Reviews Archives - Room Escape Artist

Nomis Piy – Graffiti [Hivemind Review]

19 August 20223 August 2022 by REA Hivemind, posted in Hivemind, Nomis Piy

Graffiti is a puzzle book created by Nomis Piy in Singapore.

Sample illustrated pages of Graffiti, printed in color, with cartoon illustrations.

Format

Style of Play:

Puzzle book

Who is it For?

Puzzle lovers
Best for players with at least some experience

Required Equipment: computer with internet connection, pen and paper, scissors

Recommended Team Size: 1-2

Play Time: There’s no clock. Expect 4-6 hours of play, perhaps more.

Price: S$25 (roughly 18.41 USD) plus shipping from Singapore

Booking: purchase and play at your leisure

Description

This is a puzzle book. Most of the book needs to be solved in sequential order, but there is one section that can be done in any order. Once you solve a puzzle, you enter the answer on a webpage, and it will verify if you are correct or not. Sometimes it will give you additional information for a later puzzle. There is a hint page that you access from one of the early pages online.

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Paper Adventures – Great Space Escape [Kids’ Product Review]

18 August 202213 August 2022 by Sarah Mendez, posted in Paper Adventures, Products, Reviews, Tabletop Escape Game

Mvemjsun and beyond!

Location: at home

Date Played: June 25, 2022

Team size: 1-5; we recommend 1-3

Duration: 30-60 minutes

Price: about $15

REA Reaction

Great Space Escape was a solid escape room kit for kids that dabbled with immersive elements amidst a simple yet fun story. Although the setup took longer than advertised (an hour vs. 20 minutes), the resulting 3D papercrafts were the highlight of the game, mimicking thematic objects in the narrative and helping the game come to life. Even though we don’t live in a space ship, the narrative and accompanying movement through our home helped the kids imagine that we were in one. One puzzle particularly delighted my kids by incorporating knowledge of our home (“HOW DID THEY KNOW???”).

The activities in this kit seemed well-designed for the average frustration tolerance of children. They required simple connections that yielded attainable aha moments. Kids with a lot of puzzling experience might find these puzzles to be on the simpler side, but they were still thematically engaging with some satisfying interactive elements.

A paper robot and alien along with other paper puzzle components.

As the gamemaster, I was pleased with the gameplay enhancements that Paper Adventures had made beyond their last game, Auntie’s Manor. The quintessential “Game on a Page” quick reference sheet that summarizes all key elements of gamemastering now contains the solutions, and almost all of the cutting has been offloaded to the setup phase. Also, from a hosting perspective, the story was more interesting with more opportunities to embellish the experience if you have the energy and interest. All in all, this was a lovely little game for both the players and gamemaster alike.

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Niagara Escapement – End of the Bleeping World [Review]

16 August 202211 August 2022 by Kate Wastl, posted in Buffalo / Niagara, Escape City Buffalo, Niagara Escapement, Reviews

Puzzle Preppers

Location: Niagara Falls, Ontario Canada

Date Played: May 1, 2022

Team Size: 3-6; we recommend 3-4

Duration: 60 minutes

Price: $25 CAD per player

Ticketing: Private

Emergency Exit Rating: [A+] No Lock

Physical Restraints: [A+] No Physical Restraints

REA Reaction

The word that came to mind when I walked out of End of the Bleeping World was just… classic. Most refreshing was the momentum that carried us through the plot, lining up opportunities for players to score successes in frequent and approachable intervals as we sought solace from catastrophe.

Designed by the same individual who was the mastermind behind Dead Air (a now-closed hallmark of escape rooms in the northeast), End of the Bleeping World was another example of rock-solid game design. This serious scenario with a lighthearted tone was a joy to work through. The puzzles were incredibly fair, the aha moments were particularly delightful, and the non-linear space itself was set up in such a way that enabled players to have their own range of motion, both physically and in discovery moments.

Inside of a brick and metal bunker with a pneumatic tube system.

