Tag Archives: book

Mystery Guides: The Mystery of the Gunpowder Snitch (York) | Review

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Moments before Guy Fawkes lit his fuse an anonymous letter tipped off the authorities and foiled his dastardly plot… Who wrote the letter? Nobody knows, but a dusty diary found beneath the floorboards of an old York pub could finally expose him, and this is where you come in…

Date Played: August 2023
Time Taken: 3 Hours
Number of Players: 3
Difficulty: Easy

The Guy Fawkes Inn in York is famous for a couple of things. Firstly, the pies. Steak and ale with a beautiful pastry. Very tasty indeed. The other thing (arguably the main thing) is being the birthplace of Guy Fawkes – hence the name…

Yup, Fawkes is kind of a big deal around these parts. Him, Dick Turpin and Vikings. If you’re looking for a theme, then one of those three will probably do the job, and in The Gunpowder Snitch the notorious plotter’s deeds take centre stage.

Presented in a colourful, well-put-together booklet, The Gunpowder Snitch has you eliminating suspects, colours, seasons, and several other things Cluedo style until you are left with the pieces required complete the final puzzle. These allow you to discover exactly who was responsible for the writing of secret letters that, ultimately, foiled the plan. You do this by following a route, finding the relevant landmark, and then using it to somehow decipher a coded message before moving onto the next. Between the puzzles are background details, diary entries and antiquitorial titbits to help fill out the story.

Location, Location, Location

York is the perfect city for such an activity. It’s dripping in history – both horrible and otherwise – and you can’t kick a bush without several ‘most haunted’ pubs scurrying out. There are so many interesting nuggets lurking around, that this mystery barely covers a quarter of the famously condensed city, however that’s not to say there’s a lack of content. The distance travelled was just over three kilometres, took roughly three hours, and included many points of interest that could be missed easily as a tourist. In fact, even having lived there for over a decade, some of the plaques and shields that were required for the puzzles had somehow managed to evade us until this book pointed them out.

 

The Hunt for the Snitch

Following the clear directions on the pages will see you traverse a section of the famous walls, duck through a snickelway*, and witness plenty of other quirks. Though, if you wanted, you could easily stretch the experience out to a full day by exploring on your own between clues.

Usefully, when the planned routes presented potential hurdles (no dogs allowed or the steepest, narrowest stairs ever created) an alternative was always provided. Though, York can get extremely busy at weekends and some of the areas you need to pass through are obstacle enough in themselves. Especially if you’re looking to stop, stare and ponder instead of being pushed along with the crowd. One puzzle required us to locate and read something that was literally being smothered by a street performer and the huge crowd that had gathered to watch. Another was in one of York’s smallest and busiest streets where every molecule of space was filled with people queuing to secure themselves a small pottery ghost**. Thankfully this has been thought of and, as well as further hints on the back of the book, the clues are available via QR code should you simply be unable to reach your desired destination.

 

York-based Family Fun

The challenges themselves shouldn’t tax seasoned puzzlers. Most of the tasks are simply a case of finding a particular object and substituting letters for symbols in one form or another. It’s fairly basic, but that’s by design. The bright colours and cartoony Horrible Histories feel telegraphs the experience as one for the family and kids will love searching for clues and helping with some of the easier decoding. There’s certainly a little something for the adults too, though… As well as starting and ending in two of York’s oldest pubs, there are another two visited along the way, offering suitable points to sit, grab a drink and – in our case – argue about what Minerva was the goddess of*** without succumbing to Google. Fun times.

The Verdict: The Mystery of the Gunpowder Snitch

This isn’t a breakneck, high-octane race around York full of fiendish puzzles. It’s a great family day out. It’s also an excellent way to see some of the sites if you’re visiting for the day and partial to the odd anagram. If that’s what you’re after, then you’re sure to have a great time.

 

Notes

* Essentially a narrow street. A portmanteau of snicket, ginnel and alleyway. Legend has it that the Barghest roams them waiting to prey on lone travellers, so maybe bring a friend.

