Room Escape Artist

The Pharaoh’s Tomb is a point-and-click game created by Wolf Escape Games.

Format

Style of Play:

• Point-and-click
• Web-based inventory system
• Includes video segments

Who is it For?

• Adventure seekers
• Story seekers
• Puzzle lovers
• Any experience level

Required Equipment: Computer with internet connection

Recommended Team Size: 2-4

Play Time: about 120 minutes (no game clock)

Price: $35

Booking: purchase and play at your leisure

Description

Similarly to the other games from Wolf Escape Games, one player opens the game in a browser tab and is given clear instructions on how to stream the game to other players. Remote players access via browser a “virtual backpack” where items and information are collected so each player can review them individually. The host player is the only one that can interact with the game itself, so communication over video chat is necessary.

The game itself is mostly point-and-click to find puzzles and clues, with some typing answers in as well. After puzzles are solved, there are (really good) cinematics that act as scene transitions.

Tammy McLeod’s Reaction

I’ve played tons of online escape games, and The Pharaoh’s Tomb stood out. Great story, strong voice acting, and surprisingly polished animation and music. Its production values far exceeded the norm for the genre. The puzzles included some hefty logic challenges that required real teamwork to solve efficiently. The interface was intuitive and well-designed for group play, though the experience definitely benefits from having a host player who’s good at taking input from the rest of the team.

Brett Kuehner’s Reaction

• + Excellent onboarding made it easy to get remote players set up
• + “Backpack” mechanism allowed remote players to view items and documents so that everyone could contribute to the puzzle solving
• + The voice acting, audio, and cinematics are even better than in the already-terrific previous games from Wolf Escape
• – Navigation was confusing in a few locations
• + Puzzles were generally well-clued and nicely themed
• – Puzzle types felt less varied in this game than in previous games
• + Good puzzle entry mechanics – once we knew the answer, it was easy to enter
• + New puzzle tracker mechanism gave a good sense of progress and indication of how much gameplay remained
• + We learned the word “opisometer” as a side-effect of playing the game
• + Entertaining story with a few twists along the way
• + Appropriately dramatic ending

Andrew Reynolds’ Reaction

Wolf Escape Games has delivered another winner with their newest game, The Pharaoh’s Tomb. They have a formula that works for them and they stick to it, making little improvements along the way. The Pharaoh’s Tomb returned to using Sherlock and Watson as the protagonists in a way that didn’t feel cliche. Like their previous Sherlock game (Phantom’s Hour) many of the puzzles had a deduction aspect that felt right in line with the fictional detective.

The Pharaoh’s Tomb continued the tradition of Wolf Escape Games providing us with stellar visuals and audio. The introductory and interstitial cutscenes were visually pleasing and engaging, and fit very well into the action itself. They even included a travel montage that felt and looked perfectly in place within the world of the game.

An upgrade that we noticed as we played was in the entry method of some of our solutions. More than once we commented on how well-fit the solution entry was to a puzzle. It doesn’t seem like much, but having a variety of well considered input methods makes a game feel more thought out. And with Wolf Escape Games being so good the way they are, any improvements just take something already good and makes it even better.