Fast Familiar - "Bad Altitude"

Videos/ Photos provided by Fast Familiar

Company: Fast Familiar

Games: Bad Altitude

Country: United Kingdom 🇬🇧

Language: English

Type of Game: Digital Escape Game 💻

Genre: Comedy

Date Played: 2/21/2021

Difficulty (based on 5 players): 5/10

Size of Team: 2-6 Players (age 13+)

Time: 60-90 Mins (Approximately)

Price: £20/ team

🆃🅷🅴 🆂🆃🅾🆁🆈

Rhys, a flight attendant for the world's most underprepared airline, needs your help! Cruising at 30,000 feet, there's more demand than ever from his needy VIP passengers. Best of luck to you!

🆃🅷🅴 🅶🅰🅼🅴 🅿🅻🅰🆈

This is a digital game where one access code will allow up to 6 players to join in at the same time. Your game will be synced so if one player enters the password, the entire team will move forward together. We strongly recommend playing this game with headphones as there will be a lot of storytelling and you definitely do not want to miss out on the hilarious conversations. There are some clues embedded in the audio components as well so it's quite important to be able to hear them clearly.

The puzzles are presented in PDF images within the game but you can also open them in separate tabs. Some PDFs are extra information that you'll need to solve a puzzle so be sure to open all the docs that were send over through the game portal. It would be great if we're able to interact with some of the puzzles as in the case of a deduction puzzle it was a lot to write down. We would've loved to be able to drag and drop certain characters.

One thing we found less satisfying with this platform is the fact that most of the time it only make sense for one player to be entering codes or pressing items on the screen. Whenever we tried to do it as a group it would mess up the puzzle. This made some players feel left out during the puzzle solving process.

🆃🅷🅴 🅿🆄🆉🆉🅻🅴🆂

The puzzles were written to go along with the storyline. Rhys was constantly challenged with various "chores" from his naggy VIP passengers. One passenger had allergies towards a food item where another passenger couldn't find her bag. These were all things that we could actually relate to as they could easily happen in real life on the plane. This made the game feel more realistic and therefore the ending puzzle actually made us sweat a bit.

Fast familiar improved from the last game by adding in a hint system that's not so automated. You will now have to click on request for a hint in order to receive one. Another added function is that you're able to skip a puzzle. This will come in handy for puzzles like the last one.

🅲🅻🅾🆂🅸🅽🅶 🆃🅷🅾🆄🅶🅷🆃🆂

Fast familiar definitely puts more emphasis on narrative rather than puzzles in their games. The puzzles were more challenging in this game versus National Elf Service. We hope to see some more interactive puzzles where the team could all partake rather than having a single player enter most of the answers or interact with the puzzles. We are fans of immersive theater so this game is right up our alley. We laughed through the entire game. The skits were witty and hit all the right spots!

P.S. I love all the graphics. It's pink! What's not to like?

𝔼𝕊ℂ𝔸ℙ𝔼𝕋ℍ𝔼ℝ𝕆𝕆𝕄𝕖𝕣𝕤❜ ℙ.𝕀.𝕤❜ 𝕋𝕙𝕠𝕦𝕘𝕙𝕥𝕤

Cheryl M.

This is exactly my kind of game. I love a relatable concept, done with humor and a heavy dollop of narrative. Fine art heists and serial killers are great, but, oh yes, give me a commercial passenger airline flight narrative! Who can’t relate to mishandled luggage, bad seatmates and attendants with plastic smiles!

So, yes, I was predisposed to like this game just on the premise. And it delivered.

The puzzles were well suited to the theme. As players, we helped the flirty, mercurial, laughingly not-too-competent cabin steward named Rhys manage a host of in-flight snafus. He admits he didn’t pay much attention during job training provided by his corner-cutting carrier employer. Unabashedly on the hunt for love, he tends to forget to put flight safety first.

The only puzzle that was a tad cumbersome was one set up like a 9th grade math story problem. Our team solved it, but I’d be lying if I said my head didn’t spin on that one. I might suggest the creators dial it back by one degree of difficulty for a general audience.

Huge shout out for the utterly charming voice acting. Pre-recorded voices in many games are a necessary evil or something to wait out. Not here. Steward Rhys Evans is hilarious as are his colleagues and passengers. The dialogue is snappy and witty, and the actors’ delivery brings it to life. I tend to have a pretty serious game countenance but this experience had me smiling and laughing with its nutty dialogue.

Also fun are the many cultural references. Oh, there’s a Karen on the plane, alright.

With air travel so not happening at the moment due to COVID, this is the perfect time to nostalgically indulge in Bad Altitude. Fire up the laptop, put some nibbles on a plastic tray and pour yourself a tiny bottle of wine, any color will do.

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Matt L. & Jess A.

We liked:

- The accessibility! One of the first games we’ve played that is D/deaf and hard of hearing friendly with all of the audio being captioned, including the opening and closing videos which the player can add subtitles to (the same way you would with any other YouTube video).

- The interface. It was fun colours and pretty to look at, but still had a reason for each element.

- The narrative. The concept was enjoyable and we found the characters and storylines funny.

We didn’t mind:

- The puzzles. There was less solving than searching through documents, but the idea behind each puzzle was inventive and on-theme.

We didn’t like:

- Lack of suspense. We didn’t really feel under pressure to complete any of the puzzles even when we were supposed to be in peril. It also felt like sometimes we were listening when we could have been puzzling.

- The French accent. All the other accents were spot on, but the French one sounded like a bad stereotype.

- The passenger announcement. Though it was amusing, we are convinced that we could have turned our mics on and just pressed the play recording button to trigger the end of this game. Though amusing it didn’t add anything to the narrative. If the recording had played back it might have felt more necessary, but that could have been a good time for a word-based puzzle.

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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 Fast Familiar 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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