Paragamix - "Adele", "Bermuda Wrecks", Carrie's Family", "Secret Society Singapore", "Sherry Mice"

Photo above is property of Paragamix

Company: Paragamix

Country: Germany 🇩🇪

Language: English, German, Spanish, French

Type of Game: Digital Game 💻

Size of Team: Unlimited (Ages 16+)

Price: $11.80 (for 2 ppl)

Game: Adele

Genre: Horror

Date Played: July 29, 2021

Time: 90 Minutes

Difficulty (based on 5 players): 4/10

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In 1945, hotel Anno was a meeting place for many famous stars. One night, the beautiful owner Adele was murdered and the hotel was never the same...

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Game: Bermuda Wrecks

Genre: Adventure

Date Played: July 30 2021

Time: 2 hours

Difficulty (based on 3 players): 7.5/10

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You are ready to explore the beautiful island of Bermuda. Your mission is to see if the rumor about the gold ducats on the sunken Sea Venture is true or not. Will you get lucky this time?

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Game: Carries Family

Genre: Horror

Date Played: August 1, 2021

Time: 1 hours

Difficulty (based on 5 players): 6/10

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The Lueder family has many hidden dark secrets. The family is involved in organized crimes, drug deals and even murder! Are you ready to meet this infamous family?

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Game: Secret Society Singapore

Genre: Mystery

Date Played: August 1, 2021

Time: 90 Minutes

Difficulty (based on 3 players): 4.5/10

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You seem to be short on money and perhaps the only person that can help you is Huang. You have a choice of being the perpetrator or the detective. Which side do you choose?

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Game: Sherry Adventure

Genre: Adventure

Date Played: August 1, 2021

Time: 45 Minutes

Difficulty (based on 4 players): 3.5/10

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You've arrived in the picturesque town of Andalusia, Spain. They are famous for their production of sherry. Maybe if you don't drink all of it, you might become an expert in sherry wine by the end of the game?

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🆃🅷🅴 🅶🅰🅼🅴 🅿🅻🅰🆈

All the games mentioned above were designed on the same platform using similar formats. Once you receive the game code and link, you can enter the code directly on their website. The game will always start with an intro video so if you're playing with your team on Zoom, it might be good to inform all your teammates to watch it at the same time. We each had a different code but I presume if you use the same code, the game will be synced for both of you.

On the bottom right corner, you'll see a chatbot looking circle. Click on that once the video finishes. Pick the language you want to play the game in. If you select wrong language, type "restart" to restart the entire game. Do not refresh the page as that will also restart the entire game.

The chatbot is where you'll receive the backstory, web links and videos from the different characters in the games. This is an ARG type of game where you'll get to choose various paths and options. Some of the social media platforms we've encountered in the game include Flickr, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and more. None of which needed you to create an account to access the information. We also had to sleuth through internet websites and blogs as additional resources. Additionally, we also had to use email several times to receive messages. One thing we thought could be useful for players would be for the game designers to inform us on which tabs could be closed after use. This would really help eliminate confusing and the amount of tabs we had to keep open for the entire game.

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If you are a beginner, you'll want to pick either Sherry Adventure or Adele. The answers to the questions were to be entered into the chatbot once you've found them. In these two games, you will even receive multiple choice options. The other three games will give you options during the game to choose either "moderate" or "tricky" mode. For instance, if you had to find a painting in a museum, the moderate option might take you right in front of it but you'll need to find it on your own with the tricky option.

If you are looking for harder puzzles, Bermuda Wrecks or Carries Family would be your best bet. Secret Society Singapore had a really cool concept where you had a choice of choosing to play either the preparator or the detective right at the beginning. We played both paths. The puzzles were slightly tweaked but the answers were the same. It's interesting to view the storyline from two different perspectives. There were definitely some cool tech uses that were designed into the 360 interfaces. In some games, the players were also able to divide and conquer by choosing different puzzles to work on. We found that kind of confusing as we would need to key in puzzle 1 again and then puzzle 2 in order to move on with the story. It didn't really make sense to divide up the team due to this reason. The puzzles can be solved in a non-linear way but the platform was not designed to support this type of input.

🅲🅻🅾🆂🅸🅽🅶 🆃🅷🅾🆄🅶🅷🆃🆂

Paragamix did a great job with tying the storyline between all of the games. Sometimes we would only realize towards the end that this was the prequal or sequel to something we've played (although you don't need prior knowledge of any games in order to play the others. They were all independent from each other). If you love ARG style games, you might find this quite intriguing to be able to follow the breadcrumbs.

The game designers really took the players with them to places we didn't know that existed on this planet. Through the 360 image tours, we're able to enter abandoned buildings (very creepy by the way in Adele and Carries Family), explore the beautiful island of Bermuda, enter sherry cellars and roam around the busy streets of Singapore. Most of these games felt very educational. If you're here solely for the puzzles, you might think there's a lot of information that won't interest you but if you're here for history and storyline then this game might suit your needs. If you're still unsure if this type of game is for you or not, try their Secret Society Singapore for FREE !

