Clue Cracker: The Disappearance of DJ McDee (Play at Home)

A great little FREE game

In the town of Tunbridge Wells, local celebrity DJ McDee is due to release his Number 1 album at a once in a lifetime gig, “DJ McDee: Live at The Forum”.

You, as a dedicated fan and fellow Raver, are due to attend, but when you arrive at The Forum, ticket in hand, you can see something’s not right!

Follow the trail of clues left behind by his evil nemesis MC Floggin, save our local DJ and help release a Number 1 hit! (Spoiler alert, the song is really catchy!!)”

We thoroughly enjoyed Clue Cracker’s first game, Escape from Extinction Island; when DJ McDee was released, and we saw that it was a half-hour game, we thought we would take a short break from working from home and give the game a go. Tea in hand, we sat down in front of the laptop and loaded the game. Six enjoyable minutes later, we were jamming away to DJ McDee’s new Number 1 hit.

CONCEPT/EXECUTION

Clue Cracker have stuck with what works for them, utilising the same format of entertaining video clips and images with traditional escape room style puzzles that they used in Escape From Extinction Island. The game is limited by this format to a linear progression moving from one task on to the next. Each challenge is independent from the one that came before it, and everything you need to complete the game is on the screen in front of you; there will be no treasure hunt through the internet here.

It’s a really simple thing, but the fact that you are able to see exactly what you’re typing into the answer field in the Clue Cracker games has made the experience of playing them just that much more enjoyable. When we play physical escape games, nothing is more irritating to me than not having enough light to see the numbers on a padlock, and as we play more and more of these virtual escape games, I’ve discovered that the online equivalent to the “difficulty by darkness” is when the entry field is obscured by asterisks, leaving players to wonder if the code is wrong, or if it’s just a typo, so it’s always massively appreciated when we come across a game that has actually taken this into consideration.

PUZZLES

The puzzles in The Disappearance of DJ McDee rely heavily on your powers of observation and are very similar to the types that we expect to find in a traditional escape room, solving to open padlocks. As always, the difficulty of these tasks is very subjective, but they’re fair and logical. Experienced players are unlikely to find this game much of a challenge, but this is a great option for families and newcomers to both traditional escape rooms, and play at home games. In fact, the brilliance of this little game is that not only are the tasks here a good intro to the types of things that will be found throughout the paid games from Clue Cracker, and other companies, but also, it’s a great little introduction to the types of puzzles found in live escape games, and could be useful in convincing people that may be hesitant to try out more traditional escape room in the future.

CLUE SYSTEM

Each puzzle has a series of gradual clues that you can reveal by clicking on them if you’re stuck on any one puzzle, followed by the solution if you absolutely need it. When you don’t have a games master there to tailor hints and nudges specifically to you, this clue system is definitely the easiest, and most effective, option.

FINAL THOUGHTS

If you are looking for a game to dip your toes into the water of virtual escape rooms, look no further! The Disappearance of DJ McDee is a great way to try out the format before committing to Clue Cracker’s paid games (which are also highly enjoyable.) And yes, the song is really catchy.

TOOLS REQUIRED

• Device (a computer/laptop is best) with an internet connection
• Tools for notetaking may be helpful

Final Rating:

Team: 2 players

Time Taken: 6:02

Website: https://www.cluecrackergames.co.uk