Oodles and oodles of story!
Travel to Pluto to learn what happened to the missing team of Research Base Persephone. Take on perplexing puzzles and a fiendish foe, as a ferocious creature stalks ever closer to the base…
I must confess that Liz and I rarely if ever listen to podcasts, so it was no surprise that we had never heard of the Oblivity Podcast before. The Oblivity Podcast seems to be in full swing and having completed season one they were all lined up for season two, and then Covid hit. Rather than doing nothing with their time (like most of us probably have) they decided to turn their attention to creating an online escape game that took place in their Oblivity universe.
Sometimes we play online games that are weak in story, this couldn’t have been further from that. Every puzzle was woven into the immense story that was forever present in this game. This isn’t a game that you want to blitz through, in fact if you are watching and reading everything then that will take a fair amount of time itself.
Obviously with this game being heavily influenced by the Oblivity Podcast universe you could be forgiven for thinking that you need to have listened to the podcast to be able to play this game, but you don’t. We went into this game completely blind to the story yet still found ourselves getting sucked into it and being able to follow it through to completion.
Before beginning your mission you need to make sure you download your Oblivity Base Journal (a handy PDF) as this will give you the tools you need to be successful. They do recommend that you print the journal to make your life a little easier, we did it without printing but it definitely would have been easier at times had we printed it out first.
CONCEPT/EXECUTION
The team at Oblivity Podcast have taken their skills in making podcasts and transferred them really rather well into making an immersive and story-driven online puzzle experience. Rather than just relying on text and illustrations to progress the story they merged everything together to create some simple but well made animated videos. These videos do take a while to get through so do bear that in mind when setting aside time to play this game.
The method of having the main interface online and then a secondary PDF journal is one we have seen used before a few times, and it works well. The key thing to remember is that pretty much everything in the journal is useful and you may not find everything you need in one place.
The premise of the game is straightforward, you need to go to four rooms in the base and in each room you will find two puzzles, one will give you an eight digit code and the other will give you a word – make sure you write both down as you will need these.
PUZZLES
I can’t think of a single puzzle in The Profoctor Predicament that felt out of place, and if I had to talk about the difficulty level, I’d say it was a pretty mixed bag and would be good for both enthusiasts and first time escapers.
The puzzle types were a mixture of logic, searching, reasoning, and generally just being able to follow instructions. The last ‘puzzle’ threw a bit of a curveball and managed to keep the game interesting and exciting right to the end!
Most of the puzzles made sense and we knew what we were doing and how we did them, although one puzzle was a bit confusing to us and we’re still not sure how we actually solved it, I think somehow we just got lucky and fluked it.
CLUE SYSTEM
Online and physical games can be made or broken with how clues are delivered. The Profoctor Predicament hasn’t done anything groundbreaking with their clue system but it works, and it works well.
Clues are contained in a webpage that you can choose to open if you get stuck. If you do open this page you will find that the clues are well laid out and are in the order you will find the puzzles during the game – this is good because it means you don’t have to close your eyes while you scroll through clues to puzzles you haven’t yet completed.
Not only is there a page for clues but there is a separate page for answers should you need them. This is a great thing to have as it means if you’re not getting the puzzles or the clues, you can still progress through the mission. One nice thing that these guys did, and that I feel more online games should do, is not just say the answer is ‘XYZ’ but actually state the answer and the reasoning behind it. There’s nothing worse than being given the answer and not knowing how you were supposed to get to it!
FINAL THOUGHTS
This is a story driven game that takes a while to play because of all the narrative. If you’re looking for a quick game that you can rush through, then this probably isn’t one for you. However, if you want a game that sucks you into a new world, then give this one a try.
TOOLS REQUIRED
- Paper and Pen for notes
- Printer (optional) – if you want to print the journal
- Internet connection
Final Rating:
| Puzzles | |
| Concept/Execution | |
| Clue System | |
| Value for Money | |
| Enjoyment |
Team: 2 players
Time Taken: 1hr 20m
Website: https://www.oblivitypodcast.com/online-escape-game
*Disclaimer: we weren’t charged for this experience, but this has not influenced our review.
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