Vortex Events (Formerly Fantasy Escape Games) - "Space Defenders"

Updated: Apr 27

Photo above is property of Fantasy Escape Games

Company: Fantasy Escape Games

Game: Space Defenders

Country: USA 🇺🇸

Language: English

Type of Game: Digital Escape Game W/GM 💻

Genre: Sci-Fi

Date Played: July 28, 2021

Difficulty (based on 8 players): 7.5/10

Size of Team: Up to 25pp (Minimum of 4 Players)

Time: 45/60/90 Minutes

Price: $19/pp

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The ancient crystals have been stolen by an alien criminal named Kryota. The universe is relying on you and your team to retrieve them from various planets that she's hidden them on. They are the only way to keep the universe from danger. Godspeed, Space Defenders!

Video above is property of Fantasy Escape Games

🆃🅷🅴 🅶🅰🅼🅴 🅿🅻🅰🆈

Space Admiral Jack greeted us on Zoom and informed us about this urgent mission. After the instruction video, we were broken into teams and send into breakout rooms. The entire game play is designed in a digital platform called Telescape. From that point on, the game became a point-n-click game. Since we had 8 people we were divided into four groups of twos. We played the 90 minute version of the game which contains all the puzzles and areas that we could explore.

Our first mission was to repair our spaceship as Kryota damaged it. We needed to work together with the other teams to share information through a central hub in order to repair each other's ships. Inside the hub, we were able to communicate with each other through a chatbot. Images could also be shared. Admiral Jack was with us the entire time so we were able to receive nudges and ask for help if needed. There's no penalty on using help or hints, so use as much as you like (but don't abuse it!) Helping teammates is allowed in the hub but do not share answers. your mission is to get as many crystals as possible collectively so no need to sabotage any team. Although we did find that at the end there was a sense of competitiveness. Everyone wanted to be the team that got the most crystals.

Once the ship was repaired, you'll have many different planets that you can now travel to. If you found the navigator, tell the other teams as that will open up even more planets! Each team can select where they want to go and explore independently from the other teams. On each planet there'll be various puzzles which I'll elaborate on in the puzzle section below.

Photos above are properties of Fantasy Escape Games

🆃🅷🅴 🅿🆄🆉🆉🅻🅴🆂

The first set of puzzles was to figure out how to repair the ship. That was the first time we encountered sharing information in the hub. It took a bit of time to get use to as it's quite difficult to describe certain things quickly through text. Sending images also took time as we would have to screenshot them over. It would be great if the hub could also include audio like if we're on the same frequency channel. We really enjoyed the communication and sharing information idea but because there's so much we needed to do as our individual team, we put communication with other teams as secondary because it took time out of our own puzzle solving time. I guess in a way it resembles self sacrifice in order to help others. Maybe if some score could be added for teams that helped out others, we'll spend more time on that part of the task.

On each planet, you might see various symbols. Green means you'll need to share the information you see with others and red means you'll need to receive information from the others. Most of the time we just went to the two designated planets and retrieved the information on our own. It felt faster than explaining and waiting for other teams to reply.

The puzzles varied in difficulty and you'll be rewarded with different colored crystals that have different points. Some were single step puzzles, some were interactive and some were quite challenging as they were multi-step ones that required you to connect information from various places. It helps to have a good memory for this game or else just be a good notetaker as there are 13 locations (including some hidden ones) to visit. If you want to aim for a perfect crystal score then you'll need to collect 44 of them as a single team (we only got 11 as a single team and 29 collectively).

Photos above are properties of Fantasy Escape Games

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This game was designed to be replayable. It'll be very challenging to collect all the crystals and complete all the puzzles in one game setting (unless you have a huge group of people each taking on one planet or if you book a 3-4 hour game session). It's a must play for people who like cooperative games. It's also perfect for corporate training. There were definitely moments where we had to make moral decisions during the game like give up more of our team's time to help others or how to fight Kryota to win in a space battle. But if you are enthusiasts, you'll also love the challenges that you'll encounter when playing with a smaller group.

We haven't seen a digital game on the market yet that's designed to accommodate such a large number of players but still give them so much to do as individuals. The quirky artwork added a bit of humor into this galaxy world. We really enjoyed visiting the various planets to see how different they were from each other. At the end of the game, Admiral Jack also let our team check off which missions we've completed and which we've missed. I must say I was quite sad that we didn't get an invite to join an alien race. I guess we'll need to replay this game again in order to find all the hidden places and puzzles that we've missed! This was such a fun game and concept. We highly recommended!

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

Video above is property of ESCAPETHEROOMers

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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 Fantasy Escape Games for comping our tickets for this game. Although a complimentary experience was generously provided, it does not impact our opinion on the review whatsoever.