sobered up enough to talk to us (in the character of course!) he introduced himself and off we went! I actually found it a real help to have the room view available before and during, as once our Avatar started it meant we could focus on what he was doing and we felt like we knew the room without wasting time looking at absolutely everything using him. We guided him to look around and examine things that we had spotted of interest, and he was very thorough, taking everything in on a particular table or wall for us without too much prompting. There was a lovely mix of clues and physical objects to be found, and if an item was going to come in useful for something else, it had a code on it which was clearly shown to us, allowing me to enter it into the webpage inventory system below the 360 room view. All the team could then see this inventory and some items could be inspected in more detail and up close. This was the best use of an inventory system I have seen in the games I have played. There followed a series of puzzles which, whilst not completely linear, were obvious as to what to do next from the items found along the journey. There are codes to decipher, items to weigh, riddles, objects to be placed in certain positions, keys and padlocks and an extremely exciting machine that reveals its secrets in a most surprising way! A lovely mixture, and the difficulty I found just right - everything made sense and we didn't have any incidences of trying a solution that didn't work first time. I think the difficulty level would suit a family with older children very well. Ser Dontos was a pleasant and helpful guide, sometimes it felt just a *little* like he pre-empted what we should be doing next, and was very clear when there was no more to be seen or done with an item, which meant that we made progress swiftly and completed the mission in 38:32 - a time which our guide thought puts us in the top 5 teams! Our team worked really well, taking turns to instruct our avatar and solving puzzles equally. It was a most enjoyable experience. A pen and paper are highly recommended, and having a screen where you split the zoom call and webpage up so you can use both together will definitely enhance the experience. One thing that was noted was that the camera work was a little erratic at times and whether it was my internet connection or their camera resolution, not always the clearest, but it does not seem to have hindered us much. Perhaps a steady-cam gimble and a higher quality video would make it feel even more immersive. We had a chat with Bogdan, our lovely host, afterwards and he told us a bit about the game (he and his girlfriend built it) and how they came to be able to use the Game of Thrones imagery and theme, and I stated that should I come to Dubrovnik, which has always been on the cards, I would visit the rooms. He said sadly that there is a chance they will have to close due to prices to rent the space, and we wished him luck and hope that they will get to stay open as this would be a most amazing game to play live, owing to the really inventive and well-made puzzles and props used. Here's hoping! *** This game can no longer be booked as a remote game but can still be booked as an in-person experience *** (If you do decide to try this game, give us a shoutout or tag us on social media so we know you heard it from "ESCAPETHEROOMers"!) Disclosure: We thank Puzzle Punks - Dubrovnik Escape Room for comping our tickets for this game. Although a complimentary experience was generously provided, it does not impact our opinion on the review whatsoever. #ESCAPETHEROOmers #AtHomeGames #EscapeRooms #PuzzlePunks #DubrovnikEscape Room #SaveKingsLanding #Lannister #RemoteEscapeRoom #Avatar #Adventure #Treasure #GOT #GameOfThrones #KingsLanding #puzzles

Photos provided by Crack The Code Escape Room Company: Crack The Code Escape Room Game: Crazy Cat Lady Country: USA 🇺🇸 Language: English Type of Game: Remote Escape Room 🗣 Genre: Humor, Mystery Date Played: 3/23/2021 Difficulty (based on players): 3/10 Size of Team: 2-6 Players Time: 60 Minutes Price: $25.00/pp 🆃🅷🅴 🆂🆃🅾🆁🆈 Mabel became a complete mess when she realized that one of her fur babies had gone missing. She desperately needs your help as she loves her cats so much. Can you help her? 