Fox in a Box: Bank

I played this IN REAL LIFE. This is the Fox in a Box website.   

The Short: Fantastic.

Recommended if you like to believe you would survive a zombie apocalypse.

Description: Occasionally I will try to explain escape games to somebody new and they will ask me, “Wait do you do this in real life?” No, I say. I do this on my phone. Then they ask how that is possible.

That’s how I felt about a real-life escape games. How would I know if I were doing something rightly or wrongly? How would I avoid breaking something? But I’m here to say that I have tried it now and it is FUN.  Though, it seems essential to go with a group.

Fox in a Box runs a tight ship. They have to start your group on the dot and to the minute to ensure that you get your full hour to solve their themed rooms. My group of friends played the Bank room. We were robbers and had to find out how to unlock a hidden safe that contained a valuable diamond. To make things even more thrilling, all the lights were off and we had to use flashlights. I am an easily entertained person and I can tell you that my pulse was quickened! The puzzle arrays were quite difficult but there is a helpful Hint Giver just an intercom away. This room had amazing cascade. The puzzles were a good combination of straightforward and esoteric. Overall, super fun. Fox in a Box did a wonderful job designing this room.

Did we beat the room? No. But we were so close it was painful.

Difficulty: Difficult
Difficulty Elements: great cascade | both readily apparent & invisible puzzle arrays | both straightforward & esoteric interfaces | no Absurdity | both typical and unique solves

Escape the Ghost Town [Multiple Iterations]

Published by A-S-G. I played these on android.

Iterations: one through four

The Short: Simplistic game series with great atmosphere. In certain version you can actually “Skip” the puzzles if you find them too challenging. I find that hilarious. I mean, why are you even playing?

Recommended if you like pensive fog, the spirit world, velvet chokers

Description: This is an updated review. I already played and talked about the first Escape the Ghost Town before I knew there were three additional games.

Escape the Ghost Town has an interesting aesthetic. At first, I was tempted to situate this game within Design Netherworld but then I checked myself. At the very least, Escape the Ghost Town is not making its digs in downtown, south central Netherworld. If anything, it’s more out in the Netherworld’s most respected suburbs. This game features standard issue haunted houses with spooky garden grounds, weird marble statues, sheds full of saws, and heavily carpeted indoor spaces that strongly imply musk and dampness. The music is actually quite nice. The overall effect is a cohesive game space that usually trades in “passable” but occasionally creates a somewhat interesting room or sequestered garden area.

Escape the Ghost Town is a perfectly nice set of games. They’re fairly easy.

Difficulty Level: Easy
Difficulty Elements: low cascade | readily-apparent puzzle arrays |no Absurdity | typical solves

Cryptica

Published by Pixibots. I played this on android.

The Short:  Fun with hieroglyphics minus the worry of raising the dead.

Recommended if you like runes, grids, neutral tones

Description: Cryptica is not an escape game. It’s a spatial reasoning puzzle game with sort of an Aztec-y aesthetic. In each level, you are presented with a grid. The grid contains at least one Active Stone and that Active Stone’s match-spot. You must move the Active Stone or Stones to their respective match spots to win. The trick in this game comes when you get multiple Active Stones. All Active Stones move in unison so when you move an individual stone once to the left, you move all of the Active Stones once to the left. The game is further complicated by Inactive Stones that work to block the Active Stones.

I love the shit out of this game. It has a really intuitive interface, great audio accompaniment to game play, and it’s challenging in just the right way. This is also a game where you can really get “in the zone” by playing multiple levels in a row, your brain really starts to think along the grid. The next time you’re meeting someone for coffee, especially your one friend who is always 15 minutes late, download Cryptica and feel the time fly by.

Difficulty Level: Medium
Difficulty Elements: readily-apparent puzzles

Mr. 3939 [Multiple Iterations]

Published by hozdesign. I played these on android.

Iterations: Episodes One – Six

The Short: Unhinged adventures with precocious ducklings.

Recommended if you like Wallace and Gromit, primary colors, negative space

Description: I have many gripes about hozdesign products but the Mr. 3939 series is actually really good. Cute ducklings, interesting aesthetic and – my favorite– it’s all a tad mind-bending.

The minimalist roomscapes throughout the Mr. 3939 series all share common tools and decor so as a series everything feels unified. It’s all enhanced by a very restrained and cartoonish soundscape. In terms of difficulty, these games offer up mostly esoteric puzzles interfaces but there’s also plenty of basic codes to be found, keys to be turned and hammers to be hammered. Some of the more unique details include stacked chairs, framed photos of fruit, and dragon-doors are all graced. It’s all served with a healthy dollop of Absurdity. So, in addition to sussing out which doorknobs do what, you may need to take a few logical leaps of faith.  

More photos:

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Difficulty: Medium-Difficult
Difficulty Elements: good cascade | both readily apparent & invisible puzzle arrays | both straightforward & esoteric interfaces | some Absurdity | both typical & unique solves

RED

Published by hozdesign. I played this on android.

The Short: More RED flags, courtesy of hozdesign

Recommended if you like dark alleyways, tomatoes

Description: Let’s begin with what is good about this game. Aesthetically, RED is cool. A nighttime puzzle complete with eerie lighting and harmonious cricket noises. RED follows a typical escape game trope of presenting a weird and spooky vibe while never actually delivering any horror elements. It’s like a zen garden of creepy, after-dark hangouts. I like it.

What I didn’t like about RED is the extreme difficulty.  I was very suspicious of this game because I had a really terrible experience playing ESC which is another game by hozdesign. RED turned out to be eminently more solvable but still, the finale puzzle of this game was beyond hard. It was actually just straight up sadistic. Even after a concerted effort to solve it (and I really thought I was on the right track), I finally succumbed to watching a walk through. I had to read and re-read this solution three times to make sure I grasped what it was telling me. Hozdesign really fails at creating puzzles that have one, understandable solution that truly contains a “eureka” moment regardless if you solve it or have it shown to you. Instead, they tend to offer up puzzles so complex and multi-faceted that it’s fairly impossible to know you’re on the right track even when you’re halfway through.

Games are no fun when the creators don’t play fair. Sorry, RED but I’m just not a fan.

Difficulty Level: Beyond Hard
Difficulty Elements: good cascade | both readily apparent & invisible puzzle arrays | esoteric puzzle interfaces| no Absurdity | unique solves