Room Escape Artist

Don’t forget to close the door.

Location:  Bridgeport, Connecticut

Date Played: December 7, 2024

Team size: up to 10; we recommend 3-4

Duration: 60 minutes

Price: $30 per player

Ticketing: Private

Accessibility Consideration:  This game is wheelchair accessible.

Emergency Exit Rating: [A+] No Lock

Physical Restraints: [A+] No Physical Restraints

REA Reaction

The gameplay in Breathless was unusual… and, oh boy, did we overthink everything in this game.

We’ve been told plenty of times over the years, “don’t overthink things,” before going into a game… and we’re pretty good at avoiding overthinking. Not in Breathless. The truth is that Breathless is one of – if not the single most –straightforward games that we have ever played. If you do what the game tells you to do, there are essentially no puzzles in it. It was a game of connect the dots, built around one really interesting mechanic.

The other thing that made it unusual: the laboratory door. Whenever we opened it, time sped up. A lot. So we had to strategize about what information we needed, where it was, and how to minimize opening the door. This mechanic made Breathless interesting. It’s rare to find a truly novel mechanic, and part of me wishes that Mind Factory Escape Games dug more deeply into that design space. There was a lot of room to make the door itself more interesting and build more puzzles and gameplay around the mechanic. It’s a clever enough idea that it could support a whole game’s worth of content.

Breathless was the first game from Mind Factory Escape Games, and it catered to their first players, who just weren’t puzzle people. I commend a company who knows their market, and tries to make something that will bring new players into the industry. While the game design had flaws, it also showed a lot of potential for creativity and ingenuity. That said, for more experienced escape room players, I can easily recommend choosing Invasion over Breathless… but I have hope that additional puzzle content will make its way into Breathless. I also expect bigger things from Mind Factory Escape Games as they continue to level up their work.

Who is this for?

• Sci-fi fans
• Novice puzzlers
• Any experience level

Why play?

• The lab door game mechanic was truly innovative

Story

As Mind Factory agents, we were on a mission to infiltrate a biohazard lab where something bad was happening and eliminate the threat.

Setting

We began our mission outside the lab, where various equipment and personnel information would help us gain entry into the lab itself. The setting included various tubes and machinery. Plus when we looked up, we could tell that the hazard was intensifying.

Gameplay

Mind Factory Escape Games’ Breathless was a standard escape room, with a moderate level of difficulty.

The gameplay revolved around observing, making connections, and following instructions. There was a lot to do, but not a lot to solve.

Analysis

➕/➖ Mind Factory Escape Games built a whole fictional world around this game. As we played we learned a good deal about the people who worked here. We appreciated all the thought and backstory of this world. That said, the intro video had way too much exposition – all of which had to be read, as there was no voiceover – and it was unclear what would be important to the game.

➕ The gameplay was clearly clued. The first act showed us how the room wanted to be played. Once we were in the lab itself, we understood how to approach the gameplay. It was logical and fair.

➖/❓ That said, there weren’t really any puzzles to solve. We found the “follow the instructions” nature of the gameplay meant for less satisfying solves. And a warning to the puzzlers: we sometimes got tripped up on the straightforwardness. (We hear they will soon be adding more puzzley puzzles for experienced players, and these improvements sound promising.)

➖ We spent too much of the game focused on a runbook and a sluggish computer with frustrating UI. While both of these interfaces adequately delivered information, they weren’t fun to interact with. We would have appreciated deriving information from the more exciting props in the lab.

➖ Breathless was dark. We used handheld flashlights the entire game, even once we had turned on more light.

➖ Considering a certain handheld prop we received early on, and compounded by the lack of light, we found ourselves constantly searching for anything illuminating we might have missed.

➕ The highlight of Breathless was the lab door gameplay mechanic. Whenever the door was open, we would lose air pressure at a quicker rate. In practice, this meant the game clock sped up. With this door mechanic, we couldn’t freely roam around, searching for information we might have missed or forgotten about. We had to strategically enter and exit the lab, so as not to lose precious time. This was an innovative and unusual challenge.

Tips For Visiting

• There is a parking lot.

Book your hour with Mind Factory Escape Games’ Breathless, and tell them that the Room Escape Artist sent you.

Disclosure: Mind Factory Escape Games comped our tickets for this game.