** The York Ghost Merchants on the Shambles benefitted from their model ghosts going viral on TikTok. They are VERY popular.

*** Loads of oddly unrelated stuff, apparently. Including justice, weaving, wisdom, medicine, trade and strategy. It’s no wonder we couldn’t pin it down.

 

The Mystery of the Gunpowder Snitch can be purchased from Mystery Guides website here.

Note: We were not charged for our experience but this does not affect our review.

George Wylesol: 2120 | Review

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George Wylesol 2120 Review | You’re Wade, a schlubby middle-aged computer repairman, sent to fix a computer in a vacant, nondescript office building. When you get inside the door locks behind you, and you can’t get out. Now the adventure begins! You have to explore this building and try to find your way home. The building is huge on the inside with a lot of sprawling hallways and empty rooms but your only hope is to uncover clues and try to work out the mystery this whole experience hangs on.

Date Played: June 2023
Time Taken: 3 Hours
Number of Players: 1
Difficulty: Hard

Wait, hold on a minute… Is that… Is that Avery Hill Publishing?

A couple of days ago I spotted a review on my friends Room Escape Artist’s website for a book by none other than one of my favourite authors at my absolute all time favourite publishing house. Is it strange to have a favourite publishing house? Maybe. But I’ve backed just about every Kickstarter they’ve ever run, and any time anyone gives me money and tells me to treat myself, I head immediately to Avery Hill’s website. I don’t know why this started, and I’m not like this with any other publishing house. It’s just whatever they publish I know I’ll love. I haven’t disliked a single book they’ve produced, and that’s cool.

But wait, I’m getting ahead of myself. This isn’t’ about Avery Hill, this is about George Wylesol’s 2120. My love for Wylesol started way back with Internet Crusader – a book I’m proud to say isn’t just on my shelf, but is now also on the shelves of most of my good friends too. According to Wylesol’s website, Internet Crusader is:

“full-length graphic novel telling the story of a doomsday cult and the fight against the literal devil, told through collages of chat windows, video games, and other early web design.”

I… LOVE IT.

So when I found out 2120 had come out via spotting a review on REA, I did a double take. Not just a new book, but a new book literally packed with puzzles. Sign me the heck up.

 

 

What is 2120?

And why am I writing about it on The Escape Roomer?

Well, I would describe it as a choose-your-own-adventure escape room in a book. Yes, it’s a graphic novel, but one you don’t get the luxury of reading left to right. No, you have to choose your path carefully and many of those paths will be blocked by puzzles. Fiendishly difficult and sometimes slightly obtuse puzzles… But hey, I’ll take puzzles in books wherever I can take them.

The story of this experience puts the reader in the shoes of a computer repair technician called Wade. You show up at the mysteriously vacant office building at 2120 Macmillan Drive and, after stepping in, you find the door locks suddenly behind you. You have no choice but to venture further into this building. But where on Earth are all the computers?

What follows are pages and pages of wandering around a labyrinth of non-descript office corridors. Occasionally you come across untold manmade horrors, but more often you just find locked doors. Sometimes these locked doors have padlocks on them. Yay! Sometimes they just stay locked. Boo!

It’s like if House of Leaves had a baby with a graphic novel, and also the year is 1999. From the plastic yellow, to the sinister shadows just out of the corner of your eye, to the building that just seems to get bigger and bigger and bigger… It’s a true horror. Chilling and disconcerting and definitely not one to ‘read’ right before bedtime unless you enjoy trippy nightmares about faded carpets and strange cupboards with strange blurry photographs inside them. For some reason the book made me feel like I was reliving the Y2K bug, like some unspeakable technological nightmare awaited me on the next page. But no, it’s just a book. But good books should make you feel things right? This one gave me all the feels.

 

 

Okay, I get it, but you’re not selling it…

If you don’t like horror, this might not be for you. But if you like innovation, outside the box thinking, and wacky surrealism, then this is definitely for you.

