Online Escape Room Review– Virtual Escaping
As part of my series of reviews of escape rooms, I’m going to review a company that specializes in online escape rooms. Virtual Escaping produces several themed games that puzzle fans can play whenever they like. Unlike some virtual escape room, you don’t have to set an appointment, you just have to purchase a voucher for the game of your choice. You can play alone or on a team of six (actually, more people can play if they share a computer). There’s a flat rate for the games– you pay the same amount whether there’s one player or six.
There are five games at Virtual Escaping, with one on the way. Artifact Isle, is a treasure hunt featuring a lost diary that takes you to a puzzle-filled deserted tropical island. Detention takes you to a mysterious dream world when you doze off during punishment at school. Expedition North Pole is set in a polar laboratory where you must discover a secret behind the research. The Saloon revolves around a Wild West adventure, and Underground Murder has you solve a crime on the subway. Merlin’s Castle, a magical adventure, is coming soon. Some of the games will take more time than others (Merlin’s Castle is set to be the shortest at sixty minutes, others range from seventy-five to one hundred minutes. The puzzles range from easy to challenging. There’s a built-in clue guide in the games– if one gets really stuck, one can get hints and then the answers to the puzzles.
I have played two of the games, Artifact Isle and Expedition North Pole. Artifact Isle was a fun collection of puzzles. The game requires the player to jump back and forth around the island, which means that different players can have very different images on their screens at any given points. Moving around can be time-consuming, and perhaps a little tedious, but once you get into the rhythm of the game, you can figure out the logic behind the puzzles pretty easily. I needed to use a couple of hints early on just to get into the minds of the game developers, but after that point my team and I were able to sail through the puzzles with few problems. There was one glitch in the game, where we had the right answer, but for whatever reason, it didn’t take, so we had to force it by using the clue system to move us forward. Otherwise, it was a fun, relaxing puzzle experience that we were able to solve in much less than the prescribed amount of time.
Expedition North Pole was much more challenging. The gameplay was simpler, and far more of the puzzles involve mathematics. I found it to be a much more frustrating experience, though we were still able to solve the game in time with plenty of hints. It required close reading of a journal, and certain items on the screen required you to click one of a very limited number of pixels. My advice is to save this one until you play at least one or two of the other rooms, and to be prepared for more number-related puzzles.
The graphics in Artifact Isle are decent– nothing super-realistic, but certainly on a par with the puzzle computer games I played in the 1990’s, probably a few steps up, really. Some of the beach scenes are quite nice to look at, and there’s some decent mood-setting lighting in the cave scenes. The Expedition North Pole graphics are a lot more basic, nothing mind-blowing, and are more early-1990’s computer game level.
If you play as a team, communication is critical. You can connect via video, but as you’re looking at different things much of the time, and sometimes it can be disconcerting when one of your teammates snatches up an item and puts it in your inventory before you can even get a good look at it. My advice, take notes and always tell your peers what you’re doing before you do it.
Fans of collaborative puzzle games should give Virtual Escaping a shot. If you’re interested in playing a game from Virtual Escaping, please click this link: https://virtualescaping.com/?via=chris. It’s a special link designed just for me as part of their affiliate program. I’ll get a 30% commission on any games you purchase from their site if you use this link, so if you’re interested, please make sure to use the link with ?via=chris the end of the URL.
Thanks, and happy playing!
–Chris Chan
Chris Chan’s second Funderburke and Kaiming novel, She Ruined Our Lives, was released on February 6th. His sequel to Sherlock’s Secretary, Nessie’s Nemesis, was published on September 3rd by MX Publishing. His novel Ghosting My Friend was released by Level Best Books on March 28th. His first novel, Sherlock’s Secretary, was released by MX Publishing, as was his anthology Of Course He Pushed Him and Other Sherlock Holmes Stories Volumes 1 & 2. His Agatha-nominated book Murder Most Grotesque: The Comedic Crime Fiction of Joyce Porter was published by Level Best Books. His first non-fiction book, Sherlock & Irene: The Secret Truth Behind “A Scandal in Bohemia” is available for sale at Amazon.com and the MX Publishing website, as well as at Book Depository (with free worldwide shipping there). It is also available in a Kindle edition.
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