Cici Cao

Mar 12, 20219 min read

TheRooms.eu - "House of Escobar", "Ministry of Magic - Part 1", & "Tutankhamun"

Updated: Apr 28

Videos/ Photos provided by TheRooms.eu

Company: TheRooms.eu

Country: Slovakia 🇸🇰

Language: English

Type of Game: Digital Escape Game 💻

Date Played: 3/6/2021

Time: 60-90 Minutes (Approximately)

Price: €25/ team

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All three games in the below review are played in an online platform called "Telescape". These games are all digital point-n-click type games. Once you purchase the game, you'll be given a link to be shared with your group. Once all members are signed in, you can click "START". You'll have 48 hours to complete the game after this.

All the games seem to be translated from physical escape rooms. Our favorite was the set design of Tutankhamun. There's so such space to explore and lots of "treasures" to be found.

Every game had an inventory bag where if one player found an item and clicked on it, it'll be send to this central hub. From there, all players were able to see this item. During the game you'll encounter three ways to unlock certain items: 1. enter code in the "reveal" bar 2. rotate codes on actual locks 3. combine words of various items together to trigger something. It might take some time get use to Telescape if you haven't used it before. If one player opens something, it'll unlock for everybody. Overall, the interface is quite easy to use and if you get stuck, there are build-in walkthrough videos in game. We still prefer the old style text nudging hints as you don't quite get how some puzzles were solved and if it's a pattern clicking puzzle, it's quite difficult to see exactly what's been clicked in order to solve the puzzle. Also when watching the walkthroughs, you might accidentally drag it too far and detect unwanted spoilers.

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We played all three games back to back so we're glad to be able to experience variations in puzzle types.

In the "House of Escobar" game, our mission was to find information on the 3 fugitives and capture them before it's too late. Inside Pablo's house, we're able to find items that gave us clues on the whereabouts of these criminals. It felt like we were special agents on site looking for evidence. There was one puzzle that we didn't fully understand and had to use a hint to bypass it. The audio puzzle was quite heavy on the accents so it took several tries for us to complete it. We did like the secret reveals done by the combination of the items. Out of the three games, this one was probably the easiest in terms of difficulty.

"Ministry of Magic - Part I" had a very different vibe than the previous game. We were suddenly in a magical forest. There were many creatures and areas to explore. The game play was quite smooth until we got stumped on a counting puzzle. We weren't sure if certain creatures were supposed to be counted or if those were the actual creatures. We had to use a hint to bypass this puzzle. In the latter part of the game, we also got stuck on an audio puzzle. For some reason the audio didn't play and there was no other way to move forward other than using a hint to bypass it. One other puzzle also had a very particular way of combining certain items and without a clue, we would've never thought that we were supposed to complete it that way. This game was the least favorite of ours due to the bugs in the game. Usually I'm a big fan of "Harry Potter"/magic type of games. If they're able to fix some of these issues, this could become more magical. We look forward to seeing Part II. I did enjoy the cliffhanger ending.

"Tutankhamun" was probably our favorite out of the three. In terms of the amount of puzzles, this game probably had the most. It was also the most difficult one out of the three. We had to work through riddles, decryption, and a lot of "search and find". We didn't mind the search and find with a team of 4 as it actually went well with the theme and we felt like we're archeologists excavating a dig site. There were several "wow" moments during the game after we combined particular items together.

Game: House of Escobar

Genre: Mission/ Adventure

Difficulty (based on 4 players): 4.5/10 Size of Team: 2-6 Players (Recommended)

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You are on the DEA anti-drug task force. You have a very important mission this time. There are 3 dangerous drug lords (including the infamous Pablo Escobar) currently on the run. Will you be able to find them before they go into hiding again?

𝔼𝕊ℂ𝔸ℙ𝔼𝕋ℍ𝔼ℝ𝕆𝕆𝕄𝕖𝕣𝕤❜ ℙ.𝕀.𝕤❜ 𝕋𝕙𝕠𝕦𝕘𝕙𝕥𝕤

Andrew K.

I had the pleasure of tackling the House of Escobar and I had a great time. This was my first experience using the Telescape platform, and was impressed. In this escape room, you are offered a 360* view of the actual escape room. You are able to look in all directions, and your mouse cursor is able to interact with different pieces and elements of the rooms. Most objects are still, but there are a few items that can be moved around via some animations which is quite fun.

There were a lot of fun and creative puzzles throughout the room, and it did not feel too linear. There was enough for the four players to do, and we were able to work on different puzzles independently. The embedded videos, inventory suitcase, and digital elements were well-integrated, and it was definitely a satisfying experience.

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Kobi R.

TheRooms uses Telescape as the platform for their remote escape rooms. It's a really intuitive platform and easy to use. One small quirk - every time you leave and enter a space, the entire team hears a sound. For nonlinear rooms, this could be a bit irritating.

The Escobar room was nonlinear so it was great to work in parallel as a team. I felt that some codes and riddles didn't have too many options, allowing you to just guess the answer. Other than that, the story feels pretty comprehensive and made sense. It wasn't the most theme focused experience but it was enough to feel the general vibes. I would recommend this room for beginners and mid-level escapers. Experienced escapers would probably not enjoy this as much.

Game: Ministry of Magic - Part 1

Genre: Magic/ Fantasy

Difficulty (based on 4 players): 6/10

Size of Team: 1-4 Players (Recommended)

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It seems like He Who Must Not Be Named is planning something evil again. Our only chance at winning this battle is to retrieve a memory from a Death Eater to know of his plans. There's no option to fail!

