Exeter, Jun 2017
Pharaoh’s Anger is the first of the three Mission Escape games in Exeter we played. Their take on the common Egyptian tomb theme is a game structured as a sequential series of chambers with chunky wooden puzzles.
The decor is very much the MDF style of construction, made to look Egyptian with a paint job and some stencilled hieroglyphics. It’s also unabashed about its use of numeric padlocks, plastic and other flagrant anachronisms up to and including a key with a tag on it for a local builders’ merchant.
However, if I sound a bit sniffy in my description there, I really enjoyed the solidity of the build and the hands-on nature of most of the puzzles. Simple clues painted on the walls mix with plenty of mechanical components and a co-operative physical task, with two moments in particular really adding to the experience.
Carefully skirting spoilers, partway through I was getting ready to be thoroughly disapproving of what appeared to be an annoying task mainly designed to waste time… but my opinion mellowed when we found the solution and realised it was more reasonable than it first seemed.
The style of puzzle will mostly be bread and butter to experienced teams, who will likely finish well ahead of the time limit. But even finishing it around the thirty minute mark, we’d had enough fun to not feel short-changed. 
