Paradox Project: The Music Academy (Athens)

Beautiful.

A unique Music Academy… Notes full of hidden secrets which are intertwined and form a transcendental melody lost for centuries….

The intensity of the crescendo drowns out the agonizing sounds of agonizing breathing in a predestined finale… The music stops…

A tragedy buried in darkness… Years later, one final chance for justice…

Now that everything is collapsing, there are no rules anymore…

We had been in Athens just over 24 hours, and already we had played the first two games by Paradox Project: The Mansion, and The Bookstore. We enjoyed those games (the Bookstore especially so), and we were very much looking forward to the third game by Paradox Project, The Music Academy. Unlike the first two games, their newest game, The Music Academy takes place at a different venue and is also a completely separate story.

Interestingly, the venue where The Music Academy is set actually used to be a music academy! When we arrived we knew we were in the right place thanks to some funky wall art outside and after ringing the doorbell our GM welcomed us and showed us to the waiting area. This was another change from the other locations, we met the GM before the game, rather than just going straight into it.

At their other games the toilets were accessible in the game at all times, in The Music Academy there were toilets but they weren’t in the same area as the gameplay – so if the toilet was needed, you simply had to leave and walk through reception again.

Anyway, after meeting our GM in the reception area and taking in the interesting artwork, it was time to get down to business. Our GM, Virgena gave us our mission briefing and then led us through the beautiful building to the entrance to the game. First impressions were as impressive as we expected, Paradox Project had yet again gone for epicness on a grand scale.

IMMERSION/ROOM DESIGN

We very quickly learned that escape rooms in Athens take immersion and room design to another level, especially at Paradox Project. Paradox Project are arguably most famous for the fact that they have three hour escape rooms (of which The Music Academy is one). To keep players occupied for that time takes a massive and sprawling set, and great puzzles (in quantity and quality) – and this game had all of those things.

It’s no spoiler to say that this game has many spaces to explore, and each space relates to the story both in purpose and decor. Don’t be fooled by this game though, although it’s not a horror room it most certainly does have a darker side.

The Music Academy was actually a really pleasant space to be. Music was playing at all times which added to the atmosphere and helped push up the adrenaline a bit (I love a bit of Phantom of the Opera). Much of the building still had its original features, and Paradox Project had used this beautifully to make puzzles blend seamlessly with decor.

It’s very clever that this and the other games by Paradox Project are available in both English and Greek, they’ve done it in a way that works really really well and we never had any issues with language. As we progressed through the game we had to collect items which would then further the story, again this was done in a way that they worked for both languages.

PUZZLES

It’s not easy to talk about all the puzzles in a three hour escape room without writing an essay, but I’m going to try! As always, there will be no spoilers as I’ll just skim over the types of puzzles you can expect to encounter – but from looking at my notes on this game I can see that there were a lot of puzzles!

This game is heavily narrative driven so all of the puzzles play a part in driving the story forward, but thanks to the story, nothing really felt out of place. Observation, wordplay, audio (obviously), spatial relations, colours, and magic – ok it wasn’t magic but it was a really cool piece of science that I thought was done with tech, but nope, science!

Many of the puzzles resulted in combinations for padlocks, or finding a key, but there was also a good amount of tech which always kept us guessing as to what would happen next. Many of the puzzles were quick wins but there was one puzzle that was much more drawn out, and the scale of it was also pretty sizable too – persevere with it and you’ll get through it.

We played as a very experienced team of four (we teamed up with James and Charlie from Deadlocked who are rather smart) and found that there was at least one puzzle where we each got a chance to shine. Equally, there were moments where we were all equally stumped and had to get a bit of help to get us through.

GM/CLUE SYSTEM

The screens in the room which helped drive the narrative served a dual purpose as they were also there for us to receive any help. If we needed help we simply had to call out and Virgena would type a message on the screen. Usually her messages were just cryptic enough to get us back on track, and once again language was not an issue.

The gamesmaster in The Music Academy did more than just provide clues, and without saying what she did, she did it perfectly.

ANYTHING ELSE

The Music Academy is one of those games that keeps on going. When we thought we were done, there was more puzzling to be done! We haven’t played many three hour games, but Paradox Project are surely the masters of this domain, what an experience! Normally we talk about how long we spent in a game, or how long we had left, but with The Music Academy, we genuinely have no idea.

The puzzles were satisfying, the space was amazing, the story was deep, and the atmosphere was perfect. We preferred The Bookstore, but that set the bar very high already. The ending of this game left us wanting more. Thankfully, I believe there is a Part II in the works…

Success / Failure

Final Rating:

Team: 4 players – escaped in…. no idea.

Address: Agion Panton 92, Kallithea, 17676, Attica

Website: http://paradoxproject.gr/