🆃🅷🅴 🅶🅰🅼🅴 🅿🅻🅰🆈 With the "Crazy Cat Lady" as a room name, I didn't know what I was getting myself into. Our avatar Beth was spot on with her character. I even had to ask her how many cats she owned after the game, just to make sure that wasn't her natural self. The game was set up in a single room that's staged to look like living room/kitchen. Other than gen-1 locks, the room is pretty much drenched with cat related props. I loved how some simple everyday household products could be used in forms of puzzles. The game was paired with the online inventory system Telescape. We received a 360 view of the room so it was quite easy to spot everything from there. The game also had funny remixes of songs relating to cats playing in the background. My favorite was when the "Friends" song "Smelly Cat" came on and we all just started singing and forgot about the game. This was the first time I've actually kept the music playing throughout the game play. It wasn't too loud and was quite fitting to the theme. Each player has their own control over the music so if you didn't want to hear yours then you can just type "mute" your own. I really enjoyed the flexibility of this music option. 🆃🅷🅴 🅿🆄🆉🆉🅻🅴🆂 The puzzles were on the easy side. With Mabel's bad back and slow movement, we were still able finish the game with 26 minutes and 32 second left. Some puzzles were just search and find and others were quite logical. I think if you are a cat owner, some things might just pop in your head as they are things you would do for your fur babies as a daily routine. We spoke to the owner afterwards and she's going to implement a few more puzzles for groups that would like to be challenged with a harder version of the game. 🅲🅻🅾🆂🅸🅽🅶 🆃🅷🅾🆄🅶🅷🆃🆂 We had an amazing time with Mabel. The only complain would probably be that the happy times was too short. As a team that played many escape rooms before, this room felt a bit too easy. It's definitely a great room to try if you're a beginner or with your kids. One thing that I can promise you though is that there'll definitely be laughter. Oh and one more thing, we heard that there's another Mabel that's equally as great as Beth. If you do happen to bump into "her" on your game day, could you please say hi for us? 𝔼𝕊ℂ𝔸ℙ𝔼𝕋ℍ𝔼ℝ𝕆𝕆𝕄𝕖𝕣𝕤❜ ℙ.𝕀.𝕤❜ 𝕋𝕙𝕠𝕦𝕘𝕙𝕥𝕤 Julene R. Becoming a "Crazy Cat Lady" may be considered a life goal for some people but due to my allergies, the closest I will get to this will be helping Mable find her lost cat remotely in this humorous and fun escape room. Prior to the escape room, we were provided a list of items that could add to your experience – including ideas for costumes, snacks, and drinks. Decked out in cat ears and a fluffy bathrobe, I was ready for the challenge. The major strength of the room was its theme and how it stayed on-brand throughout. It was all about character and Mable’s sense of humor added a lot to the experience. I found the room on the easier side and we completed it in half the allotted time. This room would benefit from with a couple additional puzzles with increased complexity, which would make it more enjoyable for the escape room enthusiasts. The room is quite linear and most of the puzzles are rather one dimensional, which makes the room better for smaller groups (I’d suggest 2-4 people max). The owner, Beth, was extremely open to feedback and I’m hoping that she didn’t lose too much sleep dreaming up some expansion ideas. Overall, Crazy Cat Lady would make a great family fun night! It was truly a “feel good” type of room, which truthfully, we need more of these days. Also – I’ve never talked about a pooper scooper more than I did in this room. Take that as you will. Thanks for the great time, Beth! *** This game can no longer be booked as a remote game but can still be booked as an in-person experience *** (If you do decide to try this experience, give us a shoutout or tag us on social media so we know you heard it from "ESCAPETHEROOMers"!) Disclosure: We thank Crack The Code Escape Room for comping our tickets for this game. Although a complimentary experience was generously provided, it does not impact our opinion on the review whatsoever. #ESCAPETHEROOmers #AtHomeGames #EscapeRooms #CrackTheCodeEscapeRoom #CrazyCatLady #Fun #Mystery #Mission #RemoteEscapeRoom #cats #staunton #virginia #va

Photos provided by District 3 Escape Rooms Company: District 3 Escape Rooms Game: Something Brewing Country: Canada 🇨🇦 Language: English Type of Game: Remote Escape Room 🗣 Genre: Action Date Played: 3/17/2021 Difficulty (based on 3 players): 6.5/10 Size of Team: 2-8 players (Suggested 4-6 players) Time: 60 Minutes Price: CAD $27/pp 🆃🅷🅴 🆂🆃🅾🆁🆈 It's almost New Years Eve. You and your friends decided to go get some coffee before the big celebration. What looked like an ordinary coffee shop is about to become your worst nightmare...Hopefully you'll make the right choices.... 