Majestic Escape Game: Galactic Mission (Paris)

Out of this world fun!

For centuries, the galaxy has been under the control of the Consortium.

You are among the rebels and today, you have a chance to destroy the Consortium forever.

You have 75 minutes to find an old military base and use its ionic cannon to take down the Consortium flagship

Don’t get me wrong, the games we played on our two night jaunt to Paris (Taxidermist, Full Experience, and Grand Hotel de Paris) were great, but the game I was most looking forward to was Galactic Mission. Why was I most looking forward to this game? I honestly don’t know. I think that as much as I love horror games where there is a live actor terrorising you, sometimes I just want something light and fun.

First impressions of this venue were exceptional. Actually, thinking about it, all three venues we visited in Paris looked, for lack of a better word, Parisian. That is to say ‘oozing with class’. Majestic Escape Game (really, it’s in the name) is set up like a movie cinema, which we’ve seen done a few times and always brings joy to my movie-loving face. The lobby also had a ridiculously comfortable couch that I could have just spent an hour on and been happy.

Our host, Guillaume, greeted us as we entered and instructed us to make ourselves comfortable and stash our personal items in the locker provided. He then gave us our health and safety briefing just outside the room entrance, and provided us with one very important bit of tech, and without further ado, we entered a small, dark room where we received our mission briefing from a character on a TV screen. That does sound a bit lazy, but actually it was all perfectly designed to seamlessly blend with the story and set design.

Once our mission was understood, it was time to begin and to say that this mission started with a ‘bang’ wouldn’t be far off!

IMMERSION/ROOM DESIGN

I guess if one had to think of a theme that this game is probably most closely related to, it would be Star Wars; we’re rebels trying to take down the Consortium using an ionic cannon… all sounds rather familiar. But that’s not to say this was a rip off of Star Wars at all, clearly inspired, but it had created its own wonderful world.

I heard or read somewhere that a good rule for game design is to start in a small space and then open up into a bigger one to give a ‘wow’ moment, and that’s what Majestic have done here. I was really impressed with my first impressions and instantly knew that this game was going to be my vibe.

Playing this game, I got fully absorbed into the world they had created and I totally forgot what our mission was and this meant that the final room reveal was a complete surprise to me. Ok, it made perfect sense, but I didn’t see it coming. It’s one of those games where you fully expect there to be surprises and extra rooms, but even when you find them it is still a surprise.

Galactic Mission has some really clever design choices in place to ensure that the player experience is top-notch. I won’t give it away, but suffice to say, they want no-one to leave this experience feeling short changed. There was also one moment where one team member could have easily missed out on the fun by having to complete a menial task, but at this point we were given an override that fitted in perfectly with the story and it meant that we all got to enjoy – perfect.

This game does have an element of climbing involved, but really only one member of your team would need to do that, so it’s easy enough to experience most of the game without getting overly active.

PUZZLES

Galactic Mission felt just like the game we needed in Paris: a fun, light-hearted game that was full of enjoyable puzzles. When we first entered the game it was a little overwhelming and it felt like it took us a little while to get into the swing of things, but when we did we got all that tasty tasty Dopamine from solving enjoyable puzzles.

We played as a team of four and found numerous occasions where we could split up and work on different things, although we mostly split up into teams of two. The puzzles really were quite satisfying; lateral thinking, decoding, pattern recognition, teamwork, searching, observation, and I guess you could argue an element of maths, and some luck!

As I mentioned, before we joined the game we were given a key piece of tech that we had to use. There was a small learning curve involved in working out how we needed to use it, and when, but it soon became second nature and the way we used it and our ‘credits’ was both clever and satisfying.

There was one puzzle that stood out to me, not because it was clever, easy, or hard, but because at the end of the game we discussed it as a team and one team member really liked it, while the other wasn’t a fan – and I can see both sides. For me, I liked it, it added an extra element to many of the puzzles. But my team mate found it a tad repetitive and annoying, which is also valid.

GM/CLUE SYSTEM

We had some good hosts for our games in Paris, but our host, Guiliamme, felt like he stood out above the rest. He was enthusiastic, friendly, and ran the game perfectly. I think he knew we were enthusiasts as at the end of the game he realised we had missed one option that we could have chosen to do. It wasn’t important to the game, but was just a little added fun, so after the game he ‘made it right’, which was lovely.

This game had some interactions that again just added an extra level of fun, and were impressively language agnostic – that’s probably enough said about that without spoiling the fun.

If we needed any help it would come through that ‘tech’ that we were given, in the form of a communication from our Commander, and we never had to wait long. It was all very clever though and done in a way that it was sometimes hard to tell what was a clue and what was a message to simply drive the narrative of the game.

ANYTHING ELSE

I don’t know if this was my favourite game that we played in Paris on this trip, but I think it may have been. It had lots of fun puzzles, set design that was right up my street, and some great interactions with our host that added to the fun.

As a bonus, it’s worth noting that (when we played) Majestic offered 50% off your next game booking if they have availability right after you play. Sadly they didn’t have any slots free for us, which is a shame as we’d have gladly played them all

Success/Failed

Final Rating:

Team: 4 Players

Address: 2 Rue Française, 75001 Paris, France

Website: https://majestic-escapegame.paris