Paradox Project 2: Το Βιβλιοπωλείον [The Bookstore]

There is a surreal hype about these rooms from paradox project which I find incomprehensible. The room is tediously long, both riddles and tasks make you want to escape fast. I can barely think of any wow moment. Also the story and setting feel random and unconnected. I really appreciate the work put in, but on our trip it was rated among the lowest by all of our group.

We have never had a tougher time rating a room. We can’t even put it on our normal scale because this is something so completely different than anything else out there. This review does not contain blatant spoilers, but provides some thoughts on things we would have liked to know going in. First of all, Terpeca lists this as a “not scary at all room.” ☀️ While not scary by our standards, the teens with us were a bit freaked out. More accurate to call this passive 🔦 These guys are seeking to build the master level of escape rooms. They have a vision and we respect the hell out of what they are doing. They are escape room purists, and believe in traditional locks (used in new ways), difficult puzzles and elaborate stories. They felt that one hour is simply not enough for a room (we agree) and have gone for a whopping three + hours, which *may* be a bit too much for many. We were absolutely brain dead by the end. We have our own opinions about how hard a room should be throughout, but they believe in a wave. For the Bookstore, you absolutely need to do the Mansion first. We couldn’t make it work with scheduling and something was definitely lost by not doing the first part. It would be ideal if they could shape it accordingly to whether someone has done the Mansion or not, because scheduling doesn’t always work out when you’re on vacation. Finally, the construction of this place is damn impressive. Mad respect for these guys. We have been wanting “expert level” rooms, they delivered. We just wish we had known that going in, so we could have framed ourselves accordingly. 😂 Escape Couple rating: 🤯🧐🤓 (we use a 1-6🗝️ rating scale, but this room defies normal ranking) In short, it absolutely delivers on what it set out to accomplish.

If you enjoyed the first Paradox Project game then this is more of the same but better!  Less space is used in some amazingly creative ways, some great transitions and a stronger sense of the unfolding story.  This fixes all of the criticisms I had of the first one but I would urge caution taking a large group, I would recommend 3-4 to get the most enjoyment out, very much worth your time.

After playing the mansion, we had an idea of what to expect but this room still completely blew our mind. 3h 20 with two people feels like a lot of time but it flowed along so well, that you'd never want it to end. Detailed rooms, interesting transitions, very cool ideas and the first room that actually got me sea-sick. As with the other Paradox rooms, the game starts immediately when you arrive, so there's no interaction with a game master other than via smartphone if needed (the hint system). One of the best rooms in the world I played.

6/10 Greece is renowned for their horror rooms. Project Paradox’s The Bookstore is no different. 3 and 1/2 hours of pure torture. Do yourself a favor and forgo this room. How it landed so high on TERPECA’s top 100 is beyond me. First, this room is OLD. It is worn and battered. Multiple puzzles were broken. Some puzzles, after solving, trigger nothing. Only after being hounded by the game master through a text on a phone (their hint system) will you know the puzzle was completed and to move on. The flow and connection between puzzles is weak at best. Speaking of puzzles, there are some major eye rollers. Your momentum is constantly interrupted by videos explaining the nonsensical storyline that after the 4th or 5th video, you couldn’t care less about. Some of the word puzzles are so difficult to understand that I thought it was just bad translation. The Greek people I played with would read the original language and be just as bewildered at the wording, if not more confused. Through this experience you will be asking questions along the lines of, “Why is it that?” “Where do we go?” “What are we supposed to do?” “When did that open?” “How were we supposed to guess that?” “How much time is left?” “Can we leave early?” “Another text!?!” “It’s still going!?!” For a room that prides itself on how long and packed full of puzzles it is, it comes no where close to the reputation that precedes it. If you have this room on your to do list, all I have to say is, Good luck, Godspeed, and bring Advil in attempting this headache of an experience. That’s the Bitter Truth.

This was my favorite of the 3 Paradox games. I did feel that we needed to be tethered to the cell phone that is used for hints much more than I find enjoyable in order to proceed through the game. However, there were some interesting twists in environments and cool ideas, even if the puzzle flow didn't always feel intuitive to me.

This is the culmination of the mansion room and directly continues it's story. The room is an incredible experience and blows away so many of our experiences in the states. This room has so many clever things but to avoid spoilers I won't mention them here. If you are an escape room fan, paradox on the whole is a must hit and this room is one of their best. My partner and I are still talking about some of the things in the room

The biggest draw of this room is the set - the designers clearly put a lot of time in to customize the house's architecture, and it also fit in with the plot. Puzzles felt like they fit in to where they were found, and there were a couple neat unexpected interactions. This was easily my favorite of the three Paradox Project games. While the creators say you should play 1 before 2 to appreciate the plot, I'm not sure it's necessary (though it may help get you into the designer's mindset towards puzzles). Some parts were a little finicky (e.g. some books in the very first room required more force to interact with than we expected, and we got a bad ending because even though we did the right thing at the very end, we couldn't find what we were looking for and assumed it wasn't there when in fact we needed to reach a bit further). There was one thing about the background music that stands out in my memory - at a point in the game about halfway through that's supposed to be creepy and disturbing, I identified the music as a Halloween-ish variant of the Sailor Moon theme song. This killed the mood for me and had me laughing instead, which I'm pretty sure wasn't the intent. We played in English with no problem.

This is a game that I will think back on for a while! After a long day of sightseeing and traveling, ending the day with a >3hr escape room was a little ambitious but experiencing this room was worth it. The halfway break(with our choice of music) was thoughtful. The puzzles were very creative and mechanical, which our group was enthusiastic about. And the amount of puzzles and rooms was impressive.