𝔼𝕊ℂ𝔸ℙ𝔼𝕋ℍ𝔼ℝ𝕆𝕆𝕄𝕖𝕣𝕤❜ ℙ.𝕀.𝕤❜ 𝕋𝕙𝕠𝕦𝕘𝕙𝕥𝕤

Helen B.

The Ministry of Magic was a room type I hadn't tried yet - a real physical escape room, captured and digitized with an interface that allows you to move around it and interact with the items. It is also the first I have seen where all players are collaboratively moving around the same interface, watching what happens between you rather than all solving alone. There is also an inventory where things you collect as a team can be found, which is a clever way to go about it - I did find hunting for it by my feet tricky at times though!

The room design is brilliant - I'm a Harry Potter fan so it appealed - very mythical and almost spooky - with sound effects when going in for close-ups of some items. There were some great mechanics at work - different interaction types and ways of solving puzzles - however the aforementioned sound effects are crucial to the solving of some puzzles so it is strongly advised for all to listen and use headphones when playing.

We started strong, but came unstuck one puzzle that requires counting - it was not all that obvious and we ended up using the hint to progress. The same thing happened when we came to open a door where we think a vital clue we needed to hear was not operating correctly, meaning we had to see the answer to carry on.

A couple of irks - one was that some zoomed in versions of clickable areas did not look the same as they did before being clicked on so threw you a little, plus if items have been added or collected from areas then in the zoomed out view this does not update, meaning you can miss some activities that have been completed. One puzzle where items are combined did not seem to work

On the whole though a very entertaining time spent hunting around this room, enjoying the feeling of being in a digital room WITH people, as you can see their cursors moving around, and much more reflective of a real-life room, where you can all be working on separate tasks to progress.

Would be interested to see what is through the door into part 2!!!

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Jorge L.

Ministry of Magic was a nice point and click adventure that truly stuck to its theme of magic and wizardry. The game is mostly a 360 image of their physical room, but contained enough puzzles to keep us busy for the entire hour. All of the visuals and puzzles flowed well and it was easy for our team of four to work together and chat about what we were finding. The hint system was also great, as we got stuck at one or two spots and it was easy to follow on how to progress.

Game: Tutankhamun

Genre: Adventure

Difficulty (based on 5 players): 7/10

Size of Team: 1-4 Players (Recommended)

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It is the year 1922. You and your fellow archeologists have just made the biggest discovery of your lives. You've found the tomb of Pharaoh Tutankhamun. Would you be able to retrieve the secrets within or will they die with you in the tomb?

𝔼𝕊ℂ𝔸ℙ𝔼𝕋ℍ𝔼ℝ𝕆𝕆𝕄𝕖𝕣𝕤❜ ℙ.𝕀.𝕤❜ 𝕋𝕙𝕠𝕦𝕘𝕙𝕥𝕤

Ryann S.

I’m new to this exact style of virtual escape room and, ultimately, I’m just not sure the format itself is for me.

One of the biggest struggles for me is in something that others might enjoy, so it’s worth seeing if the format does meet your likes! Because my teammates and I were able to independently work on different puzzles at the same time, I often found myself getting lost at what was going on overall and felt disconnected from the group aspect that I enjoy of escape rooms. This also hurt any storyline that was going on for me. During my playthrough with ETR, I eventually completed two puzzles that we had started on as a group (then temporarily abandoned when they weren’t working out as readily.) While I definitely felt some sense of accomplishment at solving the puzzles, I have to admit that I never exactly felt confident about what I was doing. [At least one of the solutions was a total guess on my part.] This also meant that my teammates both found and solved entire puzzles that I never experienced! Bummer.

Overall, the ability for my teammates and I to connect across the world and play a game in a third country entirely is awesome! I enjoyed the theme of the stuck-in-an-Egyptian-tomb room and thought that the room itself looked really well-decorated and full of mystery. Ultimately, however, some of the magic of real-time team adventures was just lost for me while I felt like I spend almost half of my time clicking on a 2D representation of the room, trying to find some area of it that would lead to a discovery or a puzzle-solve. Clearly, this is absolutely a personal preference and may appeal to a whole audience of folks who want a more relaxed environment where they can explore at their own pace. Would I give this style of room a second try? Totally. Now, I’ll have a better idea of what to expect.

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Yoni Y.

The graphics are very good, and successfully animates a real life 360’ escape room (actually, we played a physical room with very similar decoration). The co-operation between the team members is done nicely - you can see named cursors wherever the other player is pointing.

Since the solving is done together, the game can, very easily, become a little chaotic, with one player putting a puzzle part in one place and another player moving it elsewhere, and sound effects are heard simultaneously.

It wasn’t always clear that a puzzle was solved successfully, so more than once we found ourselves puzzled about what we have already solved and what is still waiting. The riddles were challenging, though some of them have very loose connection to the pharaohs & pyramids theme. Also, there were tedious translation tasks which we could have done without.

The overall experience was close to a real life escape room, but unfortunately, not an outstanding one.

🅲🅻🅾🆂🅸🅽🅶 🆃🅷🅾🆄🅶🅷🆃🆂

From being a secret agent to a wizard to an archeologist, TheRooms.eu sure knows how to keep the players entertained. If you don't like these three themes, they've already came with 2 other games. The amount of spaces for us to explore in these games was really impressive. We can't imagine what it would be like to play these games in person. Hopefully we'll bring you more reviews from their games as they seem to be developing these quite quickly!

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

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