HiddenCity - "Moriarty's Game: A Killer In The Hive"

Updated: Apr 28

Videos/ Photos provided by HiddenCity

Company: HiddenCity

Game: Moriarty's Game: A Killer In The Hive

Country: United Kingdom 🇬🇧

Language: English

Type of Game: Digital RPG Game 💻

Genre: Detective

Date Played: 3/27/2021

Difficulty (based on 4 players): 4.5/10

Size of Team: 1-5 ppl

Time: 60-90 Minutes (Approximately)

Price: £11/pp

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Hive Program is looking for new agents again. You've been assigned to assist Kayla Watson in her assignments. If you can successfully solve the case, you could become a real agent! Are you ready to play Moriarty's game?

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Please note that you'll need to have either a UK or US cell phone number in order to play this game. When you register, the team captain will need to input everyone's cell phone number. We played the game as a team of 4 and one of our teammates did not have a US/UK number. It wasn't too much of an issue as we pretty much read the text out loud and shared the links the agent provided to him. Most of the interaction between the agent and us were through text messaging. The answers were submitted through text as well. You will need to be very specific with your answers as any wrong input will result in a time penalty and count as an incorrect response. At the end of the game. you'll be able to review your score. I thought the detailed break down was pretty cool as you got to see where your team spend most time on and which answers were entered incorrectly. It's best to designate a team captain to submit all the answers as if all players were to submit the same answers, the replies from the agent will be repeated over and over. We actually have no idea how we got 2 answers wrong and got penalized for time off when the answers were correct so perhaps there are still some bugs to be figured out with this scoring system. Besides text messaging, the game also incorporated various websites, phone call interactions, sleuthing through social media/Google maps and more!

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This is not your typical escape game where you're presented with logic or cipher type of puzzles. It's heavy on narrative and should be categorized more as a RPG. You'll encounter searching through criminal databases, looking through security cameras, and even planning an arrest. Most of the "puzzles" were to provide solid evidence to the agent so that she could catch the culprit.

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This game made me feel like I was listening to an audio mystery book. I love CSI and any type of crime solving TV show so this is right up my alley. The actors in the game did a great job with portraying the different characters. The sound effects such as police sirens, foot steps, door knocking, etc. really helped with painting realistic scenes in our heads. I know the game is trying to be more immersive with having the conversations through text messaging, but I would've preferred to have an online portal instead. Since the text message provided links that were easier to see on a desktop, we had to constantly "transfer" various web addresses from our phone to our computer. If the text message aspect could be bought to online instead, it would also open up more opportunities for worldwide audiences. My favorite part was definitely the ending. It was exactly the type of cliffhanger I was looking for...

𝔼𝕊ℂ𝔸ℙ𝔼𝕋ℍ𝔼ℝ𝕆𝕆𝕄𝕖𝕣𝕤 ℙ𝕒𝕥𝕣𝕠𝕟❜𝕤 𝕋𝕙𝕠𝕦𝕘𝕙𝕥𝕤

Andrew K.

I should preface by saying that I went into Moriarty's Game with the expectation that this was going to be an escape room game. After finishing the game, I would say that this is less an escape room puzzler, and more of an interactive audio drama experience. The audio acting is phenomenal, and you have opinions and feelings about the agent that you're working with right off the bat. The mechanics of phone calls and twitter searches also make the game feel real, as if you are a new recruit of this investigative agency. In terms of solving an overall mystery, the story was linear and you find yourself moving along and solving one piece of the story to the next. It's pretty typical of our standard detective stories - find the suspect, prove the evidence, find a way into some safe house/bunker, capture the suspect.

The major misses for me are few but still impacted my experience: 1) the game setup process was fairly confusing and took us at least 15-20 minutes just to figure out, 2) there was only one fairly easy cypher puzzle, and 3) it seemed as if the advertised theme of the puzzle (a killer in the hive) did not really come to fruition, and it was more of a catch a low-level criminal type of experience. Overall, I do look forward to learning more about especially with the cliffhanger, but will approach it with different expectations - this is an interactive audio drama, not an escape room - but it's a good one at that.

Kobi R.

First of all, it's really a bummer that they only support US and UK numbers. Nowadays, you can get an international number fairly easily or just an online solution for communication. As far as the game goes, this shouldn't be a digital escape game IMO, but more of an audio online experience.

I felt like an Analyst in the back office of a law enforcement organization, so I think that's a better marketing option: "Do you wanna help Veronica Mars? Come research information as an analyst to help solve crimes"

I enjoy more riddles and puzzles, so this wasn't my favorite. Judging this experience in it's own category, the narrative is great and the acting really makes you feel like you're hearing from an actual person. This is a fun activity for escapers who know what they're getting into, although relatively short.

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