My Name is Jamie is a real-life escape room livestreamed and played through an avatar game created by THE BASEMENT in Los Angeles.
Format
Style of Play: real-life escape room livestreamed and played through an avatar
Required Equipment: computer with an internet connection
Recommended Team Size: 2-6
Play Time: 45 minutes
Price: $20 per person
Booking: book online for a specific time slot. The bookings are all public with a maximum of 6 players, so you could be playing with strangers unless you buy all 6 tickets.
Description
This is a live escape room played via a live actor. You log in with Zoom to their custom interface, which will include a live feed to the actor in the room, a map, an inventory system, and a whiteboard for taking notes.
Update: Legendary Quests has rebranded as Project Avatar and this game is now called First Mission.
Project Avatar is an unusual avatar-based escape room livestream, designed specifically for online play, created by Legendary Quests in the Ukraine.
Format
Style of Play: avatar-based livestream of a real room, but designed specifically for online play
Required Equipment: computer with internet connection; pen and paper also recommended
Recommended Team Size: 2-5
Play Time: about 2 hours
Price: €200 for up to 8 players
Booking: book online for a specific time slot
Description
You are controlling a silent avatar through an environment that encourages video game-like play. You will see a first-person POV with some HUD-type overlays showing status information and maps. While the avatar does not speak, they will respond nonverbally to the commands you give.
A World of Magic is an escape game played through an avatar, created by Mystery Motel Murcia in Murcia, Spain.
Format
Style of Play: escape room designed specifically to be played virtually through an avatar
Required Equipment: computer with internet connection
Recommended Team Size: 2-4
Play Time: 45 minutes
Price: €25-45 depending on the number of devices
Booking: book online for a specific time slot
Description
In A World of Magic, you connect through Zoom and direct the gamemaster / avatar to explore the room and manipulate objects on your behalf to solve the puzzles.
Potter’s Escape fell into a structure we’ve seen before in this new world of remote escape room play. It was an online experience with one puzzle per room, requiring you to solve that puzzle before advancing to the next. This experience did have a storyline that provided some light continuity between each puzzle, a welcome change to what some other similar experiences have offered. One major plus was that only limited outside knowledge was required for this experience, though one puzzle seemed like a bit of a backwards stretch. Escape Room Herndon plans to add more challenges to this adventure, and I’ll be returning to check out what they add in the coming weeks.
If your quarantine involves abundant free time and you never tire of puzzles, you could include this in your play list. However, there wasn’t much novel about this experience, and I sometimes felt like I was just going through motions to finish it.
The story reads as CliffsNotes for Harry Potter, and prior knowledge might help you solve puzzles faster. A few puzzles are fun; however, many require more process than aha, yet simultaneously lack sufficient guidance to understand the goal. Fortunately, both issues improve later in the game. Ultimately, I didn’t regret playing, but better options exist.
Cara Mandel’s Reaction
⭐⭐
Rating: 2 out of 3.
This was a charming sequence of puzzles. I played along with my friends Ciara and Rachel over Zoom, using Photoshop to manipulate the puzzles. The instructions recommend you print puzzles out, which may be prohibitive for some folks. I don’t think you could easily solve a couple of them without the use of either a printer or photo editing software. I would also caution players that there are spoiler alerts as to the plot line of the first Harry Potter book / film. However, if you’re familiar with the plot and love that wizard as much as we do, this will be a delightful story to play.
Peih Gee Law’s Reaction
⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 3 out of 3.
This was a delightful, puzzling romp through the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. The puzzles, answers, images and narrative were all thematically on point and really helped keep you immersed in the Wizarding World. There was a good mix of puzzles, nothing that experienced puzzlers haven’t seen before, but they were still fun to solve. I think for a casual player, these puzzles would be a bit challenging, however, they are clued well and very satisfying. Overall I think this was a very charming game with decent production value.
Format Description
This was a linear sequence of self-contained puzzles presented through a series of web pages. Players are expected to solve a puzzle, enter the answer into a validation box, and then progress onto the next web page. As the game recommends, you do need to print out some of the puzzles.
Price: $32-35 per player for public booking; private booking $35-$60 each depending on team size
Ticketing: Public or private
Emergency Exit Rating: [A+] No Lock
Physical Restraints: [A+] No Physical Restraints
REA Reaction
Patient 17 felt like an old-school escape room at heart, but the production design and attention to narrative elevated it above the average escape room.
The relatively complex story (especially for a crime-themed escape room) subtly followed us through the experience to its conclusion. Breaking Point also developed a strong sense of place through the story, set, and puzzles. Patient 17 felt ominous and confining, but never claustrophobic or scary.
The puzzles were mostly standard escape room puzzles, with nothing particularly flashy to offer experienced players. However, the game felt intuitive and flowed naturally. Some ambiguity slowed us down at first, but once we got going, we were in the zone until the end.
The Secret at Whitmore Estate is Breaking Point’s newer and stronger game, but Patient 17 is also worth playing while you’re there.
Image via Breaking Point Escape Rooms
Who is this for?
Story seekers
Thriller fans
Any experience level
Why play?
Creepy, isolating atmosphere
Thematic puzzling
The feeling of being part of a larger story
Story
An undercover agent investigating a doctor with connections to several missing women appeared to have blown her cover. We had been sent in to attempt a rescue.
Image via Breaking Point Escape Rooms
Setting
Patient 17 took place in a dingy-looking hospital with an appropriately creepy vibe. Foreboding props and dark corners lent the game an ominous feeling, without ever veering towards scary.
Image via Breaking Point Escape Rooms
Gameplay
Breaking Point Escape Rooms’ Patient 17 was a standard escape room with a moderate level of difficulty.
Core gameplay revolved around observing, puzzling, and making connections.
Analysis
➕ Breaking Point’s intro videos were among the best we’ve seen. The introduction for Patient 17 provided backstory that gave our mission urgency and emotional heft.
➕ The detailed production design made the escape room feel like a creepy hospital. The gamespace felt confining, but alluded to a larger outside world. This level of detail drew us into the story and heightened our sense of urgency.
Image via Breaking Point Escape Rooms
➖ Patient 17 could have used stronger gating early in the game. With so many puzzle elements available at the start, we struggled for a while before making real progress.
➕ The puzzling mostly involved standard escape room puzzles that coordinated well with the setting and the story. Solving them felt like making progress towards our goal.
➕ We were especially delighted when we discovered how to make use of one everyday item that initially felt too unbounded to contain a puzzle.
➖ We kept returning to a certain interesting-looking object that ended up having no bearing on the game. Replacing that object with a puzzle element or a less compelling prop would make it less of a red herring.
➖ The ending felt somewhat abrupt. We found ourselves wishing for a more exciting final scene.
➕ We appreciated the attention to narrative that threaded throughout Patient 17. After the intro, we encountered more information through the set and puzzles that enhanced our understanding of the story world without requiring excessive reading. The story felt original enough to stick in our minds while solving.
Tips For Visiting
There is ample parking at the venue.
Book your hour with Breaking Point Escape Rooms’ Patient 17, and tell them that the Room Escape Artist sent you.
