Escape New Haven – Before Moonrise

Escape New Haven – Before Moonrise
Location: Conneticut – Played Online
Game Date: 06/01/2021
Team: Amy, Ian, Gord, Liz, Charlie & James
Duration: 60 minutes

We were kindly invited by Gord and Liz to join them in For Liz’s birthday treat, what a lovely way to spend a lockdown birthday. Joined by Charlie and James of Deadlocked Fame (check our our reviews here, here, and here ) we assembled our super-team and joined the zoom call to Conneticut!

Theme:
“Light, sound, décor, and even smell combine to build immersion in our most stunning game yet. In this high-difficulty challenge, players will need to uncover the secrets of a log cabin in the woods… but avoid becoming dinner for the werewolf lurking outside.”

Before Moonrise was BEAUTIFUL, fully immersive and decorated to perfection. There was enough to look at and investigate without it becoming distracting to the game.
This is a game I would have LOVED to have played in person, it just looked fantastic and I could tell a lot of love has been put into this room, the attention to detail in the sets was lush.

Despite being all the way in the US, and us being on the other side of a zoom screen the game still had a really tactile feel, and the game hosts have even gone as far as to put pictures available of EVERY single thing in the room… You want a close up pic of a light… They can give you it.

The sense of drama and immersion was good, and this was helped by our host, who played his part well and drove the story forward. It’s always hard to capture the feeling of being in a room and our host did a fine job of bringing us into the game.

Game Play:
A fairly linear game for the sake of the online medium (I have a feeling it may be a bit more open in person) with an excellent variety of puzzles. Searching, observation, logic, deduction, physical. There was a very good mix.
Before Moonrise is a technical delight, I don’t normally talk too much about tech but this was one of those rare rooms where the tech involved was so precise, beautiful and made perfect sense in the scope of the room that it HAS to be mentioned. This wasn’t tech “for tech’s sake” this was tech that made the room come alive, to enhance the experience and make the game feel immersive, real and hands on (and kudos to Escape New Haven for  translating that feeling over the screen)
Before Moonrise has a hard mode, unless you are absoloute newbies I would reccomend playing the hard mode. It’s much more satisfying.
The puzzles were all perfectly on theme, logical and wonderful to solve. I think we all had our moments to shine (Especially James, who solved a fairly tricky puzzle in SECONDS. Honestly I don’t know how he does it)
The ah-ha moments came thick and fast and there was a good amount of teamwork in the room, between each other and with our host.
Signposting was delighful and due to the immersive nature of the room it felt natural to know what to do next.
Flow was slick, fast-paced and smooth. No hiccups hitches of sticky points at all.
The game culminated in a choice, I enjoy games like these as it always sparkes debate, but this time we left the choice up to the birthday girl Liz (She made the right choice!)
There were some really magical  moments in Before Moonrise, thanks to the combination of snazzy tech that lifted the logical, fun puzzles and made them tactile and physical.
An excellent experience that shows that even the most hands on rooms can translate to online play if done in the right way!

Clue System:
Clues were given by our host (I don’t think we actually asked for it)

Game Host:
Our game host was great, friendly and really made us feel like we were part of the room and all on the same team!

Connectivity and Inventory System:
Connection was good to start with and we had no problems until the latter half of the game, but out game host quickly resolved these with minimum fuss and it didn’t impact on our game.
The inventory system was clear and easy to use, giving us a good view of WHATEVER we wanted to see in the room!

Did we escape?
Yes! Although I’m not sure on time!

Website: https://escapenewhaven.com/tickets
Price:
$89 for up to 6 people