I don’t want to describe it in too much detail, because I found that going in with almost no expectations was the best way to approach it. It made each new puzzling twist and each new reveal as I turned a new corner even more surprising. The book does a good job at avoiding spoilers – unless you go looking for them really hard, usually the next page you need to flick to to progress is within easy reach, meaning you don’t have to go walkabout too far. So in true nature of not spoiling it for you, I’ll leave it at that.

Although I was itching to complete the experience – the very weekend after 2120 arrived, I had friends staying with me. One of them made the mistake of asking “what I was currently playing”. Expecting me to launch into an excited discussion about video games, I shook my head and grabbed 2120 by George Wylesol and opened it up to one of the many bookmarked pages:

“I’m playing this book right now”

I wasn’t expecting much, except that everyone started to gather round and make helpful suggestions as we flicked through-

“Hey, go through that door” and “What’s this? How do we solve this?”

It’s safe to say, 2120 has been a hit with pretty much everyone I’ve shown the book to so far, even in passing. I’m proud to have it on my shelf. So even if it doesn’t initially look like something you’d be interested in, I’d implore you to reconsider and give it a go.

 

 

Choose Your Own Nightmare

In terms of the gameplay, since it’s choose-your-own adventure, it’s no surprise there’s an element of choice. However on successfully completing the book, I flicked back through and found that most (if not all) of the paths I’d already found. Since there are so many puzzles in the experience, I often found myself pausing and then retracing my steps to find a doorway I didn’t go through, or a cross-roads at the end of a long dingy corridor where I could try taking the other path. Eventually, the book allows you to loop around and come back to where you started in a seamless way, if you want to go back and rediscover more. In this way, although there are some alternate endings the player can stumble across, I did get the impression I’d “completed” the game by the time I finally put it down. But I’m not sure if “complete” is really the right word with an experience like this.

Like, did I complete the game, or did the game complete me?

But it worked so well. 2120 definitely encourages the player to be exploratory. Often the solutions for the puzzles the player encounters can only be solved by taking meticulous notes and by retracing their steps to re-examine something that seemed innocuous earlier but turns out to be central later.

The feeling the book manages to evoke is definitely that of early 90s computer games. Not just the strange, blocky illustration style, but also the text and the way you feel as if you’ve “clicked on something” every time you go to look at something closer up. In that case, it was possibly missing an inventory system, especially to collect clues as you go – though how an author could pull that off, I do not know.

Overall, I did find the puzzles erred on the side of difficult. I’m not shy for a puzzle or two, but more times than not I found myself putting down the book in frustration, or aimlessly flicking back through the pages I’d already consumed in annoyance. More than once I ‘cheated’ to get ahead – having found part of a solution but being entirely unable to find the remaining part, I made some educated guesses about where the book wanted me to go, and found those to be correct. But this may just have more to do with my own expectations of ‘reading a book’ and wanting to hurry on with the story, than any particular flaw with the puzzles. It’s an interesting medium, and the author used it to a fantastic degree, so I can’t fault them for that.

 

 

2120: The Verdict

Maybe I’m just not as used to booked like this – the usual “escape rooms” I consume are the physical or tabletop kind. But I was seriously impressed by 2120. I’m less used to experiencing my escape rooms in book format, but I enjoyed it. A lot. I hope this kind of book becomes more popular, and more puzzle designers consider it as a medium for telling interesting stories and sewing the seeds of interesting puzzles.

For this reason, the verdict is very simple – we adored this book, and we think George Wylesol is a playful genius when it comes to creating visual experiences.

Who do we recommend this for? Everyone, and no-one at the same time. This book is for you, and it’s also probably not for you. I don’t make the rules.

2120 can be purchased directly from the publisher by heading to this link.

We were sent a complimentary copy of 2120, but this doesn’t affect our review in any way whatsoever!

