Room Escape Artist

Update 11/22/22: If you enjoy Mission: Mars, we hope you’ll check out our interview with The Escape Game CEO and Co-Founder Mark Flint on The Reality Escape Pod.

Mission: Mars is one of our recommendations for a great escape room in Nashville. Here is our recommendation guide for other great escape rooms in Nashville.

We have liftoff.

Location: Orlando, FL

Date played: November 11, 2016

Team size: 2-8; we recommend 3-5

Duration: 60 minutes

Price: $35 per ticket

Note: we played Mission: Mars late in its beta-testing period.

Story & setting

While landing on Mars, our spacecraft sustained significant damage. In order to return home, we needed to repair the compromised spaceship and launch off martian soil.

Mission: Mars looked sharp. It was a sturdy, polished, futuristic spacecraft. It took us to a different world.

The game was essentially a mission to complete, but the Escape Game Orlando crafted a compelling backstory for the narrative.

Puzzles

This was a modular escape room: orderly repair of each section of the ship. The puzzles fit into this staged structure. Each repair offered a different set of challenges.

Mission: Mars’ puzzles relied on making connections between various tactile inputs. Nothing felt even remotely paper-based.

Standouts

The polished set made every interaction in Mission: Mars that much more enjoyable.

The technology delivered in a way that the interactions felt immensely satisfying.

The Escape Game Orlando created some particularly entertaining set pieces. These weren’t necessarily mission crucial, but added to the fun of the world.

They minded the details and there were more than a few.

Shortcomings

The spacecraft was lockless, but couldn’t always deliver the feedback of a physical lock. There were times when we took an action that unlocked something seemingly unrelated and had no real way of knowing that we had triggered a thing to happen.

Mission: Mars escalated nicely, but it didn’t deliver enough of an emotional roller coaster. There was room for the game to leave more of an impact on us than it did.

Should I play The Escape Game Orlando’s Mission: Mars?

We played Mission: Mars in late beta, before it opened to the public. Although this is not our preference, we don’t find ourselves in Orlando all that often, so we opted to experience the game. The Escape Game Orlando was still iterating on a few of the puzzles and accounting for some of the shortcomings described above. We don’t know precisely how Mission: Mars will change before it officially launches, but we know that it will.

Mission: Mars was a tactile, technological, mission-based sci-fi adventure. It successfully combined game flow with a thrilling environment.

Beginners will be pretty shocked by what Mission: Mars has to offer but should enjoy it nonetheless. Experienced players will likely find plenty to enjoy as well.

Book your hour with The Escape Game Orlando’s Mission: Mars, and tell them that the Room Escape Artist sent you.

Full disclosure: The Escape Game Orlando comped our tickets for this game.