Claustrophobia: Dream Factory (Online, Moscow, Russia)

Claustrophobia invited us to play another large scale Zoom game called "Dream Factory". Like their first game we played (World Domination), there were six teams (four-five players per team) but this time each team represented a different movie studio. Each studio plotted towards achieving the biggest box office hits. This was more of a strategic game and not a traditional escape room as there were no puzzles to solve. We also teamed up with Room Escape Artist Hive Mind reviewers because of the scale of the game (see their review here). 

In every round of this game, each studio had to choose the genre of movie they wanted to produce, attempt to sign a celebrity to play the star, invest in advertising, tap into the paparazzi or buy marketing forecasts for industry intel.  Teams would meet in Zoom breakout rooms to discuss their selections in secret and then at the end of each of the five rounds, all teams would meet up and present their ideas.

Here is a breakdown of what each team had to be aware of.

• Movie Stars: Each round you had to submit a single bid for one of four celebrities. If you were outbid, your movie would have no star and be adversely affected in terms of ticket sales. We asked if we could bid on two stars but were told that we probably shouldn't.
• Genre: Each round, a genre was also chosen and the box office forecasts for each genre could be known ahead of time if money was spent on a marketing forecast. The tricky part was that the box office dollars were split equally by all studios that had the same genre so it could be better to choose a less popular theme in order to get the full earnings potential.
• Paparazzi: Some celebrities would be caught in some scandals, thus affecting their movie box office performance. A studio could avoid this actor if they paid money for some intel.
• Advertising: This somehow affected your revenue as well but it wasn't quite clear as to how much of a difference it made.

Highlights and Memorable Moments

Every round, each team had to present their film and it was fun but also quite stressful to come up with anything coherent in as little as eight minutes! At the end of the presentations, teams voted for what they thought was the best movie of the round and a score was presented. The goal of this game really wasn't to "win" but more to have fun with some ridiculous story telling. Once a studio had a box office lead, we noticed that they never got any votes for best movie, despite getting the most laughs or having the most clever punch lines. This was one of those games where everyone could team up and slow down the leader by simply not awarding them any votes. Nonetheless, this experience provided a ton of laughs and was highly dependent on the personalities of the individuals who participated. 

One of the movie hits was an extremely inappropriate, but hilarious NC-17 rated blockbuster that was concocted by some dirty minds.

Really amazing group of people!

Room For Improvement

While there was a scoring system in the form of box office revenue, it wasn't quite clear how this was affected by the different elements in the game. How bad was it to not have a movie star or to not put any resources into advertising? We didn't have a clue. There was also some text that was still in Russian but we were able to Google translate it pretty quickly. 

Another aspect that should be considered was that shy people found themselves standing back as an observer. Perhaps a game mechanic that made everyone present something could have mitigated this?

From Claustrophobia

Overall Thoughts

I always appreciate the large style online games (+30 players) as it's incredibly difficult to craft an activity where so many people, for the most part, can actively participate in. Dream Factory's free flowing structure opened the door to whatever was in the minds of its participants which led to something entertaining and hilarious. It was almost like watching an Improv show where all the participants were winners. We recommend playing this game with people who don't take themselves too seriously and who perhaps have a tad of silliness in them.

• Difficulty: Just have fun!
• Number of players: 12-35 (we recommend 24)
• Duration:  1.5-2 hours
• Overall Rating: ★★★★

Disclosure: Claustrophobia comped the tickets for this game

2020 Online Escape Room Recap

One of the many fine online games played this year!

Over the course of this crazy year, we had the opportunity to play a few more online escape rooms, in addition to some great ones like "The Truth About Edith" and "The Ruins" earlier this year. Here is our recap of new games played

Play-At-Home Escape Room Recap

Lost Escape: The Steampunk Adventure (Lithuania)

This was a physical room that was available for online play via an avatar who was extremely friendly and welcoming. Prior to playing the game, we were sent an email with some images that provided a closer look at some elements in the actual room. While the gameplay was standard for a linear escape room, the contraptions and steampunk devices were just wonderful to see and "play" with. It was one of those rooms that would have been great to play in person because of all of the tactile puzzles (no padlocks) and cool gadgets to fiddle around with. There were some nice special effects (again, wish we saw them in person) and you could the passion that the creators had in producing a nicely polished game. 

The Steampunk Adventure game transports you into an immersive world with tons of delightful and interactive mechanical devices. To top it off, we had a superb Avatar that perfectly helped us along the way and we can't wait to play their next adventure!

• Set Design: Great!
• Difficulty: Medium
• Price: €10/person
• Number of players: Up to 6 (we recommend 2-3)
• Duration: 60 minutes
• Overall Rating: ★★★★★

Agent November: Virtual X-Caper (London, UK)

Based on previous experiences, I believe that games in London always have great actors. This could be due to either of the following reasons: Actors are London's greatest export / Anyone with a British accent sounds prestigious. Virtual X-Caper was no exception as the actor in this game was brilliant in a comedic and whimsical fashion. The game starts off with you seeing/hearing everything that your avatar sees and they did a great job in making us feel that we were in his head.

