Room Escape Artist

Adventure Escape Mysteries is a point-and-click game available in app stores and on Steam, developed and published by Haiku Games.

Format

Style of Play:

• Point-and-click

Who is it For?

• Story seekers
• Puzzle lovers
• Any experience level

Required Equipment: mobile device or computer with an internet connection

In some cases, pen and paper could be useful, but all puzzles could be solved without writing instruments.

Recommended Team Size: 1

Play Time: This varies by story, which have different difficulty levels and different numbers of chapters. Our reviewers spent between 2.5 – 5 hours.

Price: Free; with in-app purchases to unlock chapters faster or to purchase stars for hints

Booking: purchase and play at your leisure

Description

You can download Adventure Escape Mysteries in the app stores on both Android and Apple as well as on Steam. So you either play on your phone or your computer. There are currently over 30 different stories that you can play through on the app, which vary in theme and difficulty level.

Between chapters in any given story, you need to either wait out a timer or pay to skip the wait time. Some bonus chapters are also behind a paywall, but the majority of the game can be played without such purchases.

Players are provided with two free keys to unlock new chapters, which become available again after 3 hours (or you can watch ads, each of which deducts 30 minutes from the clock; 6 ads gets you an immediate key). One key is needed to unlock each chapter. Alternatively, players can pay $4.99 to unlock all chapters immediately.

Hints are available by using stars. Players start with some stars when starting the app and can gain more stars by finding them in the game and by completing each chapter. Stars carry over from one game to another.

One reviewer writes: for reference, I started Vanishing Act with about 30 carryover stars, didn’t need to use any stars during Vanishing Act, and now after playing Vanishing Act plus two more of the games for fun (both of which I also completed without needing hints), I am up to 87 stars total. Each hint costs about 5-10 stars. You can also watch ads to get stars or pay for stars (i.e., 50 stars is $6.99). I have never paid for stars.

Christina Rohlf’s Reaction

Vanishing Act (Beginner Difficulty)

I chose to play Vanishing Act, one of the Detective Kate mysteries with six chapters and a beginner level difficulty. I have played two other Detective Kate games from Adventure Escape Mysteries previously, each with a different story, but featuring Detective Kate as the main protagonist. I found the primary storyline, which began with trying to find Kate’s boyfriend’s (Murphy) missing wallet, to be engaging and interesting. The story had good tension, fun revelations, and a complete story arc. Additionally, by playing previous Detective Kate games I was able to pick up on an underlying storyline with Kate and Murphy that continued from the other games.

As expected for a beginner level mystery, the gameplay and puzzles were on the easier side throughout the game. However, the six chapters were packed with content each taking me between 45-60 minutes to solve. Gameplay included some point-and-click hidden object and object combination mechanisms with visual, logic, and manipulation puzzles. I found all of the puzzles to be well designed, straight forward, and logical.

Between the engaging story, fun puzzles, and free price tag I would highly recommend the Adventure Escape Mysteries to escape room enthusiasts looking for a mobile game that captures escape room aspects.

Joel Smileypeacefun Reaction

Canine Cases (Medium Difficulty)

Within the Adventure Escape Mysteries app, there are many stories to choose from. I played Canine Cases, where Alex and her dog Nitro are a dynamic detective duo and solve a case about a famous model.

At its best, the system itself is free of charge and holds a ton of different escape games with a variety of themes, difficulty, and available languages. The story I chose felt polished and the puzzles were streamlined. Although it started off easy, as the chapters of this medium-level game went on, things got a bit trickier, which I liked. Lastly, the actions I had to take were cute and made sense.

At its worst, I found the dialogue popups to be a bit too frequent, so that it interrupted the gameplay. Additionally, the mini games presented appeared to be often similar in type. There was a chance for more puzzle diversity.

Depending on the game you want to play, some (bonus) chapters require you to pay or wait it out until you can continue. However, it’s important to note that you’re never forced to pay for something.

Cindi S’ Reaction

Death Dodgers (Advanced Difficulty)

Death Dodgers is one of the newer point-and-click games on the Adventure Escape Mysteries app for mobile devices. The game itself is free, though you can pay a small amount to buy stars, which can be used for hints if you get stuck. The story was surprisingly involved, and I found myself interested to see what would happen next and how it would resolve. Colorful, detailed scenes were fun to search around, although a few of the items were so tiny on my phone, I had to click around the screen randomly until I found what I needed.

As an advanced difficulty game, several puzzles involved extensive logic steps to complete, similar to a series of chess moves. One mistake, and you would have to restart the puzzle. Though challenging, they became repetitive and a bit frustrating. But the point-and-click part of the experience was engaging and fun. Overall, I enjoyed playing Death Dodgers, and would recommend Adventure Escape Mysteries to point-and-click fans.