🆃🅷🅴 🅶🅰🅼🅴 🅿🅻🅰🆈 We played this game with a live avatar (David) paired with an online inventory system called Telescape. David was acting as a normal coffee shop employee and welcomed us as his last customers before he could head off to a New Years party. As soon as we started to explore the coffee shop a bit more, David knew he probably wasn't going to make it to that party... Our avatar was humorous and felt like a "Energizer Bunny" throughout the game. We really enjoy the speed as there were quite a lot to do in this room. One special design element in this room that really surprised us (the only other time we saw it was in an escape room in Budapest) was the fact that a major decision during the game could make you play an entirely different second part of the game. The puzzles and your fate completely changed the moment you made that choice. We had the pleasure of playing both sides and I can't tell you which side was my favorite. Telescape worked well with this game as you'll be collecting items along the way and some will need you to interact with them. This made us feel like we were doing the puzzles versus watching the avatar. The set design was also a surprise that we can't reveal much without spoilers so I guess you'll just have to find out for yourself what secrets are hidden within this ordinary coffee shop. 🆃🅷🅴 🅿🆄🆉🆉🅻🅴🆂 There were a lot of puzzles in this game. Don't waste your time looking at the sweets. One thing that we really liked was that we're "informed" at the halfway mark. We were able to gage how quickly we must solve the remaining puzzles. As previously stated, there are two different sets of puzzles in this game. The thing that was great about this room was you were informed clearly on which puzzles were part of your decision and which ones were not. It was great that there were pretty much no red herrings in this room as there's plenty for the players to accomplish already. We did get stumped on a puzzle that you had to kind of use "common sense" to visualize. It would be great if a better clue was given for that puzzle to justify the answer. Other than that, we really enjoyed the creative aspect of the puzzles utilizing everything you would see in a coffee shop and more. My favorite puzzles were probably the "think out of the box" ones and the tactile ones. 🅲🅻🅾🆂🅸🅽🅶 🆃🅷🅾🆄🅶🅷🆃🆂 We were really proud of our badges (as you can see below). We escaped with 80 points, 56:58, and 3 achievements! I was really determined to get that Easter Egg this time as we always forget to leave time for that at the end. If you're able to go to "District 3 Escape Rooms" in person, I would definitely suggest trying out this game. There were a lot of jealousy moments as we're watching David "explore" this room. If you're unable to travel to Canada, try to at least play both choices! I'm pretty sure after the first part you'll still be hungry for more... 𝔼𝕊ℂ𝔸ℙ𝔼𝕋ℍ𝔼ℝ𝕆𝕆𝕄𝕖𝕣𝕤❜ ℙ.𝕀.𝕤❜ 𝕋𝕙𝕠𝕦𝕘𝕙𝕥𝕤 Kay F. Here's my review for Something Brewing based one one side of the choice: Being a Canadian myself, I was very interested to try out one of District 3 Escape Room games that they moved online. In particular, I was intrigued by the theme of ‘Something Brewing’ which was unique and one that I had not seen before. PROS: -Great theme -I loved the character played by our host which added immersion to the game. -There were a lot of secrets to be discovered! -There will come a point in the game where you will need to make a decision which was quite unique to this game, and the first time that I’ve ever seen it done. -Telescape worked well and we as players could click around and interact with some of the elements. -Some creative puzzles, which would have been so cool to do in person. -Don’t forget to find the bonus Easter egg puzzle! CONS: -Can be a bit of clicking back and forth as there were quite a few rooms to go through. Overall, a very well done remote escape room game, and one that I would recommend! (If you do decide to try this game, give us a shoutout or tag us on social media so we know you heard it from "ESCAPETHEROOMers"!) Disclosure: We thank District 3 Escape Room for comping our tickets for their games. Although a complimentary experience was generously provided, it does not impact our opinion on the review whatsoever. #ESCAPETHEROOmers #AtHomeGames #EscapeRooms #District3EscapeRoom #SomethingBrewing #RemoteEscapeRoom #Action #Mystery #athomegame #detective #coffee #coffeelover

Videos/ Photos provided by Trapgame Company: Trapgame Game: Agency 51 Country: Switzerland 🇨🇭 Language: English, French Type of Game: Remote Escape Room 🗣 Genre: Sci-Fi Date Played: 3/16/2021 Difficulty (based on 4 players): 6/10 Size of Team: Up to 6 Players Time: 60 Minutes Price: 160 CHF/ team (Approximately $173 USD) 🆃🅷🅴 🆂🆃🅾🆁🆈 Agency 51 is a top secret government organization in charge of imminent threats from outer space. Recently they've detected an encrypted message stating that the aliens are coming to attack Earth. Your mission is to gather 3 stones that could be used to stop this attack. The human race is depending on you... 