Category Archives: Room in a box

The Panic Room: The Book of Grimm

Room-in-a-box, Jan 2021

In addition to their fairly huge range of online games, The Panic Room now have a considerable library of puzzle books. Some of them, including this one, are also available as self-print PDFs with the same content, which makes the books fairly close … (more)

Unlock!: Mission #07

Room-in-a-box, Mar 2021

In Unlock box sets the third game is normally the hardest; while it’s not always the best of the three it often is, and I’d say Mission #07 is the strongest of the Epic Adventures set. The deck of cards for this game is split into two halves with dif… (more)

Unlock!: The Dragon’s Seven Tests

Room-in-a-box, Mar 2021

Once every seven years the famous Master Li accepts new disciples to the Temple of the Gold Dragons – and that premise should give you an idea of this game’s theming, layered with absolutely every oriental stereotype you can think of, where inscrutab… (more)

Unlock!: The Seventh Screening

Room-in-a-box, Mar 2021

The Seventh Screening – name chosen purely to shoehorn in the number ‘7’, to celebrate this being Unlock’s seventh box – is a tribute to the classic age of Hammer horror movies, and jumps between you as a cinema-goer and you as the movie’s protagonis… (more)

The Panic Room: The Exorcism of Isabelle

Online, Sep 2020

Having produced quite an array of online escape games since March, the remarkably prolific Panic Room are now bringing out a range of escape game puzzle books, of which Isabelle is one. This format makes me realise there’s a hazy dividing line betwee… (more)

Bluefish Games: The Curious Stairs of Mr. Hincks

Room-in-a-box, Sep 2020

After the Curious Elevator and the Curious Stairs, I have to hope that Team Bluefish release a third box named Curious Dumbwaiter or perhaps Curious Fire Escape. Actually, I hope they release more regardless of what they call it, because Elevator was… (more)

Bluefish Games: The Curious Elevator of Mr. Hincks

Room-in-a-box, Sep 2020

Curious Elevator is a combination of an online game with a physical box of puzzles delivered through the post. Each in the linear sequence of puzzles requires information from the website in addition to at least one of the items from the box. Each st… (more)

The Escapement: The Network

Online, May 2020

In this recent rush of online games, The Network is an exception, because it’s so very physical. There are important elements delivered in your browser, including the audio and video that provide the story, but each of its three stages are primarily … (more)

Escape Tales: Low Memory

Room-in-a-box, Feb 2020

Low Memory is the follow-up to The Awakening, one of the most interesting and successful home escape games released yet. Like its predecessor, it uses a fairly complex system of action tokens in place of a time limit to restrict how thoroughly you ca… (more)

Unlock!: Lost in the Time Warp!

Room-in-a-box, Jan 2020

Last in the Timeless Adventures box, Time Warp is marked as the top difficulty level – although in my experience the difference in ‘official’ difficulty between Unlock! games is relatively small, and outweighed by how well or otherwise you click with… (more)