Sometimes it can feel impossible to find time to get together with your friends. We’ve all been there where we should meet up “soon,” turns into finally catching up months later. But what if spending time together could be so much easier? One of the reasons I’m so excited about Mystery Escape Room online escape rooms is how you don’t even need to leave your home to play. When you consider how much time and money you waste getting ready, driving across the city, and perhaps arranging child care, you’ll be saving big time. Instead of needing everyone to commit a few hours of their day, it is merely 60 minutes of their time.
Mystery Escape Room has in-person rooms in Utah (Salt Lake City and St. George) and Arizona (Tuscon). But their online escape rooms can be played from anywhere in the world.
Right now, there are three options, Moriarty’s Parlor, which is for beginners, The Superhero and Nancy Drew. Each game is for four to eight players, who can be anywhere in the world. So this is a fantastic way to reconnect with all your friends in different cities.
What You Need To Play
To play, you’ll need a computer (not tablets or phones), a webcam, headphones, and mic.
How It Works
Just like a standard escape room, you’ll need to book a timeslot. You’ll then be given a link for Google Meet, where everyone will need to arrive at the scheduled time.
Here you’ll be greeted by one of the staff, who will guide you through the process and be available to answer your questions.
To begin, you’ll get a Google Doc link for everyone to share their notes, and a link to a website for the first puzzle “room.” From the first website, it is up to you to work with your team to solve the clues and solve the mystery.
Nancy Drew Experience Review (Spoiler Free)
In the Nancy Drew experience, you start outside of a house you are asked to investigate. You’ll need to pay close attention to the clues, as once your time is up, you’ll need to fill out a police report with all the details from within the house.
The story is well crafted and cohesive. For one hour, you get to feel like a detective and slowly unlock door after door to explore the mansion.
The puzzles are equally fantastic, they are well designed and diverse. No two challenges are alike, which means it really will test your skills. It also allows different players to shine, depending on their skills.
Every time you want to enter a locked room, you’ll need a password. If you get it correct, this will open another tab on your browser.
One obstacle I faced is despite my 27″ monitor; my entire screen was filled with tabs open, plus Google Meet and Google Doc. It became a bit tedious to flip between the correct web tabs or the Google Doc.
Another challenge I faced is you don’t get a notification when you enter the correct password. So by the end, there are so many tabs you might not notice anything popped up. If in doubt, check your latest browser tab to check if the password worked.
As the escape room is a website, every player needs the password to go into a room. Or, if you accidentally close a tab for a place, you’ll need to re-enter a password. As such, it is a good idea to keep all the passwords at the top of your Google Doc so everyone can find them quickly.
Because there are so many spaces in the mansion, the team will need to work on different tasks. There will never be a moment where you feel like you have nothing to do. Just make sure you keep in constant communication, as answers to puzzles require people in multiple rooms to work together.
Final Thoughts
Mystery Escape Room online escape rooms are an affordable and convenient way to hang out with your friends. The Nancy Drew room costs $85 for the team. That breaks down to under $11 a person if you are eight people.
The puzzles and story will give you the in-person escape room experience we all love. But this time you could play in comfortable lounge clothes if you wanted.
The most significant change to expect is merely overcoming obstacles from the technology. My team accidentally closed tabs, or at first, had some challenges navigating the space. The technical side could use some slight polishing to make it easier on the users, but despite some hiccups, it was still very engaging.
Compared to other virtual escape rooms I’ve done one of the biggest perks of Mystery Escape Room is there is a staff with you the entire time monitoring your progress. In other virtual escape rooms, if you can’t solve a puzzle, you are stuck waiting for someone to reply to your emailed question. Forget continuing; you need to reschedule for another day after you get the hint or answer email.
But with Mystery Escape Room, you never have that problem. The staff did an excellent job giving us hints as we went. I also appreciated they checked in on the various players to make sure everyone was engaged.
When split between 8 people, the low cost certainly makes it a worthwhile experience. But if you are a novice with escape rooms, you might want to start with Moriarty’s Parlor, which is not only easier but cheaper too.
Book Nancy Drew at Mystery Escape Room now.