Escape Tales: The Book of Rituals | Review

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The Book of Rituals is an interactive puzzle book. As an adept of alchemy, you will learn the secrets of elements and alchemical ingredients to perform powerful rituals. Start your mystical journey now and become a Master of ancient magic!

Completion Time: 10-12 hours
Date Played: June 2022
Party Size: 2
Difficulty: Medium

 

Water and alcohol are among the more recognisable ingredients you might find in sun cream. There are many others, but I can’t pronounce them, so it seems wrong to copy the spelling from the back of a bottle and expect someone else’s brain to do the work. H.A. Milton Blake is credited with its creation and – as the Crown paint colour chart places my skin tone somewhere between ‘Writing Paper’ and ‘Fresh Coconut’ – I’m very glad he put in the hours. I was in Spain while I battled with the Book of Rituals. It was 38 degrees. Never has the combination of those ingredients been so needed. Or so I thought…

 

 

Blake dabbled in chemistry, of course, and in the Book of Rituals we’re instead dealing in the more archaic branch of ‘shoving-stuff-together-to-see-what-happens’ known as alchemy. Water and alcohol are still very important here. So are 29 other ingredients, and each requires a puzzle to be solved to learn its true name and value. All these ingredients will be required if you want to tackle the 13 daunting rituals that cover the final pages with any hope of success. Only then will you fully understand this mysterious book.

I say mysterious as this is not your book. At least, you’re not the first owner. Someone else has contributed to these pages packed with elements, ingredients and rituals. Footnotes, ramblings, corrections and improvements have been jotted down to aid you in solving the puzzles and avoiding the supposed corruption the book threatens. A sort of Half-Blood Prince’s Advanced Potion-Making/Darkhold hybrid if you fancy a couple of popular culture reference stickers to slap on the cover.

 

Taming the Book of Rituals

The format is simple but fulfilling. Each element poses a puzzle. The top right corner will let you know which other ingredients (if any) you need to have solved already to put that puzzle together. These may well be later in the book, so there’s no order to speak of. You tackle them in whatever sequence you’re able to with the ingredients you have available. The inclusion of a question mark in your required ingredients list means that the book itself must be used in some way – and these puzzles are a true highlight of this beautifully put together and well-thought-out title.

Each correct solution you enter into the slick website will reward you with a true name and number to write into the fold out section on the back cover. Gradually filling it in is satisfying, but reliance on the site to get to these answers does means that an internet connection is required to make progress. The same website also holds any hints you might need, as well as occasional further information on the formatting of answers.

As you go backwards and forwards through the pages adding your own notes and mistakes to the ones already put in place by the previous owner, it does feel chaotic and immersive. That’s the point. Errors and ruined pages are almost inevitable – something that’s recognised by the creators by way of copies of the key puzzle tables and grids being repeated at the back of the book. Perfect for additional attempts once the originals become indecipherable.

 

The Verdict

The focus in the Book of Rituals is definitely on quality. 45 honed puzzles that, at times, require a huge amount of thinking is certainly preferable to an inconsistent dump of teasers that goes on forever. There’s zero fat on this book. No filler. The puzzles are so well-designed that you know that each is solvable without huge leaps of logic, meaning the temptation to dip into the hints felt non-existent.

I think that’s close to the highest praise I can give. There’s no need to rush. It’s never too daunting or boring. Hints were the last thing on my mind over the week it took me to slowly chip my way through. For those that have done a lot of puzzle books then, sure, there are a few well-trodden ideas contained within, but that’s simply the limitations of the format. What we have here are clever puzzles, laid out in an excellent way, that are sure to provide plenty of entertainment to those that like a challenge.

You can purchase the Book of Rituals here.

Crux Club: Mob Treasure | Review

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Mob Treasure Review: The missing treasure of New York City beer baron Dutch Schultz has captivated countless treasure hunters. On his deathbed, the infamous mobster rambled on incoherently for hours, possibly revealing the location of his hidden millions. The cache has never been recovered. Could the information in Mob Treasure contain new clues to finding the final resting place?

