Room Escape Artist

Solve our Shirts: Escape from the Maze of the Minotaur is included in our recommendation guide for 2-Player Online Escape Games. For more of the best online escape games in this style, check out the recommendation guide.

Update 3/23/21: If you enjoy Solve of Shirts, we hope you’ll check out our interview with creators Anne & Chris Lukeman on The Reality Escape Pod.

Update: If you want to hear more about Solve Our Shirts: Escape from the Maze of the Minotaur back us on Patreon at the “Search Win!” level to get access to a Spoiler’s Club Episode about this game. Reality Escape Pod co-hosts David and Peih-Gee talk all about it with the creators, spoilers and all.

A monster with the body of a man and the face of a puzzle.

Location:  at home

Date Played: December 2020

Team size: 1-4; we recommend 2

Duration: 60-90 minutes

Price: $35-$40 for a single shirt, $50-$60 for the deluxe edition, couples packs also available

REA Reaction

To the best of my knowledge, Escape from the Maze of the Minotaur is the first time that puzzles, cotton, and a bit of polyester have been blended together to create a play-at-home escape game… and it was great fun.

Solve Our Shirts is onto something and I strongly recommend it. The question that you have to answer for yourself is which edition you’re purchasing:

• Standard ($35-40) – the core product
• Deluxe ($50-60) – the core product + a few added props and puzzles
• (Or the couples version of either of these)

My advice: The core product stood firmly on its own. If your budget is tight, this was the main event and you will not feel like you missed out.

If you’re not going to miss the extra $15-20, the premium product added a few good puzzles and a prop that gave me a good laugh, and now sits on my desk.

The couples version is great if the t-shirt design speaks to you and a puzzle solving companion in your life. While we appreciated having two shirts side by side for solving, a second shirt added no additional content.

All options are good options; simply pick the one that speaks to you. I can’t wait for more Solve Our Shirts.

Series Overview

This review only covers details specific to this individual shirt from Solve Our Shirts.

For a detailed explanation of the concept and mechanics, and a general analysis of the entire product line, check out our Solve Our Shirts Overview.

Story

Escape from the Maze of the Minotaur delved into the ancient myth of Theseus, the Labyrinth of Crete, and the half-man/ half-bull monster imprisoned within its walls.

Analysis

The analysis in this section is about the content of Escape from the Maze of the Minotaur. To see our analysis of the structure, refer to our Solve Our Shirts overview.

➕ This shirt packed a lot of quality puzzles, and a lot of puzzle variety, with only one common thread… the thread itself.

➕ This shirt certainly had tricks up its sleeve… and that wasn’t all. We loved the reveals throughout the game.

➕ The narrative was strong and the writing was funny. There was a surprising amount of character to this product.

➖ In one instance, we didn’t fully trust that the action clued was, indeed, what we needed to do. We’re always hesitant to destroy any game material (and no, it wasn’t the shirt) without very explicit instruction.

❓ The aesthetic was… loud. It was artistically designed and eye-catching, though not really our style for everyday wear. The story of Theseus as a block of text on the lower back wasn’t really our first choice for shirts, but it worked well within the confines of the game.

➕/❓ With the deluxe edition, you get a few additional props (no more wearables) and about 20-30 minutes more gameplay. We enjoyed this bonus puzzling, and especially enjoyed a certain relic, but we didn’t feel it added specifically to the Solve Our Shirts experience. It was more of the same great puzzling without the novelty of the shirt. Of note, you won’t feel its potential presence (or lack thereof) taunting you if you don’t purchase it, which we appreciated. This is all to say, you’re not missing out if you skip purchasing deluxe… and it won’t disappoint if you do purchase it.

Buy your copy of CU Adventures’ Escape from the Maze of the Minotaur, and tell them that the Room Escape Artist sent you.

Disclosure: CU Adventures provided a sample for review.