Photo provided by 66 Minuten - Theater Adventures
Company: 66 Minutes - Theater Adventures
Game: Showdown
Country: Germany 🇩🇪
Language: English, German
Type of Game: Remote Escape Room 🗣
Genre: Mystery
Date Played: 3/3/2021
Difficulty (based on 5 players): 5/10
Size of Team: 1-6 Connections (Ages 13+) Time: 99 Minutes Price: €120 (1-3 connections), Each additional connection €15
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It's time for the weekly recap meeting with Anti Schlabbeck Force (ASF). As the members went down the checklist, they discovered that the ending balance in ASF's account was not matching up. The ransom money from Elvira was not accounted for. They've decided to send in the new recruit, Agent Avaford, to search for the money...
Video provided by 66 Minuten - Theater Adventures
🆃🅷🅴 🅶🅰🅼🅴 🅿🅻🅰🆈
We started the game in Zoom as if we're attending a Zoom call with the other members of ASF. It was quite refreshing as we haven't seen too many remote escape games start with character interaction and a heavy narrative.
Once we got to meet our avatar (Agent Avaford) outside of Elvira's house, the game began. There were various tasks we had to do like get into the house, find certain objects, "interact" with other characters and ultimately finding that ransom money. The prerecorded videos were released usually after we've completed a certain task. They were pretty hilarious and we were surprised by some of the tasks that Agent Avaford had to complete.
This game was paired with an inventory system called Telescape. It did help with being able to read some of the clues in larger context. There were also times that you might need to hear audio components over and and over again to capture the clues so we strongly suggest headphones for this game. One other thing to take note is that you'll need to call an international number during the game. One of our players was able to do so as he's overseas but I would suggest downloading WhatsApp or some other app that will allow you to call that number for free. I don't think any players would want to be charged for international calling.
🆃🅷🅴 🅿🆄🆉🆉🅻🅴🆂
The puzzles were designed to be like a detective's game. There were more searching and putting clues together to reveal something rather than your traditional escape room logic puzzles. You'll also feel more like you're part of a theatrical act. The interactions with characters were more of the focus with this game. Since there were a good amount of clues embedded in video messages, we did have a bit of an issue understanding a few since they're translated from German and perhaps the terminology was not exactly what we would call it in the English. Since this game was designed to be an online game only, they did a great job with eliminating physical puzzles that we couldn't interact with.
🅲🅻🅾🆂🅸🅽🅶 🆃🅷🅾🆄🅶🅷🆃🆂
This avatar game was quite different than your ordinary remote escape game. It was more like a theater production. The game master in the backend was controlling when to play the prerecorded videos, muting zoom for players, bringing the camera back to the avatar, playing music when entering into the next scene and more! It's hard to imagine that there's only one person behind all of this but he was able successfully put on a great show. Agent Avaford was also great at acting as a timid and amateur agent. There were a lot of funny moments but I think it would've been even funnier in German!
𝔼𝕊ℂ𝔸ℙ𝔼𝕋ℍ𝔼ℝ𝕆𝕆𝕄𝕖𝕣𝕤❜ ℙ.𝕀.𝕤❜ 𝕋𝕙𝕠𝕦𝕘𝕙𝕥𝕤
Matt L. & Jess A.
- We were really impressed at how seamless the transitions between live and video footage were, it gave the impression of a much bigger production.
- Puzzles could have been a little more difficult, there wasn’t as much to solve as there was stuff to find.
- Avaford did a good job of helping without telling us what to do
- The plot point in the latter part of the game was a little bit confusing at the start, we weren’t fully sure how it factored in until we saw the secret reveals later on.
- It is worth recommending that players use two screens so that they can see the “live action” and the reference materials at the same time.
- all in all we really enjoyed this experience, and we will definitely check them out again if we ever go back to Berlin
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Koen D.
Pro's:
- Great actor video's for zoom (at first I thought they were all live actors)
- Good video quality
- Nice interaction with the host and environment
- Great nudging into the right direction if we got a bit stuck
- Great storyline and character development
Con's:
- Sometimes a bit harder to play with a single screen
(If you do decide to try this experience, give us a shoutout or tag us on social media so we know you heard it from "ESCAPETHEROOMers"!)
Disclosure: We thank 66 Minuten - Theater Adventures 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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