Completion Time: 6 hours
Date Played: May 2022
Party Size: 2
Difficulty: Medium

The word gangster has evolved over time. It’s altered to such a degree that upon hearing it uttered nowadays you could be forgiven for conjuring up any one of several images, ranging from a brooding Al Capone (Snorky to his friends) through to the once-relentless Honey G. I even ate a burger a few years back that was boldly labelled as ‘gangster’ because it was topped with spaghetti sauce and was apparently impossible to refuse. It was okay. 6/10. Would probably eat again.

Here in Mob Money, we’re going classic. It’s dabbling in the 1930s public enemies-era of gangsters and mobsters – think Bonnie and Clyde and Machine Gun Kelly – and it’s Dutch Schultz’s famous stash that we’re tasked with locating.

It’s a solid theme. Crux Club has already shown it can successfully create workable and inventive puzzles using far more difficult settings in Rap Star – reviewed here – so our hopes were high going in. Compared to the world of rap, mob culture is teeming with conundrum potential (organised crime over organised rhyme, if you will) and it really doesn’t take long after opening the book to fully appreciate that.

Well, I say book… Tome might be more accurate. It’s a surprisingly bulky product and promises a lot on initial viewing. A quick riffle through the pages reveals scant glimpses of a huge variety of puzzles as well as the fact that a slice of the heft is due to the full clues and solutions being included at the back. In that sense it’s a fully contained experience. While clues are also available online, a gentle nudge or complete answer to any individual puzzle is always to hand regardless of your Wi-Fi status. Though, unless your knowledge of New York mob culture is genuinely god-tier, solving everything without leaning too heavily on those back pages is going to require a bit of help from Mr Google.

Mob Treasure Inspiration

“A boy has never wept… nor dashed a thousand kin. You can play jacks, and girls do that with a soft ball and do tricks with it. Oh, oh, dog biscuit, and when he is happy he doesn’t get snappy.”

Those were the final words of the real-life Dutch Shultz before he died in 1935. These surreal mutterings have been interpreted by some as a coded message revealing the location of a hidden stash that, depending on which legend you choose to believe, may still be tucked away somewhere in New York. People have really searched for it. Now we’re looking for the very same thing within this book. Lines are being gently blurred in Mob Treasure, which helps deliver more immersion than you might expect from a pile of completely monochrome text and illustrations. Discovering the inclusion of actual locations and people that surrounded Shultz during his bootlegging days causes the experience to feel wider reaching than it really is. A clever element that we loved, but this ever-present theme won’t let you forget it’s there, so be prepared if you’re only in it for the puzzles. You’re going to have to walk the walk and – especially – talk the talk if you want to stand a chance of solving some of these pages.

On the subject of solving, as the weight of the book suggests, there’s a lot to mull over here. Depending on exactly what you count as a puzzle, you’re facing roughly 75 total and they come in wealth of forms with surprisingly little true repetition. Structure-wise, the book is divided into 15 shortish sections of five/six puzzle chunks. Each individual teaser provides you with a number, word or phrase that ultimately combine to help with the gatekeeping puzzle at the end of each chapter. It’s perfect for tackling piecemeal and 45 minutes an evening over the course of a week saw our team of two track down Shultz’s cash using only a couple of clues to help us over some of the less logical obstacles.

The Verdict

Mob Treasure is stuffed with of a lot of solid, creative puzzles and a few outstanding ones. It’s the hope of more of the latter that ultimately pulls you forward into the next chapter. While clearly different from each other in terms of presentation, the more plentiful standard conundrums can occasionally end up feeling a little samey if you try to consume too much in one sitting. That’s only natural with so many puzzles crammed in, of course, but taking the book a chapter or two at a time is the recommendation.

The team at Crux Club have committed to the theme totally which offers an impressive level of immersion. While delving into the places, people and lingo of the New York mob is required for some puzzles, we ended up reading a fair number of unrelated articles about Mr Shultz and his antics wholly unprompted. It didn’t necessarily help us with the completion of puzzles, but it was a welcome novelty to have interesting real-world events already pre-built around the mystery we were trying to solve.

