RC Escapes: The Curse of Amberly Manor (Play at Home)

Creepy point-and-click fun

Legend has it the Amberly family mysteriously disappeared the same night the Lady Amberly met her gruesome fate. It has been 200 years and she prepares her return. Can you break the curse and save the town?

When we last played a game by this company, they were called Rob & Chris Escapes, now they go by RC Escapes which is much catchier. If you’re going to put your names in your company name then you’ve got to be pretty confident in your offering.

The last game we played by RC Escapes was The Sapphire Project which we thoroughly enjoyed, and to be honest the interface for that game worked so well that we expected more of the same, we were wrong.

Really the only thing that these games shared in common was that they both have a hard 60 minute time limit in which to complete the game. If you go over 60 minutes, then you’re out of luck and won’t get to finish.

Knowing that we only had 60 minutes to play we logged in, in two separate locations for a change, and entered Amberly Manor. Upon joining we were ‘welcomed’ by a rather creepy intro video that really set off the haunted house/horror vibe they were going for.

CONCEPT/EXECUTION

The first thing we noticed about this game is that it felt more like a point-and-click game rather than the slick terminal that their previous game took place in. That’s not to say it was worse, just different.

This game requires a minimum of two connections to be able to play, for reasons that become apparent later in the game. Normally when we play we are sat side-by-side, but this time we were in different parts of the country. We had Zoom open so we could communicate but there was no need to screen share.

We were both able to move around the game independently of each other which meant we could explore whatever we wanted to. This worked well when there was only one room but as soon as there was more than one, we encountered our first problem.

Some of the puzzles are obviously set up to rely on communication but sometimes the things you need are in different rooms, and this is where we found the only issue – we had to be in the same room as each other. If one of us entered a different room then the other person would be pulled through to the same room, even if they were in the middle of a puzzle.

PUZZLES

It felt like we were very slow to get going with this game, I’m sure for the first five minutes or so we were just clicking on everything to try and work out what we could interact with.

Once we worked out what to do and how to play, we found puzzles that relied on communication, decoding, audio, observation and special awareness which resulted in codes for virtual padlocks or virtual tech. Communication is the big one here.

One puzzle that we encountered I wasn’t a big fan of, I think it’s the type of puzzle that you either get right away, or struggle with. We got there eventually but it felt a tad frustrating. That was the only annoying puzzle and a number of the other puzzles were really quite clever.

We saw in The Sapphire Project that RC Escapes like to finish their games on a high, and this game was no different. The final challenge (it wasn’t really a puzzle) was just a bit of fun really and without giving too much away, if you’re a fan of a yellow computer game character who eats dots, then you’ll love this.

CLUE SYSTEM

Much like their other game, we found that the puzzles all made sense so we didn’t actually need to look at the clue system. I would assume the clue system would be comparable to the first game in that you can request one at any point and it will give you a cryptic hint, as you request more for the same puzzle it will get less cryptic. If you are still stuck you will likely be able to receive the solution to keep you moving.

Each clue you take will add five minutes to your time, however this doesn’t come off your gameplay time it is simply added to your finishing time.

FINAL THOUGHTS

This was a fun game, although we enjoyed their first game more. Decent puzzles, a creepy vibe, and some clever interactions made it enjoyable, although don’t forget, you really only have 60 minutes.

We were slow getting going in this game but once we did we really got into it and ended up a bit miffed when we completed it with 28 minutes remaining.

Every purchase of this game sees £2.50 donation to The Big Issue, so that means you can play the game, have fun, and feel good about yourself for helping charity.

TOOLS REQUIRED

• Desktop / Laptop (sound turned on)
• Note taking implements

Final Rating:

Team: 2 players

Time Taken: 31:46mins

Website: http://www.rcescapes.co.uk

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