Author Archives: escapethereview

Escape Tales: Childen of the Wyrmwoods

Room-in-a-box, May 2021

Escape Tales don’t do things by halves. Children of Wyrmwoods, the third game in the series, doubles down on the style of the earlier games in pretty much every way – even more story! even longer game time! even more possible endings! For fans of the… (more)

Unlock!: Secret Mission On Jedha

Room-in-a-box, Apr 2021

Having been rebels and independent smugglers in the first two games, this third one puts you on the side of the bad guys, as an undercover Imperial agent tracking down a crate of valuable minerals. This includes the unusual feature of needing to peri… (more)

Unlock!: An Unforeseen Delay

Room-in-a-box, Apr 2021

In the second of Unlock’s Star Wars games you are a smuggler attempting to escape from imprisonment on an Imperial cruiser. Like the first, this is definitely a game designed for beginners.

Also like the first, it successfully conveys an action mov… (more)

Unlock!: Escape From Hoth

Room-in-a-box, Apr 2021

The first thing to say about Escape From Hoth is that it’s not intended for enthusiasts. All three of the games in Unlock’s Star Wars box are easier than their usual standard, and this is the simplest of the lot. Presumably since they were anticipati… (more)

Unlock!: Around the World in 80 Minutes

Room-in-a-box, Apr 2021

Based on Jules Verne’s novel, you do indeed have 80 minutes to solve this one rather than the standard 60 minutes, so it fits Unlock’s usual pattern of having the third game in a box be longer and more difficult. In many of their other box sets the t… (more)

Unlock!: Professor Noside’s Animal-O-Matic

Room-in-a-box, Apr 2021

Professor Noside, Unlock’s recurring villain, is back for a fourth game; this time, instead of trying to foil his latest plot, you’re helping extract him from a predicament of his own making, after an accident with his latest Animal-o-matic invention… (more)

Unlock!: In The Clutches of Hades

Room-in-a-box, Apr 2021

Where I’ve disliked Unlock games before, it’s pretty much always been due to confusing puzzles or overly harsh penalty-giving. In The Clutches Of Hades doesn’t particularly suffer from either of those problems, but managed to put me off it through th… (more)

66 Minuten: Showdown

Online, Mar 2021

The list of avatar games that have actually been created for that format, rather than built for physical play then converted through necessity, is exceedingly short; but the release of Showdown extends that list by one. And like some of the others on… (more)

KW Escapes: Twister

Online, Feb 2021

Canadian company KW Escapes were one of the early pioneers of the avatar format, and although they switched back to in-person games only for a while, ongoing lockdowns mean another chance to play their games remotely, including the newly adapted Twis… (more)

Immersia: The Piccadilly Cabaret

Online, Jan 2021

To the extent that the still very young genre of avatar escape rooms has settled on a ‘standard, recommended’ approach, Immersia are following that approach closely: Zoom for the video call, an initial orientation to make sure players know what they’… (more)