BLOT - CLOSEDRECONEscape roomVirtual A hilarious fun virtual game with a live host for Recon 2025! Imagination, creativity, and improvisation are the real winners here. A love for merry melodies and the loony go a long way, and that’s my childhood in a nutshell!
Monthly Mystery #17 - Forecast: MysteryThe Escape Game - OnlineEscape roomVirtual Fun free game that takes more advantage of interactive virtual images and videos than previous Monthly Mysteries have. The puzzles were more tricky and clever than I was expecting. Thankfully does not require social media like the previous one (#16) did.
Monthly Mystery #16 - FrostbiteThe Escape Game - OnlineEscape roomVirtual It’s fun, and it’s free. With a caveat this time around. You need to have access to Instagram to play. The game starts with a YouTube video, then also involves Instagram. So from the start, it’s just less accessible. I guess it’s all for the sake of marketing and social media follows, and again, it IS free and takes about 1/2 hour or less. Just a shame they’re going this route.
Monthly Mystery #15 - Cosmo's Lucky LandingThe Escape Game - OnlineEscape roomVirtual A cute, free virtual escape game from the folks at The Escape Game. The game is space-themed, though there are little elements of St. Patrick’s Day fittingly for March. The puzzles won’t take most people more than 1/2 hour, which should be a good time for a free game. These are always fun monthly treats! Good LUCK!
Monthly Mystery #14 - A Date With MysteryThe Escape Game - OnlineEscape roomVirtual It’s cute and free. Some of the puzzles use drag-and-drop, and others require outside research. Probably fun for dates given the Valentine’s Day theme.
Monthly Mystery #13 - Adventure Factory FrenzyThe Escape Game - OnlineEscape roomVirtual Pretty easy puzzles themed around the chain company that makes these monthly games as well as many popular physical escape rooms around the U.S.: The Escape Game. It’s free and fun, so there’s no downside to spend about 1/2 hour or less solving some brain teasers that offer a fun look behind the magic. Some puzzles do require extra knowledge, but like all the monthly mysteries, you can look up anything online as you wish.
Monthly Mystery #12 - A Christmas Mystery with Backstreet Boys!The Escape Game - OnlineEscape roomVirtual Backstreet’s Back alright! Grew up with and enjoyed listening to the Backstreet Boys so this was a treat to see them in videos and pictures! The puzzles were simple fun, about what you might expect from a linear set of online browser riddles. They make good use of video. You don’t need to know anything about the boy band to enjoy it, but there is actually a bonus puzzle that rewards you for being a big fan Larger Than Life! Best of all, the game is free and I Want It That Way!
Escape Academy: Tournament of PuzzlesCoin Crew GamesEscape roomVirtual Unlike the base Escape Academy game and its other expansions, Tournament of Puzzles is PVP mode. In other words, it’s player vs. player. The goal is to escape first by solving randomly generated puzzles in a themed room of your choosing. The puzzles have a lot of variation, but since they’re random, I wouldn’t call it a coherent themed room with the love and thought put into the other rooms. But it does keep it replayable, should you be a competitive person. There are also scavenger hunt and tic-tac-toe modes, which are what they sound like. I wasn’t too into those modes, but the main escape race is a decent enough way to get your puzzle fix. You can play solo as well.
Sherlock Holmes - Phantom's HourWolf Escape Games-OnlineEscape roomVirtual Another win from Wolf Escape Games! The escape game features a set of virtual puzzles, all of which are controlled via point and click with your mouse. The puzzles are elementary, and we felt as smart as Sherlock solving them. The story unfolds with a full mystery that requires deduction and careful thinking to solve. The game isn’t super long, probably took our group of 2 around an hour and a half. But it’s a good length for a game like this, particularly since it can only be completed once per purchase. I recommend the other games from this company, though I found Miami Bay to be long for one sitting. Sherlock Holmes - Phantom’s Hour is much more digestible and also fun for a night at Holmes!
Monthly Mystery #11 - Mystery RouteThe Escape Game - OnlineEscape roomVirtual The Escape Game’s Monthly Mystery for November 2024 is a brisk, but fun experience. The puzzles are all related to the all-too-relatable task of picking an escape room to book. It’s done with great humor, thanks to the collab with Room Escape Artist. Some neat puzzles utilize things outside of the game, but you’ll have to see for yourself in this free game what they’ve cooked up for the road!
Monthly Mystery #10 - Monster MansionThe Escape Game - OnlineEscape roomVirtual Great set of small browser puzzles from The Escape Game! Themed after the Halloween season for October’s Monthly Mystery, the game leans more into cute traditional movie monsters than anything actually scary. This isn’t a complaint because I love cute! And the videos, pictures, and even music all scream cute Halloween! There was good effort put into this free game, and it’s a great treat for haunted Halloween trickery for families and puzzle-lovers!
Monthly Mystery #9 - Only Murders in the Building The Escape Game - OnlineEscape roomVirtual A fun series of linear puzzle games from the large chain The Escape Game. Some of these are actually pretty tricky, and they DO require and encourage use of outside research from Google. I watch and enjoy the show Only Murders in the Building, but I don’t remember a lot of the details and have only seen the 1st couple of seasons, but it was still easy and enjoyable to follow along. So, you don’t need to have watched it to enjoy this. I think actual footage or video cameos of the actors or show would have enhanced this, but I understand that it would have cost money. And this is free anyway!
