TheEnigmaCode
569 escape rooms
Due to extenuating circumstances, we stayed an extra night in Bozeman, so we tacked on another game at Escape 406. This game, the latest design, was an amazing showcase of the trajectory the company is on. The set is small, as with the temple, but it is manipulated and explored very interestingly. Seriously, this is one of the more impressive small scale layouts I’ve seen. While there were a few puzzle hiccups (including a somewhat obscure search puzzle and a one that was difficult to fully see), This is another great example of the unique, highly tactile puzzle design embedded into interesting structural challenges. I appreciated the unconventional opening as well as a mechanism that went above and beyond for the puzzle type. Just like the other game, there’s a very interesting use of structured solving to create a sense of continual progress. In the future, I’d love to see them take these concepts and create more complex systems - both of these meta-puzzle like final solves were highly satisfying in how they brought everything together. It’s a very classic game, but it’s made with an uncommon desire to engage with its players. It says a lot that these puzzles felt fresh, even when they utilized tropes that should be overtly cliche. What makes it stand out, and to me made this game a surprisingly hidden gem, was that the designers committed themselves to adding their own flourishes onto these challenges, from the tech to the input style to the satisfying backbone running through both games. Both games I played were fun and original, but if you have to pick, I think the layout and set design of the lightkeeper was a bigger wow.
