Athens, Apr 2023
An unplanned return trip to Escapepolis’s Galatsi location let us play one more of their games; slot availability determined that it would be The Creepy Store. This isn’t one of Athens’ many terror rooms: there’s no live actor and the emphasis is firmly on solving not scares.
It is however big on the atmospherics. It’s Halloween and you’re trapped inside a store where the souls of four missing children are held prisoner; your task is to free them as well as yourselves. This story isn’t just an initial premise that you’ll forget about thirty seconds are the end of the intro; it’s woven into the puzzles and dramatised with a variety of effects.
At times the atmospherics got a little in the way of the puzzle solving. We spent a while struggling in the low light to distinguish four types of item that I think were intended to be clearly distinct, and at another point missed some colours that were significant to a puzzle because it was too dim to see them properly. Nonetheless, the sound and lighting and effects do a great job at building atmosphere and excitement, particularly as we reached the end.
The puzzle style here is all about observation. The store is packed with objects and curios, most of which aren’t important for solving anything. Picking up on the multi-layered hints for what to pay attention to, and finding those things in the midst of an overload of stuff, is the key to success.
I might nitpick a few points on certain of the puzzles, but there were no glaring issues with the logic. The room layout is a strength too, designed in a way that makes the most of what by Athens standards is not a very large space.
This won’t be the most challenging game for enthusiasts, or if it is it’ll be for the wrong reasons (struggling to spot the clues), and if you want a tough game then one of the others here might be a better pick. But of the three I played at the Galatsi location, this was the one that for me had the greatest feel of fun and adrenaline. 
