Online, Apr 2021
Creepy cabins mostly fall into ‘psycho’ and ‘supernatural’ sub genres; Escape Manor‘s is the latter, with a nasty case of demonic possession to sort out. In the original in person game it seems there would have been an in person actor; this version also has a live actor of course, as your avatar. She was in character, deliberately nervous but not letting the characterisation slow down the progress of the game.
Like an increasing proportion of avatar games, Cabin 13 uses Telescape as its inventory system, and does so skilfully – there are hand-drawn style illustrations of the items, lightly creepy background audio and some interactive segments. For most of the game I thought the inventory system was superfluous despite the good implementation – the 360 view of the room was nice but not essential, and the flow was linear enough that just the main avatar view would have been fine. One interactive puzzle where we could collaboratively rearrange items in an inventory screen was clever in theory but horrible in practice, because the lag meant we kept accidentally snatching things from each other’s ‘hands’. But the final section used the inventory in a way that worked very well and was vastly superior to the alternative of having to write things down.
We got off to a quick start due to several straightforward early puzzles. The difficulty level increased somewhat as the game progressed, but this game’s challenge level is gentler than many. I also thought they’d done a better job than most in finding ways to handle the more physical elements of the game in the remote format.
It had a solid ending where the drama was a little undermined by the format. We were supposed to be reaching our friend from possession; but since of necessity she needed to be a good avatar throughout the game, the demonic influences we were fighting were mostly theoretical.
But even if that meant the premise felt little thin, the hosting was good, the set was attractively creepy, and the puzzles made sense; it’s a good choice for an avatar game that’s not too difficult with a mild scare theme. 