Room Escape Artist

Rooms of Realities is a virtual reality escape room experience.

Format

Style of Play:

• VR

Who is it For?

• Adventure seekers
• Any experience level

Required Equipment: VR Headset

Recommended Team Size: 1-4

Play Time: No timers. Playing through any individual chapter could take anywhere from 5 to 30 minutes. There are 9 chapters, set in 3 different scenarios.

Price: $17.99

Booking: purchase and play at your leisure

Description

This is a VR game that you can play standing or seated, with movement and teleport options. You can play solo or join friends via a room code.

Andrew Reynolds’ Reaction

Rooms of Realities was a fun interactive virtual reality escape room experience. It included 3 rooms, each divided into 3 chapters of varying length – some long and involved, some surprisingly short, and most right in the sweet spot in the middle. The 3 themes were familiar to anyone who has played escape rooms for even a little while: asylum, Egypt, and submarine (though this submarine is less U-boat and more 20,000 Leagues).

Having played both single player and multiplayer – Rooms of Realities supports up to 4 players – I can say that the multiplayer mode is where the game shined. Playing with a teammate changed the structure of some of the puzzles so that more hands were needed to complete tasks. However, the nature of VR meant that when the number of active puzzles was whittled down to 1, it sometimes felt like a waiting game for the player(s) not actively involved in solving. It was hard to have multiple players physically interacting with a puzzle at one time, though the built-in voice chat did allow for discussion.

Rooms of Realities got a few things very, very right. The developers made great use of lighting cues to indicate where we should be looking when a puzzle was solved. Some of the final solves had a special and unexpected twist when playing multiplayer. Finally, finishing all 3 chapters of a theme dropped you into a ‘yay room’ full of props and screenshot opportunities. These were great places to hang out in and celebrate.

Ryan Brady’s Reaction

Rooms of Realities had an impressive level of technical polish and I had a decent time puzzling and searching. The sets were impressive, but the effects and sound package didn’t come to the same level, so solves lacked some of the punch they could have otherwise had.

Solo play is a completely reasonable option, but Rooms of Realities was obviously designed for multiplayer play, and I think it would be optimally experienced that way. The narrative is very light throughout; story seekers will want to look elsewhere. Overall, though I wouldn’t quite give it top marks, this is a title I would be comfortable recommending to most players.

Cara Mandel’s Reaction

Rooms of Realities was an enjoyable multiplayer escape room-like experience. I tried playing through several levels both as single player and multiplayer and definitely enjoyed it more with another person. The puzzles range in difficulty from very straightforward to slightly complex, but at no point did I feel overly challenged. If anything, the difficulty stemmed from slightly tedious puzzle mechanics. I did find it delightful that each adventure ended with a photo op complete with props. I haven’t seen that done in VR, before and it really simulated that feeling of completing an escape room with friends. This is a good entry level game for folks who don’t have a ton of VR experience, but want to dip their toe into VR gaming. For the price point and amount of gameplay, this game felt worth its cost.