The Panic Room: Mainstage Mayhem (Play at Home)

The show must go on!

“The ‘Not Dead Yet’ festival was due to be the big smash hit of the year, however the production manager stole the money and locked away the kit!

Saturday is just around the corner, the show must go on! Solve the puzzles, work together as a team, and get the festival back up and running.

As this was our fifth Panic Room game over the course of two days, and not the last, we had a pretty good idea of what to expect with Mainstage Mayhem. Before joining the ‘room’, we were greeted by a very lively video from someone who looked like they had just walked out of a rock concert. She laid out the background behind what had gone on with the ‘Not Dead Yet’ festival, and detailed why we were called in… to save the festival!

With the upbeat video out of the way and the story made very clear, we entered our room password and then got stuck in.

CONCEPT/EXECUTION

Panic Room have stuck with what works, a standalone website that never needs to be left to complete the experience, no googling or street view journeys here. This layout works well and makes the game play out in a linear fashion but you are able to go back-and-forth between the areas if you need to or if you perhaps missed something that you later needed.

Everything within this game is designed to try and immerse you in the world of a music festival, so expect images to be on theme, a soundtrack, and a few sound effects (some got annoying) thrown in for good measure. The end of the game also gives a clear ending and brings the story full circle.

There is a note on the website that performance may be slow during peak hours, we played at peak hours and didn’t have any issues at all, so either we were lucky or they’ve got a pretty robust hosting package in place. If you’re interested in your time then make sure you set your own timer as there is no in game timer.

PUZZLES

We found that this game was probably one of the easier games we have played from The Panic Room, having completed it in around 28 minutes with no clues. Some of the difficulty of the puzzles were simply that you needed to scroll between sections to see what you needed and that became frustrating. It would have been also nice to have been able to easily open images in new windows.

Like any good escape room, you shouldn’t need any outside knowledge in order to complete this game. However, for one puzzle, having outside knowledge already actually became a hindrance for us because we were reading something how it should be read in the ‘real world’ rather than how it was to be interpreted here.

Another puzzle confused us a little due to the layout it had, but if you keep things simple then you are unlikely to have the same issue that we did. We have a habit of overcomplicating things and then looking like fools.

Technically not a puzzle, but still a challenge so I’m putting it here is the password entry field. I know there are system limitations here so characters you enter in the password field are ‘hidden’, but when you have to enter a long string of characters as a password, suddenly this becomes a puzzle in itself (damned fat fingers).

CLUE SYSTEM

Even though we didn’t need any clues, we did go back and have a look just so we could be thorough. The Panic Room have stuck with the usual method that they used for their other games, which is fine as it works. The first hint is subtle, and the others get less subtle until you can finally reveal the answer. The good thing about this system is that you still get a chance to solve the puzzle yourself, and if you can’t, you can still play the rest of the game.

FINAL THOUGHTS

A fun room but probably one of the easier games by the Panic Room. With decent theming, storyline and puzzles, it will keep you entertained for a little while.

TOOLS REQUIRED

• Device with internet connection (desktop/laptop running Chrome, Firefox or Edge provides best experience)
• Pen and paper for note taking (optional)

Final Rating:

Team: 2 players

Time Taken: 28 mins, no clues

Website: https://thepanicroom.net

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