TheEnigmaCode
569 escape rooms
Once you’ve played enough escape room, many games fall into tropes and standardized formats. A temple game is a common enough theme, usually including run books, substitution ciphers, lasers, etc. Temple of Abyss is a very unique temple game in terms of gameplay. It utilizes some of these cliches, but it also subverts them. A run book only provides a few structural clues, the environment is dark, and the inputs are highly novel. In particular, I loved one early device that was fun to manipulate and highly thematic in its design. Observation was key as well as interesting connections - some of the ways the game unfolded were highly unusual. Furthermore, Temple of Abyss had a great structure, utilizing repetition in its inputs in a somewhat simple yet satisfying way. It wasn’t super challenging or set focused - it was undeniably a passion project with novel interactions. Despite this, I liked the small set based flourishes. The game clock and a delivery mechanism stood out. Overall, this is a great game if you’re in the area!
