Puzzle rooms where players work together in person to navigate challenges and solve mysteries are common enough now, but those activities come with one big caveat: they’re done in person. Given how gatherings haven’t been as safe or easy in the past year, escape games likely haven’t been at the top of peoples’ lists for things to do. If that’s the case for you but you’re still looking for the familiar challenge of an in-person experience, The Escape Game‘s Remote Adventures offers a suitable and surprisingly enjoyable substitute.
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These Remote Adventures have been around for over a year now, but The Escape Game recently invited ComicBook.com to partake in one of the rooms to see how they hold up to the original experience. As a team of six, we took on Prison Break, a game that will probably sound familiar to Escape Game veterans and one that’s regarded as one of the more challenging games. To make the experience work, The Escape Game capitalizes on Zoom, the communication service that’s become a household name since the start of the pandemic. Team members join into a call after booking a game with a host explaining the how-tos of a Remote Adventure before you get onto solving puzzles.
The idea of a remote escape room initially stirs up images of point-and-click adventures, but the Remote Adventures have much more going on. You sign into a site exclusively for your game and team that’ll be familiar to anyone who’s played the Jackbox Party Pack games, and from there, you’ll have access to a virtual toolbox of sorts that collects all your clues and hints to look over after they’ve been discovered in the rooms. Your host will take care of that part for you, so all you have to do is solve puzzles and keep an eye on your inventory to make the most of the clues.
By far the most innovative idea Remote Adventures employ is the way the games allow people to navigate rooms. If you can’t be there in person, how are you supposed to find your way about? The solution is another party active in the game: An “avatar” who’s in the room itself as you’re playing and wears a helmet to show players exactly what they’re looking at. By issuing commands to the guide, you’re able to navigate the room through someone else’s eyes.
While clever, that solution certainly takes some getting used to at the beginning of a game. Do you tell them what to do, or do you say “please” and ask them to move about the room? Do you have a team captain who issues commands, or is it a flurry of commands being issued at once? The stop-and-go nature of Zoom where people talk at once only to pause and talk over one another again is another consideration, a byproduct of the medium through which these Remote Adventures take place.
Those sorts of hiccups are overcome relatively easily after the first few minutes of the game, particularly so if you’ve got a team you’re familiar with. Props also go out to our guide and avatar who smoothed over any potential awkwardness of the virtual environment and made navigating the room a breeze. With those obstacles out of the way, it became much easier to collaborate with teammates and fall into a puzzle-solving groove. Our game took just over 20 minutes to complete, though they can go for over twice that time depending on how long it takes a team to solve the room.
Though our experience was indeed much more enjoyable than anticipated, the cost of the virtual experiences is a factor that might cause some to hesitate. Our game was played at the invite of The Escape Game, but a normal virtual adventure for those looking to book from the game’s site costs around $30 per person. Compare that to the price of a local, in-person Escape Game and you’ll find that the costs are essentially the same.
From having experience with in-person rooms and now the virtual challenge, the experience largely translates, though perhaps not for what the asking price is. There’s a sensory experience lost when playing through the room virtually, and with only one or two people able to talk at once to avoid complete chaos, there’s a degree of downtime or personal busywork not found in the in-person Escape Games. It’s a seemingly unavoidable side effect of the medium, but it’s one that probably should be reflected in the price, particularly if you find yourself finishing a room in under an hour or even under 30 minutes.
As global situations evolve and more businesses open up, these Remote Adventures will likely keep a backseat to the in-person experiences, but they’re still a clever solution to problems with meetups and should be kept around regardless. Nobody on our team lives anywhere near each other, so this sort of Escape Game experience wouldn’t have been possible without Remote Adventures. For those looking to meet up with distant friends and relatives or companies who want a less boring team-building exercise, The Escape Game’s Remote Adventures make for attractive options.