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𝔼𝕊ℂ𝔸ℙ𝔼𝕋ℍ𝔼ℝ𝕆𝕆𝕄𝕖𝕣𝕤 ℙ𝕒𝕥𝕣𝕠𝕟❜𝕤 𝕋𝕙𝕠𝕦𝕘𝕙𝕥𝕤

Melvin L.

Carrie's Family by Paragamix is a digital escape game played on a webpage with a chatbot. To start, you will key in your mission code and the chatbot will give you more webpages, links and clues and you will need to answer a question (which is solving the puzzle) to move on to the next.

The gameplay's interface was quite confusing. Not that there are a lot of tabs to take note of (which there is a lot), but rather the smoothness of the game. One clue was given on Flickr, and I realized that after scrolling through the pictures, I had to wait for the 'ads' to clear, as I did not have a paid Flickr account. Secondly, after keying in the answer to the puzzle, the feedback response was quite confusing. It was phrased in such a way that we were not sure if our answer was correct as the whole solution came out just as if we asked for a hint, but we didn't. Only then, after reading the 'explanation' then we realized that our answer was correct. Not sure why that would appear.

Moving on to the puzzles - I got the story and idea behind it, it was quite good. We had to figure out who is related to who in this family and connect the crimes to certain individuals. The premise is good, but how the puzzle was designed and executed needs polishing. You basically have to click and search on every single link you find to get what you need to solve the puzzle - it will not be given to you clearly where you are supposed to search. The puzzles themselves were quite easy - the hard part is just drawing the inference which search site is the clue for that puzzle.

What I liked about this is the designer really went to abandoned places and creepy areas to place his 'puzzles and clues'. After looking through a few google sites, I have seen a few interesting yet creepy places that would be nice to visit one day. At least he kept to his promise that we will go to creepiest areas around the world!

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Mike S.

STORY: Bermuda Wrecks

In this online adventure, you are given a history adventure to search all along the shores of Bermuda for shipwrecks and artifacts hoping to find buried treasure. In order to complete this mission you will need your investigative skills as well as keen eyes and ears to find your “booty.”

GAMEPLAY

In order to start the game you must initiate a chat bot where you will be receiving most of your puzzles from as well as inputting any puzzle answers into the bot. A very simple and intuitive way to start the augmented reality adventure. Augmented reality, in this game, includes pictures and objects that were not originally (or there in the first place) placed in 360 degree views of fascinating locations all in the island of Bermuda. Once you are acclimated to the chat bot feature, you will be given a choice of moderate or tricky (If this is your first paragamix room I would suggest moderate), I chose tricky. Now the adventure begins!

The game consists of reading blog posts, exploring the island, and perusing through items of ships long since lost. Pay close attention to each post and each chat bubble, you will never know where the best place is to look if you don’t look at your resources first. The game advertises as a 90 min experience (no time limit) and with myself as a solo player it took as advertised. Also be aware that there will be plenty of different tabs open on your computer at any given time during this game and a minor knowledge of how to use your web browser is needed. For the tricky puzzles one must also be ready to listen to some sound files in order to complete the adventure.

PUZZLES

The puzzles in this game surprised me in the way that they were implemented throughout the experience. Some puzzles were search and find, other puzzles you had to “walk” along a path and find the hidden detail that the game asks for. Some of my favorite puzzles included browsing through image albums of items that came from the actual shipwrecks from the ships. I spent a little bit of time just reflecting on the age and history of each piece. Don’t fret if you are not a fan of “search and find” though, riddled (see what I did there) throughout are puzzles that need a bit of logic and/or physical awareness in order to solve. It gives a nice flow throughout the game and doesn’t tire one out of doing the same type of puzzle.

CLOSING THOUGHTS

Paragamix has a unique approach to “escape rooms” and one that could need a little bit of improvement. I did experience some technical glitches during the game and one link I was not able to get working and causing me unable to solve the puzzle myself. Thankfully, they do include a way to view how the solution is derived and give you the answer if something like that happens. I also would recommend playing this game either solo or with one other player and making an evening out of it. Take your time, enjoy the game, this is not something that should be rushed.

The unique mix of puzzles and historic locations that not everyone may get to see in person creates a game that is not only fun to search around, it lends itself well for the design of augmented reality. Finding things that trigger a different view of the room, walking around real bars, beaches and streets searching for that one piece of information is relaxing and creates a moment of clarity when you keep progressing. If one goes in expecting an evening of exploration and puzzle solving, then Bermuda Wrecks gives you the best of both worlds.

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BUY NOW

(If you do decide to try this game, please remember to let them know that you heard it from"ESCAPETHEROOMers"!)

Disclosure: We thank Paragamix providing us with a sample of the game. Although complimentary experience was generously provided, it does not impact our opinion on the review whatsoever.

#CiciCao #AtHomeGames #DigitalGame #Horror #Mystery #Germany #Paragamix #Adventure