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You may recognize Edith Humphreys, your sweet neighbor with 24 cats. You may have even helped her out, snooped around her apartment. But there's something about Edith that doesn't quite add up... she looks way younger than she is, she says she was born in 1902 but that she's 97 years young... and she lives at a business called Mad Genius Escapes?! What is going on here...
“Whatever you do, be different – that was the advice my mother gave me, and I can’t think of better advice for an entrepreneur. If you’re different, you will stand out.”- Anita Roddick
Playing an escape is already, for many, out of one's comfort zone. There are a lot of extraordinary things to experience: being locked up, handcuffed, cooperating, time traveling, putting your hands (and not only) in filthy places. We crawl, we squeeze, we talk a lot and sometimes we keep quiet.
Sometimes we're in a prison, become mafia or are looking for a killer and sometimes we're all at the same time, but we're always out of our usual life.
Playing an escape ne line, at home behind a screen telling a Game Master what to do can be scary or doubtful. That's not what you like in an escape, you want to touch things and then in the end you get hooked. You want to travel from home. See how escapes are thought of in other countries, get together with friends from all over to play.
And then it's at that moment, when live onlive escapes become our new normality, that we come across the truth about Edith.
First of all, this adventure doesn't really exist in Portland, but is a spin off of their venue: The Cat Lady. (This should have alerted us already.)
15 minutes before the start you receive your zoom link. The sign suggests you to use zoom on something other than your computer and that your computer is used for ... the rest.
In private chat you will receive a secret code word that you should not communicate to your teammates.
Once you're all in, the adventure begins with a really cool introductory video and then... more. It takes a while to find your feet. We're waiting for a GM, but no... this is a hybrid adventure. It combines puzzle games, research and communication. And then just as we're getting our bearings, we're surprised by a different approach. Over and over again we have to adapt. Some things we loved, some things we didn't.
But it's one of the first online escape that allows us to cooperate and especially this stress in the last seconds of the end... it's been a long time since I've felt it.
I really enjoyed the experience, it's so different and surprising, but it's not an escape like you're used to. Yes you have to think and combine and observe and communicate and yet it's not as immersive as you might expect.
A little advice: to fully enjoy this adventure (you've noticed that I don't say room) your level of English must be quite correct.
+ We enjoyed +
- We didn't like -
For who?
Why play it?