 

Head to the Crux Club website to support the team and purchase the game for yourself.

Christopher Edge: Escape Room | Review

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Christopher Edge: Escape Room Review | When twelve-year-old Ami arrives at The Escape, she thinks it’s just a game – the ultimate escape room with puzzles and challenges to beat before time runs out. Meeting her teammates, Adjoa, Ibrahim, Oscar and Min, Ami learns from the Host that they have been chosen to save the world and they must work together to find the Answer. But as he locks them inside the first room, they quickly realise this is no ordinary game. From a cavernous library of dust to an ancient Mayan tomb, a deserted shopping mall stalked by extinct animals to the command module of a spaceship heading to Mars, the perils of The Escape seem endless. Can Ami and her friends find the Answer before it’s too late?

Read Time: 1.5 hours
Date Played: Early 2022
Recommended For: Children Aged 9 – 12

 

 

Now, here is the deal. Would I call myself much of a reader? Nope. Would I say I’m the kind of guy who has a few quiet evenings in and loves nothing more than getting lost in a good book? Nope. Has this book changed my perspective somewhat?! Yep!

In a very different approach to the content I normally cover, here I find myself reviewing a book. Not just any book of course, but a book by Christopher Edge aptly titled “Escape Room”. Clearly something definitely worth us checking out at The Escape Roomer. Since the target audience is younger folks and kids, I quickly put my hand up to volunteer myself and I’m very glad I did!

As ever, with every review I will try desperately to not give any spoilers. If you’re still unsure after reading our summary, you can also head to this link to read the first chapter of the book and find out if it’s for you.

 

 This is The Escape…

 

The main focus for me when taking a look at a book, much like in a physical escape room, is immersion. I’m looking for whether I can get a real feel for the atmosphere, the characters, the tension, and so on. With Escape Room, the answer to that question is a resounding yes! For sure, I’m always a little sceptical about genres of books which place you into a wholly unfamiliar environment. However Escape Room manages to hook you in very quickly. Literally after the first few pages of this one, you find yourself drawn towards Ami, the lead character, who this fantastic story revolves around. Slowly but surely, the remaining escape room team are introduced to you. Each given a fitting explanation of their look and personality.

The peril of this book is evident from beginning to end.  Those continual cliff hanger moments when you just cannot put it down. Whilst I’d say this book is aimed towards children in later primary or early secondary years, I found myself personally engrossed in the ever evolving plot with real curve balls thrown in from time to time.

 

 

Don’t Think of this Book in Terms of Escaping from a Room

Speaking of the curve balls, one part of the book really stood out to me. Don’t just think about this as being a book solely based on escaping a room. Closing one chapter, turning the page, opening the next door within the “room” brings a completely new environment each time. Honestly, this book has all the makings of being developed into one of them escape room movie franchises – think big budget, think danger, think excitement!

Whilst this isn’t an escape room puzzle book per se, it certainly has a little sprinkling of clues which the reader can pick up on and appreciate how “rooms” within the storyline can be escaped from.

Be prepared for the heart strings to be pulled at from time to time. The amount of peril our characters find themselves in is relentless, so be prepared for a bit of an emotional rollercoaster. Constantly escaping from danger, only to be thrust back into it again. There is really no let up for our band of escapees!

 

A Fitting Ending for a Puzzling Journey

The ending of this book is a fitting resolve to Ami’s journey. Clearly from my description above, this is certainly a book where nothing is quite as it seems; so be prepared! My only hope is that there is more to come on this escape room journey. A sequel perhaps? Nudge nudge.