Escape Academy: Escape From Anti-Escape IslandCoin Crew GamesEscape roomVirtual Escape from Anti-Escape Island is one of 2 DLC packs for Escape Academy, and it includes 5 escape rooms. If you’ve played the original, which you must own to get this DLC, then this is more of the awesome 1st person puzzle room gameplay! Although there are only 5 rooms compared to the dozen in the base game, they are all better quality, and I enjoyed them even more than the ones in the base game. The last few rooms in particular challenge what is possible in a real escape room which I really loved the most! Definitely worth it for days where you gotta play at home!
Escape AcademyCoin Crew GamesEscape roomVirtual One of the best virtual escape room video games I’ve ever played! Escape Academy is a collection of about a dozen escape rooms tied together with a charming story about an escape room school. (enroll me now!) The game stands out with its excellent 1st-person controls that are a step above typical point-and-click gameplay. The rooms are all colorful, well-designed, filled with humor and personality, and include elements that would not be feasible in real-life escape rooms. The puzzles are in the easier side for enthusiasts, and the lower time limits reflect that. But there are some good stumpers that took a while, and made me feel proud to solve. There is a built-in hint system for those who need more assistance. You can play co-op too with local and online with optional split screen! Really felt like I was in an actual escape room with a group! Also worth noting there’s DLC packs that add extra escape rooms and storylines. The game is frequently cheap, and I highly recommend it for newcomers and veterans alike, especially for those days where you just can’t make it out to a real room! Passing marks A+!
Miami BayWolf Escape Games-OnlineEscape roomVirtual Another fun virtual escape game from Wolf Escape Games! This game came out with perfect timing because we wanted a great virtual escape room to play with friends for the holidays, and we loved their previous game Hallows Hill! This one has more of a 1980s Miami vice city crimes vibe, combined with murder mysteries and also video games! It’s point and click just like the previous game. It’s also very linear so you’re only ever working on a few puzzles at a time. On the plus side, you get a good voice-acted story! And the settings change multiple times as you progress so you get to explore different locales throughout. There were a few issues of flickering glitches, but it could have been on our side. The game for us was longer than the 2 hours we expected, which is not a bad thing, but perhaps something to think about based on the group you’re playing with. There are built in breaks if needed! Our group had a lot of fun with Miami Bay! I’m so happy Wolf Escape continues to put out these hits!
Hallows HillWolf Escape Games-OnlineEscape roomVirtual An excellent online escape game experience! There's a good story (although logically, some of the story beats seem odd) and a great set of puzzles surrounding it. Unlike other virtual games I've played, this one felt like an actual location. In other words, I felt like I was walking around a real mansion and not just a "virtual escape room" approximation of a mansion. I’m also a huge fan of point-and-click adventure games, and this was very much one. The puzzles are a bit math-heavy, which I liked, though others might not. It's also linear and is a bit on the easy side because there isn't a whole lot to actually interact with or observe. Also, I wasn't a fan of the final challenge, but I liked the effects and how the story concluded. The cinematics are very top-notch professional, and the scares are real! Best part is that you can play this online or just huddled around one screen. My group of 4 played this on a computer hooked up to a television and it worked out well! We played with friends who had not done in-person escape rooms but enjoyed puzzles and puzzle video games, and we all had a blast!
Chasing Hahn: The Heist Volume 1The Escape Game - OnlineEscape roomVirtual I really enjoyed this play-at-home online game from The Escape Game! It's only the 1st part out of 3, but it feels like a complete game. Took us over an hour to complete. It's a smart design. Although it's structured like an escape room with different puzzles you can solve that give you clues to complete later puzzles, it's actually presented like a detective's computer database. Instead of standard puzzle clues, you get evidence, recordings, and documents. And it's all easily accessible through easy-to-navigate computer tabs. There are even some surprises that I wasn't expecting! I love mysteries and sleuthing, so disguising an escape room as well-themed detective work was great brain stimulation. I luckily got this game for free through some smart marketing by the game's company. And after finishing this one, I am looking forward to playing the rest!
The Shop of Theseus - CLOSEDRECONEscape roomVirtual Hilarious experience that I was lucky to be able to be a part of doing during escape room convention RECON 2023! It was a fun audio adventure with some images and interactive text/browser puzzles with full audio narration and acting by the talented and witty Mark Larson. Deciding via voice with the team what to do, whether part of solving the room or just messing around for fun, led to delightful descriptions and funny outcomes. I didn’t kwant it to end! I was laughing so hard! The ending is a kick too, but I won’t spoil what made it legendary!
Oxenfree II: Lost SignalsNight School Studio - OnlineEscape roomVirtual Such a wonderful game and just as enjoyable as the first, in different ways! First things first, I really like the main character Riley, and the fact that she was an older character in her 30s resonated with me more. What she is going through feels very poignant, heartfelt, and thoughtful. There are more puzzles in this one, though still not many, and they’re all pretty easy to solve. The area to explore is a lot bigger this time around, which is both good and bad. I liked exploring with new partner Jacob, but it felt slow to traverse the new area without a way to fast travel or run freely. The walkie talkie and radio functions are used well both for narrative and puzzle purposes. The choices and endings are very compelling and thought-provoking and actually make me want to replay it! Note that if you haven’t played the 1st one, you won’t get as much out of it. So if you wanna play this at all, I recommend to play the 1st one and enjoy the sequel after! I won’t spoil, but this game is for the fans!
OxenfreeNight School Studio - OnlineEscape roomVirtual Finally got around to playing Oxenfree in time for the sequel to come out on Nintendo Switch! I loved this experience. Although it isn’t really a traditional escape room game, it’s very much a compelling narrative adventure with some minimal puzzles. The choices matter, and I was invested to making a good timeline for Alex amongst the supernatural, kinda creepy stuff going on. The way the radio was used for puzzles and locks was a nice gimmick. And full voice-acting helped sell me on the characters and their plight on the mysterious island.
