Escape The Crate - "Escape the Spymistress"

Updated: Apr 28

Photo above has been provided by Escape The Crate

Company: Escape The Crate

Game: Escape the Spymistress

Country: USA 🇺🇸

Language: English

Type of Game: Digital Escape Game 💻

Genre: Mystery

Date Played: November 6, 2021

Difficulty (based on 6 players): 6.5/10

Size of Team: 1-6 Players (Recommended)

Time: Expires 72 Hours after game begins

Price: $19.99

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As part of a secret agency focused on maintaining the natural timeline, your job is to ensure everything happens as it is intended. Your new mission revolves around the infamous plot to assassinate President Abraham Lincoln; Word has reached your company that this plot is coming to fruition four years earlier than anticipated, which would have horrible consequences on the timeline. It appears there is a spy mistress involved and she should have the details you need to stop the attempt. Your task is to sneak into her house, uncover the details of the assassination without being caught, and stop the plot!

Video above is property of Escape The Crate

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"Escape the Spymistress" is a point and click adventure using Telescape, which means you will be using a shared interface with your team members. It also means if one person solves a puzzle, it will progress everyone playing. There is a video introduction that is beautifully animated and a short tutorial to test out puzzling on Telescape before you dive into the real game, which is perfect for new puzzlers unfamiliar with Telescape. As you start your mission, there will be blue lock icons appearing in the rooms you are exploring that reveal items for further inspection, such as locks, documents, and artifacts. A cool feature added by Escape the Crate is a combining function to reveal clues. Certain items, upon closer inspection, will display a puzzle piece and a word. If you find another item that you believe may be connected and, also, has a puzzle piece and a word, you can type their words together into Telescape to combine them.

There is a built-in hint system into the Telescape to aid your puzzling as you will not have a gamemaster while you play. In general, Telescape is well used within this game as you can really interact with components in the game through moving theming, combining them, or rotating them. I will note the blue lock icons will not go away once you finish with the puzzle it needed so make sure you keep track of what you solve so you don’t become lost.

Photos above have been provided by Escape The Crate

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This game had different rooms to explore that cater to different puzzling types and you will need to move back and forth between them. As such, this game definitely benefits from a divide and conquer method as you solve logic puzzles, find hidden clues, identify patterns, and decode messages. I enjoyed how Telescape provided fun reactions whether it involved triggering an event with a solution or the simple element of watching items react to your mouse hovering, pressing, and moving things around. As a wholly digital game, the puzzles suit the structure and provide differing levels on interaction for all players. This game is best for group work as it encourages a great deal of communication where players need to use different items in different rooms to solve puzzles. If you do enjoy playing solo, have a phone or a way to take notes are you move around so you aren’t stuck bounding between screens too much.

More experienced players will find the puzzles straightforward and easy to follow, but just make sure you are giving the rooms a good once over as some pieces of the puzzles can easily be overlooked. For new players, the hint system is well situated to assist you if you’re struggling.

Photo above was provided by Escape The Crate

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"Escape the Spymistress" is a light and fun collaborative escape adventure for friends and family looking to play games from afar. There are enough puzzles and diversity in it to cater to all players and the light story and theme builds a level of engagement found in traditional escape rooms. I think this new model of digitizing Escape the Crate retired boxes is a brilliant way to give players more puzzling at an affordable price, without committing to a subscription. If you enjoy spy missions, digital games, and collaboration then this is a great game. If spy missions aren’t your thing, you can also check out their other digital game, Escape the Yeti!

Check out our interview with the creators to understand more on the development side of their game:

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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 Escape The Crate for providing us with a sample of their game. Although a complimentary experience was generously provided, it does not impact our opinion on the review whatsoever.