Nefertari's Tomb

We go to escape rooms for the variety of puzzles, not just to translate. Almost all the puzzles rely on transliteration, not cleverness. Also, we were somewhat uncomfortable by the idea that we were playing grave robbers (who are directed by a German-sounding man wearing a vaguely military-styled uniform). 😬

In theory, I should have enjoyed “Nefertari’s Tomb.” I am a puzzle person and this room is nothing but a series of puzzles — the story is nonexistent. Sad to say that I really did not enjoy anything about this room. It’s got a tedious hieroglyphic translation activity, it looks nonlinear but in fact many puzzles cannot be solved until other puzzles are solved first and absolutely nothing in the room clues this, and it’s got one of the most ambiguous “guess the sound” puzzles I’ve ever seen (or heard). You can finish the “main quest” with some time to spare, which unlocks some “bonus puzzles,” one of which breaks a fundamental rule of the room. I will say that, like all of NMER’s rooms, the set design is great. But the puzzles are terrible and that’s an unforgivable sin in my book. All of the other rooms at this venue are either good or great, so just play all of those and skip this one.

The scale of this room is large and it’s such a cool looking set; I found myself just admiring it at times. Challenging room with so many puzzles, lots of work to get the goodies here, but so worth it. Surprises around every corner, but not scary, just cool moments.

I have very mixed feelings about this game because there were quite a few puzzles I really enjoyed and also quite a few that I thought were needlessly difficult. There’s quite a few accessibility issues which make the game difficult for people even without those accessibility needs and that definitely turned me off to a handful of the puzzles. This seems like one of those games that’s like…hard but for the wrong reasons if that makes sense? Its clear from the other reviews that a lot of people have voiced similar opinions and it’s weird that the owners aren’t addressing them because this game has a much different vibe than the rest for those reasons. Overall I had a good time…but it could have been a great time and it just wasn’t.

Great room!! Did it with my husband. We only made it to the bonus room with 2 mins left. Would recommend at least 4 if you want to finish the whole game!

Great overall room, but we had 8 with us and didn’t even make it through the bonus room. Need several people to do this room fully and definitely cannot do with 2

Too much substitution cipher. Not as fun as some others I’ve done.