Erreurs dans l’espace
Location: at home
Date Played: January 18 2021
Team size: we recommend 1-family
Duration: 15-60 minutes
Price: about $10
REA Reaction
Trapped in Space was a sloppy product that had lots of potential.
The Escape Game Adventure series originates in France, and the English version is a translation. Over the past few installments, there have been minor issues such as typos or odd phrasing, but it hasn’t presented any meaningful issues.
In this installment there were two translation/ localization issues that felt like critical failures:
- A full puzzle that output its solution in French
- A puzzle that rendered an image that likely won’t be clear to American children due to cultural nuance
To top it all off, many of the puzzles in this Trapped in Space played a little too loosely with cluing for my liking.
I really like the Escape Game Adventure series, but I categorically cannot recommend Trapped in Space in its current form. Play literally any other book in this product line.
Story
We traveled with Dooz to the year 3144 to rescue a team of space explorers whose ship had been disabled after an attack by an alien species.
Analysis
The analysis in this section is about the content of Trapped in Space. To see our analysis of the structure, refer to our Escape Game Adventure Books overview.
➕ Trapped in Space’s story was grand, fun, and the kind of storytelling that would have spoken to me as a child.
➕ The art in Trapped in Space was great. It captured the epic space opera vibe brilliantly.
➕ /➖ The puzzles were a mixed bag of fairly common puzzle types. While they all solved fine, there were a number of moments where it felt like the cluing was tenuous at best.
➖ One puzzle was never translated into English. The surrounding text was in English, but the puzzle itself output a French solution. If you’re playing this with your kid… maybe teach them to count to 30 in French first?
➖ Another lesser, but still serious issue, was a puzzle that output a solution in a decidedly French form. In France, 7’s and Z’s are crossed, which is not common in the United States, and will likely make one puzzle needlessly confusing.
Tips For Players
- Space Requirements: a small table
- Required Gear: pencil, scissors
Buy your copy of Trapped in Space, and tell them that the Room Escape Artist sent you.
Disclosure: we received a media sample for review.
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