School For SpiesPuzzle Break - OnlineEscape roomVirtual Developed as a pivot during the early days of shelter-in-place, I thought this game knocked it out of the park! I think that when I envisioned a virtual escape room experience, my mind darted to one of two things — either a VR-esque self-contained game experience OR watching a GM with a GoPro walk through a physical room while you speak commands (remember those early pandemic days..?). But this game was so well thought out — the files and pages you interacted with online were crafted to mix using their own documentation paired with the internet (i.e. Google Maps, for instance) in tandem to piece everything together and figure out the appropriate solution. I found it to be an ingenious way of incorporating the use of Internet resources that are already there and integrating them into some of the room’s clues, which strongly stayed on theme the entire time. I was very impressed!
HackfiltrationPuzzle Break - OnlineEscape roomVirtual This was a really fun game! Developed as a pivot during the peak shelter-in-place era, this game really did get you to think creatively and collaborate with your teams on Zoom. The puzzles were a creative mix of scavenger hunt, decoding certain documents and assets, as well as a hilariously throwback element at the end that proved to be far more challenging than it seemed (in a good way)!
Escape from the Lockdown: The Strange VillageReal Escape Game - OnlineEscape roomVirtual I found this to be an interesting premise, but the execution left me wanting something more. More immersive? More entertaining? I’m not quite sure. While I understand that the experience is a virtual adaptation of things meant to be done in-person with paper and pencil, among other analog physical puzzles, I had higher expectations for what video clips would bring to the table. It felt more tedious than engaging to play through all the video clips to understand different characters and their quirks. (I will say that language barrier may have contributed to this, as there is a lot of fatigue that comes with replaying dozens of clips and looking for clues while having to read subtitles that may be translated in a way that doesn’t quite set up the proper nuances). Overall, my friend and I found it to be onerous and had to take several breaks between rounds of videos in order to take a step back, refresh, and reset our headspace.
