Crime Runners: Beneath Vienna

In the early days of the pandemic, Crime Runners were one of the first companies to release a fully digital escape game; and while there are now plenty of games that share its point-n-click style of gameplay, at that time it was quite unusual. Beneath Vienna is a direct sequel, using the same platform and play style and continuing the story from where the other left off. You don’t need to have played the first to dive into this one, though for the full back story you’d need to have played the venue’s in-person games too.

I really liked the first game’s photo-realistic visuals. Beneath Vienna takes that to the next level, creating a highly atmospheric underground maze to explore. The comparison I used before was to the computer game Myst, and that remains a good description of it, though in a grittier environment – there is the same sense of exploration conveyed through transitions between different fixed-perspective viewpoints. What you lose from not having a free-floating camera is made up for by the extra detail that allows. Clickable hotspots open close-ups or alter the game world; some elements (including padlocks and keypads) are fully interactive.

As before you can play this with teammates in other locations, with the game keeping you in sync. There are some caveats there: if one person clicks too many times in quick succession it can take a confusing moment for the other player(s) to get caught up; and the interactive drag and drop puzzles had clear sync issues for us. We played it right at launch so that may have since improved, but the game opened with a series of pointers for avoiding problems with multiplayer mode, so I suspect it’s constrained by hard limitations of the underlying platform. Once we knew what to watch out for it wasn’t a problem, but for this reason the game may work best single player or with everyone in the same location using one screen.

As for the meat of the game: like its predecessor, it’s full of smart, well-designed puzzles, with solutions that are logical and non-obvious. They also tend to tie into the story and the virtual environment, furthering the immersion. Both games have a clear narrative, but where the first one left you with a cliffhanger just as things were getting interesting, this one picks up those story threads and carries them through to a final conclusion. I’d recommend playing both games back to back for the best experience, but this second game alone is substantial, and considerably longer than the first.

The need to repeatedly navigate back and forth through the same sequence of virtual locations might become unwelcome for some; though again that’s something that’d be smoother when playing in a single location.

Although there are far more point ‘n’ click digital escape games available now than in spring 2020, Beneath Vienna was one I particularly liked. Even though there were some technical issues with multiplayer mode, I was happy to overlook them – because it successfully blends story, atmosphere and puzzles to great effect, making it a sizeable and satisfying game.