Room Escape Artist

A New Hope

Location: at home

Date Played: March 20, 2018

Team size: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯; we recommend  2-4

Duration: as long as it takes to solve the puzzles

Price: $24.99 per month for a monthly subscription

REA Reaction

In On the Run, Box 4, we worked through quality puzzles. Although it was cipher-heavy, we mostly enjoyed solving these. What Box 4 lost in story clarity it made up for in puzzling.

Who is this for?

• Story seekers
• Armchair detectives
• Players who have completed the previous On The Run boxes

Why play?

• You can play at home
• Because you’re already invested in the story
• The series got more puzzley in Box 4

Story

In Box 4, On The Run visited Australia. In this episode we encountered a significant plot twist that introduced a potential new ally.

Setup

Based purely on its components, The Australia box was fairly bland. Everything was paper- or website-based. The main prop was a deck of cards.

From a puzzle standpoint, however… things were more exciting…

Gameplay

On the Run Box 4 had a lot more puzzle content than the previous boxes, with a wide variety of things to solve.

This box also introduced a blacklight. More on that in a moment.

Analysis

+ I really enjoyed puzzling through Box 4. Up until this point, my commitment to On The Run had been predicated on a curiosity about this story. The trajectory of the series, however, had been leaning considerably more puzzley with each box, and this one had a lot to chew on.

– One of the ciphers was fun, but overstayed its welcome.

– Another nifty cipher had a little bit of an ambiguity problem.

– At this point in the story, there were so many open plot threads that I’m not really sure that I was even following all of them.

+ The arrival of a blacklight made me cringe because I didn’t want to have to blacklight every sheet of paper that had come in all the previous boxes or would come in the future boxes. My gut reaction was unnecessary because Breakout included a persistent game mechanic that subtly indicated when and where to use the blacklight.

+/- However, there was no way for me to be completely sure that I could trust this blacklight indication mechanic… so I blacklit everything to be certain. To Breakout’s credit, my extra effort was unnecessary.

Tips for Playing

• Items from the previous boxes were required for solving On the Run, Box 4.
• If you get stuck playing Dispatch, try the following resources:
  • Email Bailey Detectives for help (help@baileydetectives.com)
  • Sign into the Dispatch Slack
  • Visit the Breakout Dispatch’s Members Facebook Group

Subscribe to Dispatch by Breakout’s On the Run, and tell them that the Room Escape Artist sent you.

Full disclosure: Dispatch by Breakout provided a complementary subscription.

(If you purchase via our link, you will help support Room Escape Artist as we will receive a very small percentage of the sale.)