Room Escape Artist

B.R.U.C.E. Saves Christmas is a point-and-click adventure game created by Bewilder Box in Brighton, England.

Format

Style of Play: point-and-click adventure game

Required Equipment: computer with internet connection

Recommended Team Size: 2-4

Play Time: Listed as approximately 60-90 minutes, but no limit. Our reviewers played significantly faster.

Price: £20 per team

Booking: purchase and play at your leisure

Description

This is a Christmas-themed multiplayer point-and-click game with video clip cutscenes. When one player solves a puzzle, it is solved for all players. Due to the collaborative nature of the design, each player needs their own device and this game cannot be played solo.

Hivemind Review Scale

Matthew Stein’s Reaction

B.R.U.C.E. Saves Christmas is a multiplayer point-and-click with excellent production value, a clear and engaging UI, polished puzzle design, and professional voice acting. The game is playable on demand and progress is synchronized across all players’ devices, making this an easy top pick for families seeking casual, lighthearted holiday entertainment. I appreciated certain features which helped us connect with our teammates – we could virtually “high five” each other, and the interface listed a specific player’s username when they solved a puzzle, elevating the multiplayer interactions beyond the anonymous frenzy of most point-and-click games. The puzzle content is fairly light and experienced enthusiasts will likely breeze through this game. Since there was a substantial amount of lovely original artwork and framing story, I wish the interactive elements were structured with more process or linearity to better pace our progress, though I doubt this would be a problem for the target audience of families. I think the value is fully there, especially for family or non-enthusiast audiences, or for anyone willing to drop £20 for a cute, smooth game.

Joel Smileypeacefun Reaction

In this point-and-click adventure, it’s all up to you to find Santa, who’s been kidnapped, just in time for Christmas.

At its best, the instructions for the game were quite detailed and the story introduction was nice too. The puzzle inputs had a great variety where you could click, shift, and drag and drop items.

At its worst, the puzzles were very standard, nothing regular escape game players haven’t seen before. Also, I’m not sure how beneficial the one-hour timer is in this game, even when the game doesn’t end after a timeout. It made me not take in the neat graphics as much and it made lengthy process puzzles look more tedious than usual.

I accidentally wanted to play this game as only one player because I didn’t read through the website. If they could create an actual solo player version, that be awesome.

Theresa W’s Reaction

The B.R.U.C.E. Project games (review of part 1) never disappoint, and the holiday game is no exception. Spreading holiday cheer and missed high-5’s, this game is filled to the brim with quirky puzzles and interactions. The game was by no means difficult yet was still fun for a group of enthusiasts. (It didn’t take us very long, but was fun nonetheless.) This game would be perfect for you to bring along some young puzzlers or unexperienced players! The website did an awesome job syncing up audio/ video for all players, and not allowing players with a better connection to start the game early.

Brett Kuehner’s Reaction

• + Good holiday humor and playful style
• + Excellent video/ audio production
• + Fun bonus items to find
• – Occasional technical glitches, fixed by reloading the page
• +/- Puzzles on the easier side, better for novices or players looking for relaxed play
• – For some puzzles, a player’s solving was not visible on screen to other players, but the solution would affect all players. It would have been nice to have a more collaborative solving style.
• + The framing concept of eliminating suspects provided some structure
• – Final puzzle ended a bit abruptly
• + After the puzzles were solved, there was a funny final section

Disclosure: Bewilder Box provided the Hivemind reviewers with a complimentary play.