Elgin Escape: Murder Mansion (Play at Home)

On the simpler side, but still enjoyable

The death of a young housemaid at Palmer mansion house was under suspicious circumstances. The local police department closed the case after spending a year trying to solve the mystery. Palmer mansion now stands boarded up and abandoned at the top of the hill and nobody dares to enter for the fear of what lies within. You as a new crime scene forensic detective have always had an interest in the case. Wishing to solve the case and make a good impression you decide to adventure into the building to investigate for yourself. Who knows what you may find hidden inside the mansion locally known as the “Murder Mansion”.

Elgin Escape is a company that we weren’t familiar with but for some reason their online game got our attention. I think I first saw it mentioned on the UK Escape Room Enthusiast group on Facebook; there wasn’t much talk about it, but the talk that there was seemed to be very complimentary. At only £8 we thought it was worth a try, so we booked!

It’s worth pointing out that other than the rather macabre theme, there is nothing scary about this game so it could be family friendly, but that really depends on how you feel about games that have murder as a theme.

CONCEPT/EXECUTION

There are so many different ways for online escape games to work; screen-sharing, print-at-home and fully collaborative. Murder Mansion has gone for the more collaborative approach which we have seen working well in games like B.R.U.C.E and Back to the Congressman. This works by enabling every player to log in and each control their own screen. It’s a good approach and seems to work well if you have a team operating in different locations (maximum of six) as it gives each team member a chance to interact with the game in their own way.

When your team members have joined your game you will see their name displayed at the start before you hit ‘go’. Solving the puzzles is straightforward although it may take you a few moments to work out how you interact with the screen, but it is essentially like a point-and-click video game.

Everyone in your team will see the puzzles at the same time, but each person can click on whatever they want to independently of each other. When a team member solves the puzzle a message will appear on everyone’s screens saying that the puzzle has been solved and also who solved it. Once solved it will pull everyone in the team through to the next puzzle. At the end of the game it gives you a little leaderboard showing how many puzzles each team member solved.

PUZZLES

We found the puzzles in this room to be on the easier side, but if you were doing this as a family group there is likely to be something for everyone. The puzzles were all pretty straight forward and we didn’t find any leaps in logic. The puzzles were a mix of logic, observation, spotting patterns, and there was also an audio puzzle in there (turn your sound on).

As I mentioned, the puzzles did seem rather easy, but if you’re looking to get a feel for an online escape room then these puzzles are pretty set at just the right level. Enthusiasts will likely blitz through this, but don’t let that put you off what is a fun game.

CLUE SYSTEM

As is becoming the norm in online escape rooms, Elgin Escape have gone for the tried-and-tested method of granular clues. If you click for a clue the first one you will be shown is cryptic, but the more you click the more help you will be given, culminating in the solution if you really need it. It’s worth noting that the clue will only be shown on the screen of the person who clicked for it (so if one of your team is looking particularly smart perhaps they are just blasting the clues).

FINAL THOUGHTS

We were pleasantly surprised by this game, ok the puzzles were on the easier side but the way we could both interact with the puzzles made for an enjoyable half an hour.

TOOLS REQUIRED

• Laptop/Desktop computer
• Search engine (unless you have really good general knowledge)
• Speakers turned on
• Notepad for note taking

Final Rating:

Team: 2 players

Time Taken: 30 mins (no clues)

Website: https://www.elginescape.com