Paris, Sep 2023
As part of the briefing (which, as normal in Paris, was not at all brief), we were asked to assign ourselves to roles: ranger, mage, dwarf, bard. Each role had a special characteristic. (Hot tip: mage is the best one.) Which should make clear the theme: this is a fantasy role-playing sort of escape room, where you’re entering a dark and dangerous dungeon in search of a magic crystal. It’s not actually all that important who gets which role; it doesn’t make a large difference in game experience.
The ‘dungeon’ was indeed rather dark to begin with, and be warned that the ceiling at the start is dangerously low; at least half our group lost a real-life hit point to it. A linear and (to us) slightly confusing early game became increasingly engaging and frantic as we continued.
The special roles might make it sound like a cross between an escape room and a live action DnD game, and that’s not entirely wide of the mark, although it’s still much more an escape room than anything else. You do also have something like a side quest though, in collecting as many bags of gold coins as you can. You’ll get some in the course of the game, though to max out your score you’ll need to solve a bonus puzzle and also spot some tricky search targets (most of which we missed entirely, of course). Your loot is checked at the conclusion in the debrief, adding some nice post-game suspense. I should note that there’s also a risk of sudden death (metaphorical, of course) – though you needn’t fear an early end to your experience.
In a delightful game, I was less keen on the way part of it leaned on a journal of clues, a common trope that I never like, particularly since I usually seem to get lumped with the reading duties. The experience was better once we could stop referring to the journal for instructions and information.
That might have irked me more, but I was enjoying myself too much to really mind. This is not a game that takes itself too seriously. It goes all-in on the swords and sorcery, but with humour throughout. (I believe there were some in-jokes related to a podcast on which the game is based; I enjoyed the jokes without getting the references.)
It feels like a passion project, though it’s clearly not suffering from a shortage of budget; it has the slightly lumpy feel of an experience created by enthusiasts cramming in all their favourite ideas. For me at least that’s preferable to something that’s ultra-slick and over-polished; I came out grinning. 