Christopher Edge has a whole host of brilliant books for children, including The Many Worlds of Albie Bright, the Infinite Lives of Maisie Day, and the Longest Night of Charlie Noon. Each of these are equal parts curious and quizzical, transporting kids into magical worlds. We think that any book aimed at the younger audience that introduces them to escape rooms is a double thumbs up in our book. We’d definitely recommend this book for a younger audience, and especially as a birthday or Christmas gift (perhaps tie it into a voucher for an escape room or two and really get them hooked!) But don’t let the target audience put you off if you’re past-teenage years either, because it’s got buckets of charm and I, as an adult, thoroughly enjoyed reading it too.

All in all, a book where your sucked into the environment, thrust into a wonderful world of intrigue with the hope that this endearing gang of strangers can hopefully save the world!

 

 

Click here to get started with Escape Room:

https://www.welcome-to-the-escape.com/

Please Note: We received this experience for free in exchange for an honest review.

Bring Me The Head Of The Taskmaster – Part Treasure Hunt, Part Game Launches Today

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Today’s launch day for a fantastic new treasure hunt from the creators of BAFTA winning TV show, Taskmaster. Bring Me the Head of the Taskmaster is a fun new book from the show’s writers, but that’s not all! Packed into the pages alongside a shedload of fun Taskmaster challenges is a treasure hunt with one goal to complete:

Bring me the Taskmaster’s Head. Your time starts now.

Alex Horne

The book contains 101 ‘next level’ tasks (and clues) to lead players to the treasure, and requires them to think outside the box… Quite literally! To succeed, players will need to draw, jump, act, and go above and beyond to complete the game. Rivalry is encouraged, dodgy tactics rewarded, and bribes most definitely accepted.

Written by one of the show’s stars ‘Little’ Alex Horne, his instructions go on to explain that some tasks will require multiple participants, such as friends, families, and perhaps even bigger groups!

If you want to pick up your a copy of Bring Me the Head of the Taskmaster, you can order one online from the Taskmaster store, Waterstones or all major UK book retailers. The book launch coincides with the 12th series airing, which pits Alan Davies, Desiree Burch, Guz Khan, Morgana Robinson and Victoria Coren Mitchell against each other in a series of brilliant and baffling tasks.

Are you up for the challenge?

Don’t forget… All the information you need is on the task!

“Planning Your Escape” by Laura E. Hall Launches Today

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The past year may have been a difficult one for the escape room industry, but just as escape rooms are reopening around the world, Laura E. Hall’s new book Planning Your Escape: Strategy Secrets to Make You an Escape Room Superstar launches to fanfare today on the 3rd of August 2021.

The new book, written for escape room enthusiasts and new players alike, arrives on our shelves just as teams around the world are returning to the hobby. After a year of being locked inside, Planning Your Escape‘s launch feels like a huge landmark for the industry, and it couldn’t come soon enough.

Unfortunately, UK readers may have to wait another month until September 16th before getting their hands on the physical copy – but by the looks of early reviews, it’ll be worth the wait!

Publisher Simon & Schuster describes Planning Your Escape as

“The perfect guide to making sure you never get stuck in another escape room again.”

Simon & Schuster

It’s an all-in-one guide to escape room success. One thing’s for sure… We’ll be memorising every word of the book, to get in the game for the Escape Room Championship this September!

About Planning Your Escape

Planning your Escape covers a range of topics, from the history of experiential entertainment, including escape rooms all the way through to what this looks like today in 2021 with the likes of Secret Cinema, Meow Wolf and Sleep No More.

When you’ve played as many escape rooms as the author has, you get to know the different kinds of escape rooms and solvable examples of puzzles they often employ. Whilst no two puzzles are the same (or we hope not at least!) there are certain tricks and tips that can be used to quickly identify and solve the most common.

That’s not all! The author brings a wealth of game design knowledge to the table and offers useful advice to constructing your own escape rooms and puzzle hunts in the future too.

It’s a must read for anyone even remotely interested in solving puzzles.

