Video/Photos provided by Prison Escape by Real Life Gaming NL
Company: Prison Escape by Real Life Gaming NL
Game: Free Yuri Koblenko
Country: Netherlands 🇳🇱
Language: English, Dutch
Type of Game: Remote Escape Room 🗣
Genre: Mission
Date Played: 7/10/2020
Difficulty (based on 5 players): 6/10
Size of Team: 2-7 Players
Time: 45 Minutes
Price: €109/Team of max 7 ppl
We were supposed to go to the Netherlands in May for our NL escape rooms tour and to attend Up The Game, but everything got cancelled and the world switched everything to online. "Prison Escape" was one of the games we were really looking forward to play in person. The physical location of the game is at the Prison dome in Breda. Hundreds of people will come from all over the world to play the game since it only runs few times a year. Even though we haven't played the game yet, we've heard so much about it. Some of our friends even went back to play it again to get a difference experience. Even though the goal is to escape from your prison, the main concept is not build on "escaping". The interaction between the guards, players and other characters in the game is what makes the game memorable. Since the game could have many outcomes due to your choices and other people's choices, it's definitely replayable. Now that I've set the back story on "Prison Escape", lets talk about "Prison Escape Online".
"Prison Escape Online" gave us a clear goal right from the beginning. Our mission was to assist the hacker to free Y. koblenko from prison as he's been framed. The game confirmation email contained a bunch of important documents that we suggest you study in advance. It would be helpful to assemble a little group chat before the game to get a clear idea on the situation. The entire experience was around 45 minutes (this included the intro video and debriefing by the hacker). The actual play time was 20 minutes. There was no time to waste.
The game felt like a hybrid between a digital game and a remote escape room. It was definitely very unique and we haven't seen anything like it. With the information we were given, we had to come up with a plan to inform the hacker. We only had about 5 minutes to come up with the entire idea. Once began to implement it, there was no turning back. Since we were interacting with the actors (there were 4 different ones we've encountered) in real time, we definitely felt the pressure. The actors were all amazing. I wish we had more time to chat with them. They were really into their characters and even though we only had a minute or so with each of them, we were able to get a clear idea on who they were and what they were capable of doing.
I would have also loved to be able to see more of the actual dome since it must've been pretty spectacular.
The cost of the game must be due to the amount of actors that were involved and the rental of the enormous space. We understand that the game creator probably wanted to recreate the same feel as the real life Prison Escape experience but as an online player who's done over 100 remote escape rooms by now, we felt that the value for play time probably would disappoint some players. Most of the online experiences we've played are priced lower and gives the players 60-90 minutes of play time. Our suggestion would be to perhaps cut the intro shorter so at least the players could have another try within the 45 minutes limit (it wasn't until when we failed that we finally understood how everything was supposed to work)? Or maybe the hacker's debriefing could be included in the documents that were sent to the players in advance. This way, at least 15 minutes would be saved to be used as play time. Since the real game really emphasized on this element of interaction with actors, we would hope to be able to experience it more online. If some of these suggestions could be implemented, we would love to experience it again as it's truly a special game in its own category. We can't wait to play this in person so we would be able to discuss with the rest of our friends who's played the game and to be able to rave about it to the others!
(If you do decide to try this game, please remember to let them know that you heard it from"ESCAPETHEROOMers"!)
Disclosure: We thank Prison Escape by Real Life Gaming NL 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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