Experience Dresden: Huntingdon

Is Huntingdon an escape room? In most respects it is, but the emphasis and the experience are different enough that you should try hard not to bring to it any preconceptions about how escape rooms normally work.

Where many rooms introduce the story with a perfunctory video, our host went to some lengths to set the scene using verbal descriptions, setting it up with considerable effort made to give a more or less plausible backstory for how we, specifically, as real people, could have ended up in this situation. That situation involves being lost in the woods in Japan and finding a mysterious cabin; though unlike many cabins in the woods I’ve escaped from, this one doesn’t involve any spooky fear elements.

The most important way in which Huntingdon differs from ‘normal’ escape rooms is that there’s an actor, interaction with whom is a major part of the experience, and what you do determines which of several different endings you get. Solving puzzles isn’t always possible with the items available to you; you may need to interact with the other characters to make progress. And puzzles are rigorously ‘real-world’, without any ‘escape room logic’ – the solutions are intended to be things that it would make sense to do if you were in the situation in real life.

This was carefully explained to us in the briefing, and was a useful warning, though left us in some uncertainty as to what we should and should not attempt. Uncertainty was a big part of the game in other ways too. At several points we were unsure whether we could actually make progress with what we had or needed to interact with one of the characters; and then we were also hesitant about whether we should interact with particular characters, out of concerns about their motives.

That aspect of Huntingdon reminded me of a Choose Your Own Adventure book: you need to make important decisions that will determine the story outcome, with only partial or ambiguous information on which to make them. To what extent you enjoy that may depend on your willingness to not worry too much about getting the ‘best’ ending and to just go with the flow of the story,

We had plenty of fun playing Huntingdon, particularly with the interactions, while being ambivalent about the format. My feeling was that the aspects that made it unique also made it less satisfying as a puzzle-solving experience. But then it’s intended as, and works best as, an interactive story.

I have some reservations about it even on those terms. The design principles seem intended to make a story-led experience that’s as immersive as possible. However, the theatrical elements felt for me like play-acting that was entertaining but which reduced immersion rather than deepening it. The aim for strict realism translated into an increased use of written materials (albeit combined with some very nice physical tasks). It strives admirably for realism, but unavoidably remains an artificial game environment, and for me it thereby weakens some of the elements I enjoy in escape rooms.

Still, it’s a distinctive and original game that has some smart ‘out of the box’ puzzles. For the most part we handled them atrociously, but they were refreshingly clever compared to the sort of puzzle that, say, involves placing a statue in a statue-shaped indent. Our host managed in English with energy and commitment, though I suspect the experience is stronger in German. Ultimately the degree to which you’re likely to enjoy this depends on how keen you are on immersive theatre style interaction and improvisation, and whether you enjoy narrative uncertainty.