Jason’s childhood.
Location: Rijswijk, The Netherlands
Date Played: May 12, 2018
Team size: up to 6; we recommend 3-4
Duration: 60 minutes
Price: €125 – €135 per group
Ticketing: Private
REA Reaction
Jason’s Curse was deceiving. We weren’t expecting an immersive world when we entered an escape room in an office building… but an immersive world was what we found. When we entered the game, it seemed like we were playing a traditional escape room… but it gave way to something entirely unexpected.
Escape Room Rijswijk did something truly special with Jason’s Curse. You’ll just have to play it to see what it is. If you’re anywhere nearby, I’d strongly encourage you to pay Jason a visit.
Who is this for?
- Adventure seekers
- Story seekers
- Puzzle lovers
- Friday the 13th fans
- Any experience level
Why play?
- Fun puzzles
- Surprising construction… They really do something special here.
Story
Jason’s Curse functioned as a prequel to the Friday the 13th movies, taking us through Jason’s childhood. As one would expect, it was grim.
Setting
Built in an office building, Jason’s Curse wove us through a series of different spaces over two floors, each with a different look and feel. While it may have been in an office building, I forgot that’s where we were until we reemerged at the end of the game. The gamespace was compelling and tense, but never grotesque or horrific.
Gameplay
Escape Room Rijswijk’s Jason’s Curse was a standard escape room with a higher level of difficulty.
Core gameplay revolved around searching and puzzling.
Analysis
+ Jason’s Curse started off as a more typical escape room… and escalated from there. This provided a good onramp for the experience.
– One early prop was wearing in crucial places.
+ Jason’s Curse surprised us with a brilliantly crafted spatial transition. Escape Room Rijswijk used a trick we’d been waiting for and we were thrilled to see it expertly executed.
+ Escape Room Rijswijk included a good mix of puzzles that generally forced collaboration. We enjoyed the puzzle variety.
– Too many of the puzzles relied on a single prop that was small and hard to share. We would have preferred the cluing to these puzzles be built into the sets.
– There was a lot of to read. We could get by with some amount of skimming, but to fully understand everything, at least one player needed to bury their nose in a book. In an immersive game, it was frustrating to be glued to the written page.
– By solving the puzzles, we got a sense of Jason’s traumatic childhood, but we didn’t pick up on enough details to understand the complete picture.
+ Our gamemaster walked us through the entire story afterward, something Escape Room Rijswijk offers to every team, to help us understand how it all fit together. They also take each team back through the game to take another look. We were eager to take them up on this offer.
+ Jason’s Curse escalated. It shifted into a more intense experience with more challenging puzzles, more explicit story, and more dramatic sets.
? Jason’s Curse was intense, but not heavy horror as its subject matter would suggest.
+ The story of Jason’s Curse played out like well-thought-out Friday the 13th fan fiction.
Tips for Visiting
- Drive one hour from Amsterdam city center.
- Players must be able to walk up and down stairs.
- At least 1 player must be able to crawl into a small space.
Book your hour with Escape Room Rijswijk’s Jason’s Curse, and tell them that the Room Escape Artist sent you.
Disclosure: Escape Room Rijswijk comped our tickets for this game.