As you might have guessed, the highlight of this game was the actor interaction that took place in what was otherwise a basic set and a common spy theme. Sometimes we would laugh as our spy proceeded to be silly while in the back of our minds we wanted to shout out "we don't have time for this you fool!". There were a decent amount of padlocks to open, paper puzzles to solve, some meta video games nods and some nice touches of real life elements. While this game might be a bit on the lighter side for puzzlers, I think that anyone with a good sense of humor will appreciate the game for what it is. I tend to prefer immersion over puzzles and I quite thoroughly enjoyed this experience because of the puns and the witty character at hand. 

If you are looking for a lighthearted, witty and genuinely hilarious online escape room, you should definitely play Virtual X-Caper! Can we have more of Agent November please?

• Set Design: Basic
• Difficulty: Medium
• Price: ~$20/person
• Number of players: Up to 6 (we recommend 2-3)
• Duration: 60 minutes
• Overall Rating: ★★★★★

Omescape : Pursuit of The Assassin Artist (Sunnyvale, CA)

This is another really fascinating online only game where we had a video game-like mechanic of having "multiple lives". The decisions we made could lead to our Avatar's death and the game would start over from scratch and we'd have to repeat our actions in order to advance again. The element of role-playing was big so if you are into that, you would definitely like this game. While the puzzles were not overly complex, there were a few times where we had to do things that are not permissible in an actual escape room. Overall, the unique format and the great dynamics of having two actors makes this a great room if you could swallow the price tag of $190/game. 

Pursuit of The Assassin Artist delivers a top of class experience with a novel game mechanic that will reset your expectations of an online escape room!

• Difficulty: Medium
• Price: $190! flat fee per game 
• Number of players: 2-8, (we recommend 2-3)
• Duration: 90 minutes
• Overall Rating: ★★★★★

60out : Orion's Ridiculous Revenge (Los Angeles, CA)

This was a free game offered by 60out and was a mix of a point-and-click game with cut scenes that were used to move the story along. There was a live game master that helped with setting everything up but was for the most part not part of the game. At first when I heard about the format, I had my doubts but the game was well done and funny if you are ok with some raunchy humor. There were a lot of adult-only references so keep that in mind if you are thinking about playing this game. We had a lot of laughs and your enjoyment will be a lot more dependent on who you play even with compared to other games. At times, we could fast tracked our way through or half-heartedly play along with some of the sillier elements but we were all fully engaged!

• Difficulty: Easy
• Price: Was free but now $15/person
• Number of players: Up to 8, (we recommend 2-3)
• Duration: 60 minutes
• Overall Rating: ★★★★★

Society of Curiosities : Mysterious Map Heist (Online/Physical)

We received an envelope in the mail that brought us on a treasure hunt for. The contents of the envelope were some paper puzzles and some clues to help find an artifact of some sort. What was really clever about this game was how they integrated real life concepts that blurred the line between game play and reality. One of the most gratifying aspects involved interacting with one of the characters in the game via actual text messaging. We didn't know if we were texting a bot or an actual person so we tried some off topic messages and it really felt like there was a real person on the other end. If we can't tell the difference, then does it really matter?

• Difficulty: Medium
• Price: $30-$40/person 
• Number of players: 2-8, (we recommend 2-3)
• Duration: 60 minutes
• Overall Rating: ★★★★

Image from societyofcuriosities.com

The Escape Game: Truth Seekers (Nashville, TN)

This game was a modified version of The Escape Game's "The Heist" room and a tie-in to a new show, "Truth Seekers, starring Simon Pegg and Nick Frost on Amazon Prime. Just like their other game (Ruins) that we played, we had a live avatar who took directions from the group and played through a physical room. The same 360 degree room view and inventory was used which really helped with any sort of motion sickness that one might experience. Our avatar was helpful and very professional and The Escape Game seems to always excel in this aspect. Overall, the game was pretty short (32 minutes) but a great entry into the world of online escape rooms.

• Set Design: Fine 
• Difficulty: Easy
• Price: Free
• # of Players: 2-8 (we recommend 2-3)
• Duration: 45 minutes
• Overall Rating: ★★★★

Wild Hare Escapes: Serf's Quest (Online Only)

This retro-style point-and-click game was a parody of games like King's Quest. The 8-bit look along with the old school feeling were spot on. One of the highlights of this game was all the puns which gave the team a few good laughs. One room for improvement would be to automate hints with text boxes as opposed to having a live game master read them out to you. We were two remote groups that were essentially playing the game independently so any tasks that one group did, the other would have to backtrack and do the same.  This format would be better suited as a single player/connection game.  

• Set Design: Nice 8-bit graphics
• Difficulty: Medium
• Price: $25/person
• Number of players: Up to 10 (we recommend 2-3 with one connection)
• Duration: 60 minutes
• Overall Rating: N/A, not an online escape room

 

The Room VR: A Dark Matter (Oculus Quest) 

This multiple award winning VR game was extremely polished and clean. So far, this game was the closest a virtual game could get in terms of replicating the feel of a physical escape room. While the old school theme wasn't one of my favorite, the game play was so gratifying and smooth that I kept getting sucked back into it.

• Set Design: Amazing VR sets
• Difficulty: Medium
• Price: $30
• Number of players: 1
• Duration: 4-5 hours
• Overall Rating: ★★★★★

Other Online Rooms Previously Played

• The Truth About Edith Review: A top notch online only game that is highly recommended!
• Ruins Review: Another top game that we also want to play in person.

We hope this post helps out anyone who is looking for some online escape rooms to play!

Note that some of the above games may have been complimentary to our team.