If you are playing in the Buffalo/ Niagara/ Southern Ontario region and you don’t play this game (alongside the 2-person Easy Bake Coven), you are doing yourself a disservice. Suitable for beginners and entertaining for enthusiasts, End of the Bleeping World was a great example of intelligent, approachable gameplay really hitting a home run.

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Red Fox Escapes – The Body Shop [Review]

15 August 202215 August 2022 by Lisa Spira, posted in Boston, Massachusetts, New England, Red Fox Escapes, Reviews

Be prepared… for mayhem

Location: Cambridge, MA

Date Played: July 10, 2022

Team size: 2-6; we recommend 3-5

Duration: 60 minutes

Price: from $40 per player for teams of 4 to $36 per player for teams of 6-10

Ticketing: Private

Emergency Exit Rating: [A+] No Lock

Physical Restraints: [A+] No Physical Restraints

REA Reaction

With Body Shop, Red Fox Escapes took a previously great game (Outside the Box’s The Body Shop), and enhanced it into a truly stellar experience.

The first act aesthetically remained largely the same, but Red Fox Escapes carefully nested it into their own building, minding details and making thoughtful adjustments. With the second act, the changes were more dramatic.

Red Fox changed the storyline and reworked the puzzle flow to support the new, more coherent narrative. We found the new flow – in both story and gameplay – to be a smooth ride. We especially enjoyed when this game leaned into Girl Scouting, but with a twist.

I spent many years as a Girl Scout, earning badges for my sashes, and it was fun to don one again and solve my way through this strange and humorous Girl Scouts parody.

While the game is lightly horror (and I wouldn’t bring any current Girl Scouts of badge-earning age), it was more funny than scary, and “light horror” is more of a nod to prop content and storyline – nothing terror-inducing.

A body shop interior with a motorcycle being worked on.

In its new home at Red Fox Escapes, Body Shop is accessible for Boston locals and visitors. It’s a must-play addition to any Boston escape room list.

Who is this for?

Adventure seekers
Story seekers
Puzzle lovers
Scenery snobs
Scouts or former Scouts
Fans of light horror
Any experience level

Why play?

An unusual theme
The hilarious rebranded girl scout badges
A killer reveal

Story

We had been regular Girl Scouts earning our Automotive Engineering badges at the local auto body shop. We didn’t realize that a shadow Girl Scout troop was running their nefarious operations out of this very shop. Now, they wanted us to join their ranks, and they’d invited us there to prove we were worthy of inclusion in their secret society.

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Escape Academy [Hivemind Review]

13 August 202213 August 2022 by REA Hivemind, posted in Hivemind

Escape Academy is a point-and-click escape game. The developer is Coin Crew Games and the publisher is iam8bit, Skybound Games.

Illustrated headmaster character says, "If an escape from the traditional path piques your interest... climb aboard."

Format

Style of Play:

Online native experience (can NOT be played IRL)
Play on demand
Point-and-click

Who is it For?

Story seekers
Puzzle lovers
Any experience level… but it helps to have experience controlling characters on your platform of choice

Required Equipment: Steam on PC, Xbox, PS4/PS5, or Epic Games

Recommended Team Size: 1-2

Play Time: 4-8 hours of gameplay. Each level is typically between 15-30 minutes.

Price: $19.99 for base game, additional $14.99 for the season pass with 2 planned DLCs; base game available with subscription on XBox Gamepass

Booking: purchase and play at your leisure

Description

A simple jaunt to an escape room turned into an epic quest to join the Escape Academy, pass its tests, and unlock the secrets of its faculty. To do this, we had to complete 11 specific tasks given to us by the faculty, where each task translated into an entire escape room. Each “room” was a self-contained open world where we could travel in all directions, inspect designated hot spots, collect items, and interact with standard and not-so-standard escape room mechanisms like combination locks, keypads, chainsaws, and so forth. Each room had a time “limit” to give urgency to the activity, but you could choose to extend the timer when it expired.

There are both solo and multiplayer options.