The most fun you can have in an office block
You’re trapped in your office building after-hours, and you stumble into a place that shouldn’t exist. Discover the secrets of Floor 13 and escape the building…if you can! Discover clues, piece together login codes, and go face to face with a haunted computer. Solve the challenges of this slightly spooky escape room from the comfort of home!
It feels like a lifetime since we played the first print + play by CU Adventures, The Lost Temple, although looking back it was only May. The Lost Temple quickly became one of the best online escape rooms that we had played, and even though we’ve played well over 100 more games since, that one is still a favourite.
So when we saw that CU Adventures were (finally) releasing another print + play game, we knew we were going to give it a go. But the question really was if it could live up to the greatness of their first game. We were warned going into this game that it was a more ‘streamlined’ experience which was designed to take 60 – 120 minutes, unlike The Lost Temple which was designed to take 90-120 minutes. That didn’t faze us though, a nice afterwork game that doesn’t take too long is sometimes what is needed.
This is a print and play game, but if you don’t have a printer they have put in a work around so you can still solve the puzzles. We printed everything as it makes for a much more enjoyable experience when you can physically interact with the game components.
Floor 13 was released in time for Halloween and I think the most spooky thing about it was the narrator’s voice, and even then it was strangely soothing. Although, being stuck in your office building would certainly be horrible! Because of the lack of scares/spooks, I think this game would be ok to be played as a family.
Debating between going to bed or playing this game, we opted for the latter. Sleep can wait when there is something this exciting to play. So we booted up the printer, printed all 12 pages, although you can get away with just printing four pages if you wanted to (or none like previously explained). Once the world’s slowest printer finally finished, we logged in and began our mission on Floor 13.
CONCEPT/EXECUTION
Despite this being a print and play game, most of the game takes in a virtual world online. We’ve played a lot of online games now, but the system that CU Adventures have created is easily one of our favourites. Not only is there text on the screen but if you want, you can have it narrated to you (in a strangely creepy yet soothing voice), this helps build the immersion but also makes the game more accessible for those who don’t want to read too much.
The game is set up so that you have one ‘leader’ and then the rest of your team join as ‘companions’. The only difference between the two roles is that only the leader can actually open locks, but once the leader has unlocked something it is available to everyone on your team. That is probably the only negative of this system, as I was the leader it meant that Liz couldn’t interact with certain puzzles like I could so she felt a little left out at times.
There is an in-game inventory system so if you find something in the game it will get added to that and you can use it when you need to. The inventory updates itself automatically which makes for a seamless experience.
The fact that this is a print and play, or a don’t print and play is a nice workaround to ensure that this game is available to as many people as possible. After our game we had a look at the purely online version and even though you will miss some of the enjoyment of interacting with the cutouts, you still get quality puzzles to solve.
This game remembers your progress so you can pick up from where you left off (if you need to stop), in fact when we logged in it had still remembered our progress from when we played The Lost Temple. After the game we could even play it again by going to settings and selecting ‘Reset Game’ – which is great if perhaps some team-members missed out on anything the first time around.
PUZZLES
I don’t know how many people you’d want to play this game with, but really you could probably get away with quite a few. The game played out in a mostly non-linear fashion so we could split up and work on different things at the same time.
This game is more than a great interface, we loved the puzzles it contained. I can recall at least three occasions playing this game where we said “I really liked that puzzle”. They were the type of puzzles where you look at them and don’t have a clue about what you need to do, but give it a moment and suddenly you get that lightbulb moment and it all comes together.
The puzzles were a mix of observation, wordplay, pattern recognition and logic, but everything felt like it would belong in an office. One puzzle that I really liked, I won’t spoil, but it was a nice homage to perhaps the early days of computers and killing time – if you play the game, you’ll see what I mean (Boomswiffer).
CLUE SYSTEM
CU Adventures have gone for a tried and tested method for clues and hints and they are all integrated into the interface. There’s no point me explaining it, when CU Adventures put it so eloquently:
You can request a hint for any puzzle, and there is no penalty or limit on hints. Request a hint by clicking the hint button at the bottom of any screen that has an unlockable object. There are several hints for each puzzle. They will start vague and get more specific the more you click. If you run out of ideas on what to do next, find an object you have not yet opened, and look at the hints on that page!
So basically, it’s a clue system that works well and is guaranteed to get you through the game one way or another. We didn’t need any clues while playing because the puzzles clicked with us, but I could see a couple of points where people could get stuck.
FINAL THOUGHTS
This pandemic has been bad, really bad. But if we had to take silver linings from it, it would be that companies like CU Adventures have turned their attention to creating online experiences that can be enjoyed anywhere in the world. It was five months between their online games and we really hope they make more.
This is a game that we thoroughly enjoyed, I can’t decide if we enjoyed it as much as The Lost Temple, but it was pretty close. That’ll be two CU Adventures games we’re now recommending! Skip Netflix, this is a great way to spend your night!
TOOLS REQUIRED
- Printer (optional)
- Computer with Internet
- Scissors
- Glue/Sticky Tape (optional)
Final Rating:
| Puzzles | |
| Concept/Execution | |
| Clue System | |
| Value for Money | |
| Enjoyment |
Team: 2 players
Time Taken: 00:55:00
Website: https://cuadventures.com
*Disclaimer: we weren’t charged for this experience, but this has not influenced our review.
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