E-Scape Rooms: The Alp (Play at Home)

Dark, Creepy, Fun

The Alp is here. He won’t leave and you can’t run away. He waits for the night to fall .When you lay your head to rest , he will be there.

For some reason that we haven’t quite worked out yet, a lot of people love horror themed escape rooms. I’m not saying we don’t, but we certainly don’t actively seek them out. So it was no surprise that online horror escape rooms would start to appear in this strange pandemic-ridden world we are living in. We’ve played a few games that can be classed as horror themed, but I think The Alp is probably the most horror themed Telescape game that we’ve played so far.

I must admit, going into this game we didn’t really know much about it, and I thought it sounded quite pleasant as ‘The Alp’ made me think of The Alps – I couldn’t have been more wrong. It was strangely appropriate that Liz and I were away for the weekend, staying in a lovely log cabin when we decided to sit down to play this game.

We logged in from two laptops, although we were sitting next to each other, and clicked on the link to finally see what or who The Alp really was…

CONCEPT/EXECUTION

We had never played a game by E-Scape Rooms before so we really didn’t know what to expect, although we had been hearing people speak positively of The Alp. Like so many online games now, this takes place over Telescape. Telescape is a great platform that allows players to work collaboratively on a game and all progress is shared.

The game starts off as dark as you would expect, as we were greeted by a video introduction. This explained what we were there to do and the backstory about what had gone on, yet still leaving enough information out to still be mysterious. To accompany the horror vibe that was going on, there was some suitably eerie music playing, however you could switch this off if you weren’t into that (a nice touch).

You can’t really go wrong with Telescape. We were able to see each other’s cursors and work on different things simultaneously, and when one of us solved something we were both notified, and likewise when we found an item, it was added to both screens. To spice it up a bit, videos were added at key points in the game which helped to drive the narrative and keep things interesting. Another bonus was that once we had solved a puzzle, the items we used for it were no longer interactive, this saved us wasting time clicking on things we no longer needed.

In case you were wondering, no, this is not a family friendly game. There are numerous parts that are quite gruesome and the overall story could be a bit much for those of a nervous disposition.

PUZZLES

In real life horror games we’ve found that the puzzles are normally lacking and ‘difficulty by darkness’ is a thing. Obviously that is harder to do online so you really have to rely on decent puzzles and strong narrative to make a decent game, The Alp had that.

We went into this game really not knowing what to expect, both in terms of puzzle quality and difficulty. It was nice to see that the puzzles were challenging but fair, and although one or two stumped us when we first looked at them, they soon became clear and made sense. A few of the puzzles were multi-step which I personally quite enjoy. There is a great sense of satisfaction when a lot of puzzling comes together to complete one more complex puzzle.

Although this game didn’t require much searching, (you do need to click on things, but nothing was hidden), we found the usual puzzle types in this game; decoding, communication, observation, and a bit of maths/logic. At times you will find that you don’t have everything you need to solve something, so be prepared to move on. It’s also worth pointing out that this game is quite heavy on the maths puzzles, so if you’re not a fan of those, this may not be the game for you.

Most of the puzzles culminated in codes for padlocks, but E-Scape did get creative with these so it never became repetitive. My favourite puzzle was one that involved bottles, if you play it, you’ll know which one I mean. I stared at it for a while as Liz was solving another problem, then eventually it clicked – a great puzzle.

One particular puzzle I still can’t decide if I loved or hated as it took us away from the world of The Alp and very much back into the living room where we were playing. For this puzzle we needed paper and scissors (different for a Telescape room, I know), it wasn’t hard, or unfair, but it just felt a little out of place.

CLUE SYSTEM

Sometimes the problem with a game where the puzzles click, are fair, and make sense, is that we don’t actually need to look at the clue system – this is one of those occasions. So all I can really say about the clue system is that there was one, and it was granular and always available. Each ‘room’ you were in had its own set of clues and were broken down by the puzzle so it was easy to know which you needed to look at. This was just in another Telescape tab so you could always get to it and I’m sure that if you needed a clue then this would get you back on track.

If you’ve played this game and can give any insights into the clue system, then please do let us know.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Well produced, decent puzzles, and an interesting storyline, The Alp is a game that we finished and both said ‘I enjoyed that game’. It’s great to see that even this far into the pandemic, decent online games are still being produced.

Perfect for friends, but perhaps don’t bring the family. The Alp has a bit of a Blair Witch vibe about it so could be a good choice for horror fans out there.

TOOLS REQUIRED

• PC or Laptop strongly recommended
• Paper and Scissors for one task ( Not a print and play game)
• Pen and Paper for note taking (optional)

Final Rating:

Team: 2 players

Time Taken: 43mins

Website: https://www.e-scaperooms.co.uk/

*Disclaimer: we weren’t charged for this experience, but this has not influenced our review