Twinwoods – Morse Code Remote Escape Room

Twinwoods – Morse Code Remote Escape Room
Location: Physical game, Bedford. We played it remotely though.
Game Date: 09/06/2020
Team: Amy, Gordon, Liz

Gordon from Review the Room contacted me to join  him and his wife Liz on this avatar led escape room,  having never played one before, I was apprehesive but excited and grabbed the bull by the horns (so to speak) and gave it a go!

Theme:
“It’s war-time in 1942 and we need you to help infiltrate the enemy tower. Once in, you must retrieve a package and then relay the enemy’s attack plan using morse code. You have a maximum of 60 minutes to achieve your mission and get out safely.

Because you’re there, and we’re here, you’ll be completing our real-world escape room from the comfort of your own home.

With live video feeds, a real-life avatar that you control, and lots of other cool online resources, we bring you the excitement of a real escape room, without the need to leave your house.

Not only that, but you can share the game play with other people in your own house, or even better, share your game with friends and family anywhere around the world!”

Theming started well with a good introductory video that set up the story, before we got into the game. Once the game commenced, this was coupled by a live game host and out avatar in the room itself who both did a great job in running the game.

Immersion wasn’t at an all time high, mostly due to the fact that we weren’t physically in the room, this is a hurdle which is fairly hard for me personally to “get over” but the room looked decorated well, and the multi camera angles showed us all the neat tricks and openings within the room.

The avatar was great, she interacted really well with us and followed our instructions perfectly, showing us the room but never leading us in what we had to do so our finds and solves all felt like our own work!

The addition of a website with all the clues you’ve found was an excellent help, and was kept up to date with immacualte timing thanks to our game host behind the scenes.

I was sceptical at first for playing an “avatar led” escape room, thinking it would be awkward, clunky and not capture playing an escape room, but WOW were my fears put to rest! It was an absoloute blast, whilst digital games have their place in these times, and are a capable subsititute, an avatar led room was the closest I’ve felt to playing a real room since the last one I did all the way back in March. I got a similar sense of excitement and achievement that I feel in regular escape rooms. This was refreshing an so so much fun!

Just a note, that this game runs through Zoom so all “screens” must have zoom installed to participate in this game. The use of Zoom was excellent, and very professional, and we didn’t enocunter any major connection problems.

Game Play:
A game that I would think would normally be fairly open, but with the contstraints of the avatar it was a more linear experience and we could only work on one puzzle at a time. Puzzles ranged from searching, to pattern recognition, codebreaking and information processing.
The puzzles were all a lot of fun, whilst not on the hardest side of things, they were all perfectly logical with lovely ah-ha moments. One critisim however, the puzzles were sometimes a little too straightforward, I understand that these puzzles may have to have been simplified or reworked for remote play, but with the addition of the clue “website” there was scope to create a few more complex answers to the puzzles.
That being said, they puzzles were all nicely in theme and clear in their excecution with no ambiguity at all.
The flow of the game was excellent and smooth, with each puzzle leading seamlessly through the story and cohesivley fitting together.
Signposting was there, but I feel this would be easier to pick up when in the room physically.
A good game, would be a great game to introduce any level of player to the world of avatar led remote escape rooms.

Clue System:
Clues were sent through zoom’s chat function

Game Host:
Our game host and avatar were both friendly and professional and did a great job guiding us, keeping track of our progress and delivering clues (Well we had one tiny one!)

Did we “escape”?
Yes, with 25 minutes remaining

Website: https://twinwoodsadventure.com/activities/remote-escape-room
Price:
2 Screens £45
3 Screens £65
4 Screesn £85
5 Screens £100
6 Screens £115
7 Screens £130
8 Screens £145
9 Screens £160
10 Screens £175