About Laura E. Hall

Photo (c) Chris Hartman

This isn’t the first time we’ve mentioned Laura E. Hall, the escape room extraordinaire from Portland on The Escape Roomer…

Earlier this year Laura made headlines for playing an integral part in the solving of ‘Find Satoshi’, a 14 year old ARG puzzle part of an early internet puzzle hunt, Perplex City. We interviewed Ms. Hall for our article and we’re very pleased to see she continues making huge waves in the escape room industry!

Laura designs escape the room puzzle games with Meridian Adventure Co. in Portland, Oregon, and is the author of Katamari Damacy for Boss Fight Books. She sits on the boards of the nonprofits Portland Indie Game Squad and the Enthusiasm Collective, a not-for-profit creative coworking space for artists and activists in Portland. She has spoken about escape room games, puzzle design, player behavior, and environmental storytelling at conferences, festivals, and workshops around the world. (source)

Where to Buy Planning Your Escape in the UK

Whilst it’ll be a few more weeks before you can get your hand on a physical copy here in the UK, Planning Your Escape can be pre-ordered online and in-person in the UK from:

Alternatively, you can pick up the e-book version immediately!

You can also find out more and support Laura on her website lauraehall.com or on Twitter at @lauraehall

Extraordinary Investigations: The Morgan File

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A missing investigator … A lost treasure … A sinister conspiracy.

Rating: Educational
Completion Time: 3 Days
Date Played: 26th of July 2020
Party Size: 1 (+2)

Before I begin the review, I want to issue a quick content trigger warning! This game is set in the immediate post-WWII era and uses real historical people in it’s narrative including senior Nazi officials. You, as the player are retracing the steps of a missing treasure hunter searching for lost Nazi Gold. Gameplay involves researching and studying real life articles from, of, and about Nazi Germany. Players will also encounter references to “torture”, “assassination” and “death squads”. Some players may find these topics distressing.

Extraordinary Investigations: The Morgan File is super realistic! For sure, it’s called a ‘Puzzle Novel’, but I’m not sure where the history ends and the fictional ‘novel’ begins? Which feels so refreshing! I love learning new things whilst I play and The Morgan File strikes that balance that very well.

You, the latest recruit to the XIU (Extraordinary Investigations Unit) are given an exciting cold case. A treasure hunter gone missing and a peculiar trail left behind in his wake. All you’ve got to help you is the collection of evidence in each chapter of the book and an online portal where you can document your findings.

As someone who has worked in investigative roles, I cannot emphasise the ‘realisticness’ enough. Yes, this is exactly how it works in real life. You have to use google, a LOT. You don’t get given the correct answer, you need to figure it out. Wikipedia will become your new best friend. This book gives you all that. Can’t figure something out from the evidence? Well, you’d better be prepared to go into the internet archives and find what you need there.

It’s really unique in that way. Yes, I am aware of the arguments in the escape room / escape game world to “keep all knowledge needed contained within the game”. But I’m also aware of the opposite, “be realistic, let players research themselves.” Extraordinary Investigations: The Morgan File is a great example of the latter.

Since it’s an escape room ‘novel’, don’t be daunted by my long time spent on the game. It’s the kind of thing you can pick up and put down again with absolutely no obligation to complete in one go. In fact, some of the puzzles will definitely be better solved once you’ve slept on it. After all, Extraordinary Investigations doesn’t offer any answers, only clues. If you get stuck, you just need to keep at it!

I’ve marked the game as a DNF because well, I got stuck! There were 3 puzzles throughout which I found fiendishly difficult. One of them I emailed the creator to ask for help, the other 2 had a finite number of possible answers, so easy enough to guess. I know… I know! It’s not in the spirit of things, but sometimes you have to think outside the box. I wanted to see the game through, by any means! 😉

At some point in the future, I’m going to return to the game and try to crack those last few puzzles, but for now I had enough to write for the review and wanted to get this post out to celebrate it’s recent launch. In particular, I reckon this is a good gift for all the ‘dads’ out there. So I might just rope my old man in, with his superior knowledge of WWII history!

Extraordinary Investigations can be purchased for £14.71 on Amazon, the website can be found here.