Category: Hivemind

Escape.Anywhere: Before Moonrise is a real-life escape room livestreamed through an avatar, created by Escape New Haven in New Haven, CT.

Format

Style of Play: real-life escape room livestreamed through an avatar

Required Equipment: computer with internet connection

Recommended Team Size: 2-5

Play Time: 60 minutes

Price: $89 for the entire group (online playthrough)

Booking: Book online for a specific time slot. Note, Escape New Haven is now offering both in-person and online playthroughs of this game.

This escape room has the option for a “regular” mode or a “hard” mode, which adds a couple of additional puzzles.

Description

This is played over Zoom. The gamemaster shows you around the room via a camera. Photos of things you notice in the room appear in your web inventory for reference.

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Temporal Tangle Online is a recreation of a real-life escape room as a digital point-and-click adventure game created by Next Level Escape in Sydney, Australia.

Format

Style of Play: real-life escape room converted to digital play as a point-and-click adventure game

Required Equipment: computer with internet connection

The game can be computer-intensive, so I recommend running their free demo before purchasing the game.

Recommended Team Size: 1-3

Play Time: 1-2 hours, depending how leisurely you choose to play

Price: $35 AUD (about $24 USD)

Booking: purchase and play at your leisure

Description

It looks like you’re in a real escape room, but interaction is browser-based point-and-click, and works like any other computer-based escape rooms that you might have played before. The interactions are streamlined and don’t require fiddly positioning.

It is a single-player game, but lends itself to co-playing. Several friends could each play on their own systems at the same time and share information or discuss the game via whatever voice or video chat they prefer.

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Global Dominance is an online social deduction game for remote play, created by Claustrophobia in Moscow, Russia.

Format

Style of Play: social deduction game

Required Equipment: computer with internet connection

Recommended Team Size: 30 players (6 teams of 5 players each)

Play Time: 2 hours

Price: sliding scale between $5-$10 for 4-50 players

Booking: book online for a specific time slot

Description

Our large group of 30 players was split up into 6 teams (USA, Germany, Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea). The game took place over 6 rounds, each round representing a year in gameplay. During a round we were sent by the host into our own national group chats, where we analyzed the situation and assigned resources to develop our cities, improve the environment, develop nuclear weapons, build nuclear shields, spy on other countries, sanction other countries, or launch our missiles at a city.

We were also permitted to have the host send one of our people as an ambassador to a different country’s private Zoom breakout room where we could discuss and negotiate.

To conclude a round, each team filled out a Google Form that committed our resources and decisions. At the end of each round we were brought back into the main room all together to see how things played out.

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Pentargo Quarantine is a digital game created by Audivio Studios in Catalunya, Spain.

Format

Style of Play: light puzzle hunt

Required Equipment: computer with internet connection

Although the game instructions say you need a Whatsapp account, we did not need one to play.

Recommended Team Size: 2-4

Play Time: about 2.5 – 3 hours

Price: $2.50 per person

Booking: purchase and play at your leisure either solo or by collaborating with remote teammates through Skype, Facetime, Zoom, etc. (by screensharing the game or playing with separate instances of the game and discussing)

Description

You receive a stream of simulated text messages to advance the story and provide puzzle information, sometimes with audio and video clips. Some puzzles require external websites and online tools.

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