Hotel Topia - "Initiation: Esoteric Order of the Veil"

Cici Cao

Apr 11, 20214 min read

Updated: Apr 28, 2024

Videos/ Photos provided by Hotel Topia

Company: Hotel Topia

Game: Initiation: Esoteric Order of the Veil

Country: USA 🇺🇸

Language: English

Type of Game: Digital Escape Game 💻

Genre: Mystery

Date Played: 3/27/2021

Difficulty (based on 4 players): 6.5/10

Size of Team: Unlimited

Time: Unlimited (three days to play after pressing "start" button)

Price: $35/Team ($30 for a limited time)

🆃🅷🅴 🆂🆃🅾🆁🆈

An ancient secret society is looking to recruit new agents to join their fight against evil. Will you be able to pass the initiation test so you can join them on this sacred mission?

🆃🅷🅴 🅶🅰🅼🅴 🅿🅻🅰🆈

Hotel Topia did a great job with the intro video. It's probably one of my favorite trailers for a digital game. The instructions to how to play the game was also very clearly stated. This is a point-n-click game build using Telescape. Although it didn't feel like your typical Telescape game as it's not a direct translation of an actual escape room to online. The graphics were top notch. It was as if we're playing a video game.

There's a lot of space to roam around in this game as it's staged in an old creepy house. You'll be surprised with secret doors, rooms and various objects. If you are lucky, you might even see some unexpected "visitors". Note that some of these areas are pretty well hidden. You'll need to trigger something or turn your mouse cursor a specific way in order to find them.

Once you start the game with your team, you'll be able to see everyone's cursor in the same game interface. When you trigger an action (find something or open something), it'll update the progress for the entire team. You'll also be able to check back on the inventory cart to see what items have been collected by your teammates. It took us a bit of time to get use to the fact that some items on the upper cart could be used with items in the lower cart.

We're quite impressed by the audio and visual effects that were build-in to this game. The creepy footsteps and random weird noises is exactly what an old house would make. I particularly enjoyed a visual that was created by us in the latter part of the game where we had to assembly an ancient ritual. It felt like we've opened up a portal to the unknown.

🆃🅷🅴 🅿🆄🆉🆉🅻🅴🆂

There's a good balance of search and find, logic and cipher puzzles that kept our team busy throughout the game. Essentially the goal is to find 4 codes that'll open up the final door. Most of the puzzles were nonlinear but we did have to come together at the end to put together the final pieces to the story. If was nice to be able to each have something to do but also come together to solve the harder puzzles when needed.

We did have to play the game twice as the first time one of our players was able to skip an entire part of the game by discovering a code too early (this issue has been rectified by the company). An audio puzzle also gave us some issues as it was quite difficult to make out what it was saying especially when other teammates were also communicating other puzzle information each other other.

🅲🅻🅾🆂🅸🅽🅶 🆃🅷🅾🆄🅶🅷🆃🆂

If we talk about "amazing set design" as a category for "in-person" escape rooms, then this game was be our categorization of "amazing set design" for a digital game. INITIATION: Esoteric Order of the Veil utilized cinematic sounds, detailed graphics and "ritual-like" type of puzzles to make this virtual world seem realistic. If you think you have what it takes to become a member of this secret society, then start your initiation now!

𝔼𝕊ℂ𝔸ℙ𝔼𝕋ℍ𝔼ℝ𝕆𝕆𝕄𝕖𝕣𝕤 ℙ𝕒𝕥𝕣𝕠𝕟❜𝕤 𝕋𝕙𝕠𝕦𝕘𝕙𝕥𝕤

Hannah N.

There was a lot to look at and in the beginning it felt slightly overwhelming with a lot of searching to do, so it was nice that we had a team of 4 to spread out and as we progressed the feeling of being overwhelmed slowly disappeared.

The atmosphere was really well made, the room itself was detailed and the use of sound effects was really nice and spooky. Tension was built up by eerie effects to a point where I even felt a little bit scared.

Unfortunately I was not able to play the game to the end, so there are a few questions left for me about items we didn’t use, but in general I really enjoyed the experience!

Evan P.

Order of the Veil is deliciously immersive, and the sound design is especially good. You won't need any arcane knowledge to succeed, but it's full of Easter eggs for fans of Lovecraft, alchemy, astrology, and other pop occultism. It also comes with its own searchable external wiki to look up certain in-game clues, which was essential for my team (though there may be ways around it). Seriously, though--look everywhere. Look everywhere five times.

Check out our interview with the creators to understand more on the development side of the 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 Hotel-topia 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.