Red Lantern Escape Rooms - "The Hardin House Mystery"

Updated: Apr 27, 2024

Photos have been provided by Red Lantern Escape Rooms

Company: Red Lantern Escape Rooms

Game: The Hardin House Mystery

Country: USA 🇺🇸

Language: English

Type of Game: Audio Escape Room 👂

Genre: Mystery

Date Played: 6/1/2020

Difficulty (based on 4 players): 6/10

Size of Team: Up to 8 Players

Time: 60 Minutes

Price: $60 (up to 4 ppl), $15 each additional

"The Hardin House Mystery" is probably one of our favorite audio escape room experiences so far. The owner (also our narrator) took us back to Spring of 1988. We "stood" in front of the Hardin House and the story began...

As we explored the massive 8 room house, we're able to find items or puzzles along the way. Most of the other audio escape rooms we've played just provided us with a plain PDF sheet and we just had to tell the narrator what we would like them to do and we'll get a response back that they've done it and what had happened as a result. The PDF remains the same the entire time. In this game, when we discovered an area with a lock or puzzle, the narrator was able to click into it and either a picture will show up as a lock or an audio story would open. We also enjoyed the fact that long notes were being read by a character in the story instead of us having to silently read it to ourselves. We appreciated that the time was paused while we're presented with these stories so it didn't cut into our play time.

The sound elements also helped greatly with the immersion level. Whenever a classic 80s song came on, we couldn't help but to sing and dance to it. There were a few puzzles that were predictable and most of the puzzles were not very challenging for us enthusiasts but there were definitely a good amount to go through for us to enjoy almost an entire hour of play. We hope to see some more "wow" moments in the future games. Although the interface was the best one we've seen so far in audio escape room category, the owner said he will be adding an inventory list on the side screen which will make the game even smoother. This game definitely gave us a "Nancy Drew" vibe. See if you have the wits to found out what's the mystery behind the Hardin House!

*** We regret to inform this game is no longer available for booking but check out other in-person escape rooms on their website***

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Disclosure: We thank Red Lantern Escape Rooms for comping our tickets for this game. Although a complimentary experience was generously provided, it does not impact our opinion on the review whatsoever.