🆃🅷🅴 🅶🅰🅼🅴 🅿🅻🅰🆈 This is an online live avatar guided game mixed with prerecorded visuals. Our first mission was to rescue our agent who's currently being locked up in a cell. This part of the game were done digitally and through their own online platform. Most of our communication and submission of the answers were done with a chatbot (managed by the avatar). It was very cool to be able to see the "escape route" as live feed and prerecorded videos. Once the agent escaped, we're able to hop on her spaceship and travel at lightspeed to different countries to search for the stones. Every time when we reached a destination, we would be able to enter a different escape room set design which gave us a sneak peek of their in-person games. This was such a unique concept that we haven't seen anywhere before. There were only 1-2 puzzles at each location and it's exclusive to this online experience so if you were to visit them on site, you would still be able to play these games without spoilers. My favorite set design was the upside down room. Although there was no inventory system, we didn't really need one for this game. One camera gave us an overhead view of the room the agent was in and another was a handheld camera that she used to show us items that needed a closer look. We really enjoyed this set up. 🆃🅷🅴 🅿🆄🆉🆉🅻🅴🆂 The puzzles were quite easy in this game. It's not really a puzzle based game but more about the narrative and the journey. You're merely watching a few mini scenes being put together into a film. In fact, to keep the game at flow, if you're not able to solve the beginning puzzles and the agent was seeing that you're struggling, they'll step in to give you nudges and help you get through to the next step. The main goal of the game is for you to be able to complete this experience. One of our favorite puzzles was a cooperative one that we had to do in the upside down room. I think it's made for this online experience only as I wouldn't see how it would work in real life. 🅲🅻🅾🆂🅸🅽🅶 🆃🅷🅾🆄🅶🅷🆃🆂 Between the digital platform, prerecorded videos and traveling through 4 different physical escape sets, you can tell there has been a lot of hard work that's been put into the design of this game. Our agent did a great job with how quickly she was able to transition from prerecorded to the physical spaces. She's also in character the entire time. We had great time traveling with her in her spaceship. She was such a good sport as we didn't really let her take a breather and just kept going one after another with the destinations. If you love more adventure and less puzzling, this is the game for you. You probably haven't experienced any online game like this one before. 𝔼𝕊ℂ𝔸ℙ𝔼𝕋ℍ𝔼ℝ𝕆𝕆𝕄𝕖𝕣𝕤❜ ℙ.𝕀.𝕤❜ 𝕋𝕙𝕠𝕦𝕘𝕙𝕥𝕤 Paolo F. Another mission completed thanks to Cici and Brandon who allowed me this time to fly to Switzerland and play THE AGENCY 51 of TRAPGAME. This experience was one of the best so far as it is varied, dynamic and fun. The game mixes digital moments (via a dedicated interface and browser searches) with moments on a zoom platform where players interact with an avatar. The riddles are of different difficulty, some easier and more immediate while others more demanding and longer. There is also a cooperative game (one of my favorites) in which all players have to work together. The story, initially perhaps a bit cryptic and nebulous, as the experience progresses, becomes clearer thanks also to the various settings (because they are several different settings). The scenery changes are probably one of the greatest strengths of this experience and so far I have not played anything else that is comparable to this experience in that respect. The avatar was also very good at following our commands and directing us if necessary, with some very ironic moments. If we really want to find a "negative" aspect it could be the fixed price regardless of the number of players that could make the experience seem bit too expensive. However, given the high quality of the experience, I strongly recommend to all lovers of online escape rooms to organize a large enough group and try this experience as soon as possible. A suggestion: if you have the possibility play with two PCs, one for zoom and one for the dedicate interface in order to always have both screens available and not have to open and close them all the time. ______________________________________________________________ Koen D. Pro's: - Great host! - Good use of video in combination with live - Great use of the different escape rooms on location - Nice tech system (enabling camera's and locks) Con's: - Bit of cheesy storyline - Puzzles could be a bit harder *** We regret to inform this game is no longer available for booking but check out other games on their website*** Disclosure: We thank Trapgame for comping our tickets for this game. Although a complimentary experience was generously provided, it does not impact our opinion on the review whatsoever. #ESCAPETHEROOmers #AtHomeGames #EscapeRooms #Trapgame #Agency51 #Scifi #Space #Futuristic #hen #Adventure #Mystery #RemoteEscapeRoom #spy #agent #mission #alien