Game House: Parana Airlines

You’d think that there could be only so many puzzle ideas available in the familiar environment of a plane cabin, but perhaps because it’s a relatively rare setting, each new take on the theme seems to manage a new twist. In this case the freshest and coolest section for me was also the reason this is a three player minimum room.

I’ve seen airplane games that go to considerable lengths to simulate the setting, but while this one is lower tech than that it succeeds in placing you in a convincing environment, in a way that only gets better as it progresses.

Game House’s games are officially playable in English; as usual, take that with a pinch of salt. There’s at least one step where you may need either a bit of basic Spanish knowledge or a helping hand from the host.

As with the other games at this venue, I thought Paraná Airlines deserved to get a higher rating than I’m giving it. The coolest and most memorable aspects of the game relate to the way the set is built and to ways they’ve found to build in moments of immersivity and drama; and they’ve done that very well, making me eager to recommend the rooms. At the same time, the puzzles need to be tightened up a little in various small ways – such as the one here that involved matching things in a clever way, but where some of the things to be matched just didn’t match very well. The puzzle still makes sense and is solvable, but there’s just a bit more guesswork and a bit less satisfaction in the solution.

That said, this is still a cool game well worth catching if you’re visiting Buenos Aires, doubly so if you haven’t previously played an escape room set on a plane.