Photos provided by 4Walls Escape
Company: 4Walls Escape
Country: Germany 🇩🇪
Language: English, German
Type of Game: Digital Escape Game 💻
Date Played: April 4, 2021
Size of Team: Unlimited (2-6 ppl recommended)
🆃🅷🅴 🅶🅰🅼🅴 🅿🅻🅰🆈
Both games below are browser-based games that utilize text, audio and images to present the storyline and the puzzles. With the purchase of one game code, your team can log into the game at the same time. The game is synced so if one player enters the correct code, your entire team can proceed to the next stage. Each stage provides an audio file and text translation of the audio file so you can choose whichever option best suits your needs. We played the game over Zoom so we found it hard to synchronize the audio play for our teammates so we decided to designate a reader to read the storyline out loud.
It's quite easy to navigate in this game as only certain hotspots are clickable and they even have an outline around them. I probably would have preferred to not have the outlines as it felt like too much handholding and less like a do-it-yourself adventure (there's an option to deactivate the hotspots but only when playing on a computer). If you get stuck, there's a nudging hint system build into the game.
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The puzzles varied in difficulty level for both games. In "The Hunt", puzzles were more traditional with directional, Morse code, logic etc. It's the easier game out of the two and we finished in 44 minutes. You'll need to use your phone for a QR scan at some point. "Mysterious Crime" had more puzzles and some did require outside knowledge that we had to Google. One design element that I really liked was that they were able to embed Google maps into the game rather than having us open up another window. We finished this game in 1 hour and 11 minutes.
🅲🅻🅾🆂🅸🅽🅶 🆃🅷🅾🆄🅶🅷🆃🆂
If I had to chose a favorite between the two, I would go with "Mysterious Crime". The storyline felt more mysterious and more intriguing. The solutions might not feel connected at first to the storyline but it all came together at the end. I would suggest writing down answers for this game so you can be reminded what hasn't been used. These games are quite heavy on narrative as each puzzle is paired with a opening story. It's great that the game provided us options to either read through them or just skip and do the puzzles. If you are looking for more of traditional puzzle types that are easier in level of difficulty and less sleuthing on the internet, then I would suggest "The Hunt". But if you want more of a detective vibe, I would definitely recommend giving "Mysterious Crime" a shot.
Game: The Hunt
Genre: Thriller
Difficulty (based on 4 players): 5/10
Time: 1 1/2 Hours (Approx. per company)
Price: €11.99
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A new virus has caused major panic around the world. There seems to be a shortage of masks. Can you follow the clues and solve the puzzles in order to find the source for the life saving masks?
Game: Mysterious Crime
Genre: Detective
Difficulty (based on 4 players): 6/10
Time: 2 1/2 Hours (Approx. per company)
Price: €14.99
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There seems to be a burglary at your parent's house but nothing was taken. As you searched through the mess, you discovered a family secret. It's so intriguing that you decided to hop on a plane to chase down the truth in another continent. Will you be able to find the truth before someone else does?
𝔼𝕊ℂ𝔸ℙ𝔼𝕋ℍ𝔼ℝ𝕆𝕆𝕄𝕖𝕣𝕤 ℙ𝕒𝕥𝕣𝕠𝕟❜𝕤 𝕋𝕙𝕠𝕦𝕘𝕙𝕥𝕤
Kobi R.
Mysterious Crime is a digital puzzle leading where you follow a story using audio. text and several riddles. This game can be played in a group but fits a single player as well. The riddles are fairly short and while they have a connecting thread, they are pretty much disjointed from one another. Although there's a backstory and you do feel it progressing, it's not really a crucial part of the game for us, a group of experienced escapers, it was pretty much jumping to the next puzzle and seeing if we missed something along the way. Overall, an ok puzzle game in the big and vast world of digital escape games.
(If you do decide to try this game, give us a shoutout or tag us on social media so we know you heard it from "ESCAPETHEROOMers"!)
Disclosure: We thank 4Walls Escapes for comping our tickets for this game. Although a complimentary experience was generously provided, it does not impact our opinion on the review whatsoever.
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