EPIC ESCAPES - AT HOME ESCAPE ROOM IN A BOX
The team at Epic Escapes have created an awesome escape room in a box experience, where you can use your own home as an escape room! (In fact, this box contains three rooms to enjoy!)
To purchase the Epic Escapes Starter Pack visit; https://www.epic-escapes.games/product/escape-room-in-a-box/
EPIC ESCAPES - CRIME
PADLOCK RATING; 4 - GREATLY RECOMMENDED
The prospect of an "Escape Room in a Box", really got the juices flowing, and it is safe to say the guys at Epic Escapes did not disappoint. This game type is certainly an emerging market in the escape room world, and with this being the first time of playing a proper "at home" room, I didn't really know what to expect.
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Opening the box, the first thing to say is that I was blown away with the quality of the product. Without any spoilers, much of the hardware contained within the box is of great build quality and it is evident that a great amount of effort has been put into perfecting the contents. The box also contains a volume of consumable items and a large number of clear to follow, fool-proof instructions.
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The box contains three different at home escape room experiences; Crime, Piracy and Hijack. Each differing slightly in difficulty level. To get us off to a steady start, we opted for the easiest of the three, Crime, as our first.
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So, the story... You are house sitting for a friend who has gone away to Italy. All seemed to be going well until people started angrily banging on the door in the middle of the night. It turns out the friend you are house-sitting for owes these people money. You have found your way into his panic room and your mission is to escape and find why he owes these people money.
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A nice simple story to follow, which actually fits very well with the "at home" theme. I decided to be the game master for this occasion so hid the clues and locks etc for my family to locate and find answers to. We all agreed that the puzzles for this are very well put together, they flowed particularly well, and it was evident that a clear path needed to be followed in order to escape.
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The panic set in with a few members of the team when they couldn't find some answers, however the box also includes some hint cards. These came in very useful on the final challenge, when they simply couldn't fathom the answer - a subtle hint in the right direction proved essential and the team escaped with around 20 minutes to spare.
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A really well designed, high quality, at home product, with a clear story and flow. Brilliant for first time escape roomers as the puzzles were well structured and understandable. Likewise, experienced gamers would also find this a great starting point. Really looking forward to playing Piracy and Hijack shortly - watch this space...
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EPIC ESCAPES - PIRACY
PADLOCK RATING; 4.5 - HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
This was our second outing from the Epic Escapes game box and yet again it didn't disappoint.
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Just as a quick recap from our first game, Crime... the prospect of an "Escape Room in a Box", really got the juices flowing. On our first occasion, opening the box, the first thing to say is that we were blown away with the quality of the contents. The hardware contained within the box is of great build quality and it is evident that a great amount of effort has been put into perfecting the contents. The box also contains a volume of consumable items and a large number of clear to follow, fool-proof instructions.
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The box contains three different at home escape room experiences; Crime, Piracy and Hijack. Each differing slightly in difficulty level. As we had already mastered the "easier" Crime game, this time we went for medium difficulty experience - Piracy.
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A nice clear challenge card contained within the box sets the story up nicely - Passing through the Suez Canal in your merchant navy oil tanker, a last minute captain has locked you and the rest of the crew in his quarters and now it appears the boat is going off course. You remember that the former captain had built an emergency escape mechanism years back. Now you must solve the puzzles in order to unlock the escape hatch and get the ship back on track!
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We really like the story and its certainly not one we had seen before - which is very refreshing! The story was strong and is very different to the first game, Crime - which is very much suited to the home environment, whereas in this story, setting a theme at home will add to the experience.
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With this in mind, we played the game in a different room in the house, the lights were turned off, and I had soft white led lighting as well as a very loud countdown clock (found on Youtube!) to add tension and compliment the story. Doing it in a different room from the first time we played, meant different hiding places and a real different feel to the game.
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The puzzles in this game stick strictly to the theme and really add to the game play. There are a good number of padlock puzzles, as well as hidden materials throughout the room. Although there aren't a huge amount of puzzles within the game, they are all very strong - 2 in particular we really liked. We all agreed that the difficultly level of the puzzles was a little trickier than our first Epic Escapes outing and is a great follow on.
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One puzzle threw the team completely, however the box comes complete with a set of handy hint cards. Having a glance at these set the guys back on track and we smashed through the puzzles.
In times of lock down, a game like this is a real solid substitute to get your escape room fix. The qualify of the product is strong, particularly in terms of design and hardware. The story is very different to others so gives this experience a very different feel to Epic Escapes first puzzle we played. All in all, a really good experience. Looking forward to playing the third instalment from the starter box - Hijack!
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