Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should<
We bought an old computer and found out the previous owner was a person named Stanley. The last time this computer was used was in 1997. Stanley was an eight-year-old genius in the 11th grade when he made this game. Play the game with your friends and work together to complete the game.
This game got my attention thanks to an introductory offer where it was only $2.50, and because it was set in the 90s (my second favourite decade after the 80s). I figured for $2.50 we couldn’t go too far wrong. Now I really don’t like reviewing games that are bad, and we’ve been very lucky so far to mostly play good games, but this is a game that I really can’t recommend. Your experience may be different and you may love it, but we just wanted it to end.
CONCEPT/EXECUTION
The one positive of this game was the technology it was built on, it was actually really rather good and when we started the game we were impressed. You can connect up to ten players at once (so we’re told) from your team and everyone has their own cursors that each player can see moving around the screens. You’re able to move around the room independently of each other and when something is found it can be added to an inventory.
Unfortunately that is where the good aspects end. I still don’t fully understand the story behind this game, are we in the game in 1997 or are we in a room trying to get in the game? The room is set up to be like the 90s so I assume it is the former, yet I couldn’t understand why there were markings in the room saying 2020, or a featured picture from 2008. So the story was lost on me.
It looks like this is a game that started as a real life game and has been developed into an online point and click game, but really, it doesn’t work. Far too many red herrings and a clue system that was the worst we have seen so far, more on that later.
The game is set up so that you can spin around the room in a 360 view and anything you can interact with has a magnifying glass on them. Unfortunately the magnifying glasses are coloured to make them nearly invisible in certain situations, which was apparently a decision that the designers are happy with. That’s one gripe, but then there were magnifying glasses on items that offered literally nothing to the game, they were just there to distract you, and distract you they will.
PUZZLES
The puzzles were probably not too bad if you look at them individually, but in this game they just didn’t work as there were too many other things in the room that made it harder to sift through what you needed and what was just filler, and most of this room was filler.
There is a lot of searching, which we found more of a chore than an adventure thanks to the previously mentioned colour choices. In fact we were struggling so much we even called in an escape room designer as back up to see if he could work it out, but even after wasting 30minutes of his time we were no further forward.
We also found ourselves revealing items that we would need later on in the game, but because it was so poorly structured we didn’t know they were for later until we had wasted a lot of time trying to solve them.
CLUE SYSTEM
There are good clue systems, bad clue systems, and then the clue systems for this game. There were supposed to be little eyes that you could click on to get clues, yet they weren’t on all the puzzles and when we did click on them we found they actually gave us hints for the puzzle we hard to solve before that one.
If the ‘eyes’ didn’t help, and they didn’t, then the back up clue system was to email them, which as they are in California meant a nice long delay in play, and when the reply did come, it didn’t help. Why not just put a clue system fully in the game, surely it’s not that hard?!
FINAL THOUGHTS
We really wanted to like this game, but I think we ended up hating it. It wasted nearly two hours of our life that we will never get back. You may enjoy it, we didn’t.
TOOLS REQUIRED
- Computer with Internet connection (we used Chrome)
- Punch bag – for afterwards to remove your stress
Final Rating:
Puzzles | |
Concept/Execution | |
Clue System | |
Value for Money | |
Enjoyment |
Team: 2 players (+ 1 emergency reserve)
Time Taken: 2hrs
Website: https://www.helpusescape.com
The only good thing is that the cursor follows your mouse and you have an inventory system?! The review really sounds like it should be a 0- or 1- star game…
It probably could have been. Other people may like it but we really didn’t get on with it. It has potential to be good, it’s just a long way off that