PanIQ Escape Room NYC (Formerly Clue Chase) - "Mothership Over Manhattan"

Updated: Apr 29

Videos/ Photos provided by Clue Chase

Company: Clue Chase

Game: Mothership Over Manhattan

Country: USA 🇺🇸

Language: English

Type of Game: Digital Escape Game 💻

Genre: Sci-Fi

Date Played: 5/11/2021

Difficulty (based on 5 players): 5.5/10

Size of Team: Up to 6 Players

Time: Unlimited (Suggested time Approx. 1.5-2 Hrs)

Price: $20/ team

🆃🅷🅴 🆂🆃🅾🆁🆈

An expedition into space in 1993 brought back something from space that they shouldn't have. Soon after. Aliens invaded NYC. The only means of communication is through the underground tunnels. Our only hope is to activate 3 beacons in order to find what they're looking for. Hopefully it's no too late to save our city...

🆃🅷🅴 🅶🅰🅼🅴 🅿🅻🅰🆈

Once you receive the link for the game, you and your teammates can log on together. Wait for all members to join before clicking "start" game. One cool feature about this game is that it'll save your progress automatically so if you can't finish the game in one shot, just log in with the same link and it'll allow you to resume from where you left off. Since there's no set time limit, you can play it in any type of way you like. As a bunch of enthusiasts, we were definitely eager to solve the puzzle as quickly as possible and completed the game without hints in 45 minutes or so.

The game is synced so if one player types in an answer, the screen will reflect that for the rest of the players. If an incorrect answer was entered, the system will show who's the player that entered it and what the wrong answer was. You won't get penalized for wrong guesses but this option was great as it prevented the same wrong answers to be entered over and over again. The only thing I wish the game could have let us do is to be able to go back to the puzzles and review them again when the game is finished or even during the game. At times, one of our players would like to try an answer that they think is right and if it so happens to be correct, he doesn't really have time to explain as the game will push us forward to the next puzzle.

Most of the puzzles given were images or videos but they are not interactive in the sense that you're able to click, drop or merge. It's best to keep your phone handy for this game as some clues gained along the way would be needed at a later time. It's much easier to snapshot a photo rather than draw or write them down.

Lastly. an optional sound track is available if you like to play with some ambience music but we chose not to since communication was more important to us.

🆃🅷🅴 🅿🆄🆉🆉🅻🅴🆂

There were a lot of puzzles in this game. They were a lot of fun since they varied in types. Some were easy to spot and we're able to solve it rather quickly and others took us time and we worked as a group to decode items separately. The variations of puzzles gave each player a chance to shine with their strength. If you're playing with a group, I would suggest having a designated solution input person. The issue I found while playing this game with a group of players is that some are going to be stronger puzzlers than others and if they are quick solvers, some other players might not be able to catch up or be able to understand the puzzle in time. Although the game suggested that Google might be needed, our teammates were full of useless (i mean useful) knowledge so we totally bypassed that part.

🅲🅻🅾🆂🅸🅽🅶 🆃🅷🅾🆄🅶🅷🆃🆂

Regardless of the type of puzzle, I like how "Clue Chase" was able to connect them to the storyline. There were signals, alien language, various landmarks of NYC and more! Since we live in NY, it was extra close to the heart. I don't even remember when was the last time I took the subway so it was great to be able to see those colorful circles in the game. I can't wait to explore the city again but for now this is a great way to spend some leisure time at home.

𝔼𝕊ℂ𝔸ℙ𝔼𝕋ℍ𝔼ℝ𝕆𝕆𝕄𝕖𝕣𝕤 ℙ𝕒𝕥𝕣𝕠𝕟❜𝕤 𝕋𝕙𝕠𝕦𝕘𝕙𝕥𝕤

Kobi R.

The goal of the game is the save New York and we're a team led by a scientist. Science and tech are the common thread in the tasks, with a background story along the way. The story's presence isn't very substantial but the theme has it's impact and it really adds to the experience.

In terms of difficulty, other than one Medium logic puzzle, all puzzles felt pretty straight forward and relatively easy. There are a few things I haven't encountered before that were pretty refreshing.

A few cool things about the platform:

You can see the different guesses made by your team members
You see the correct answer at every stage you pass

cons:

You can't go back at any given point
this is a linear game, I prefer mine to be non-linear
almost no exploration needed

Melvin L.

Mothership Over Manhattan by Clue chase is played in the same format as their demo game and Scarab's curse. Basically, the game is a series of webpages that includes audio/video clues for you to solve a puzzle. You can try their demo game to see how the system works as the actual game is exactly the same.

For Mothership, it was an improvement as the puzzles made more sense, though it was on the simple side. The good thing I like about their system is that you are able to see what your teammates' attempts are. Hence, even if you are on your own train of thought and wish to try something, if you saw that your teammate has already tried that, you know that you are on the wrong track. Whenever a correct answer is entered, everyone will be directed into the next page. This is the point where I disliked this system.

It really depends on the group, but if you are playing this game and you have an 'alpha' who is in control, who likes to think of the solution himself/herself and just entered to 'check' if he is correct before explaining what he is trying, the rest might miss out on the puzzle as they will all be brought into the next page immediately if the answer is correct! There is no way to go back to check on the puzzle that means they will be losing out on the joy of understanding the puzzle.

For my group, it wasn't really an issue as we were a group of enthusiasts, therefore, we were all about the same page, in the sense that we took roughly an equal amount of time to understand what the puzzle is asking us to do. My teammates also voiced out what they were trying and how they get it most of the time so we can follow along quickly. But this could be an issue for beginner groups as stated above.

Overall, it is a fun little game to try, but I will recommend this for at most 2 to 4 people.

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(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 Clue Chase for providing us with a sample of the game. Although a complimentary experience was generously provided, it does not impact our opinion on the review whatsoever.