“Would you be interested in trying out an at-home escape room that’s Cold War themed?” said the email as it slid into my inbox. I couldn’t respond fast enough to say “hell yes!”
I’ve not done as many virtual escape rooms as I thought I would have during lockdown. I’ve spent far more time playing board games over Discord or taking on endless Arkham Horror LCG adventures with Tim.
So given the opportunity to try out a new room, in a topic that Tim and I both find pretty interesting, was a great way to move back towards the hobby.
Russ Builds
Russ is an independent amateur escape room builder based in the UK. Endgame is his second build, and his first designed for online play. Originally his games were played in his living room, but with lockdown he pivoted his next design to work over webcam.
The game is played for donations, with all money going towards future development of his games. He shares the leaderboard for his current game, as well as sneak previews of his next game, on his Instagram page, which is also how you can contact him to play the game.
Endgame
It’s 1991. The Cold War is in its final stages, but the future has never been more at risk. You have just one hour to stop the missile launch that will cause World War Three…
Theming
The game is unmistakably a hobbyist endeavour, but impressive all the same.
From what we could see over the camera, the props were very well-built and wouldn’t have been out of place in a physical room. There was even an incredibly satisfying big red button!
The dossier of secret information was nicely themed, with plenty of scene-setting extras that added to the vibe. It can be hard with remote games to find a setting that makes sense, but this was very well done – we felt like a team in a secret bunker, guiding our man-on-the-ground.
Russ acts as your hands, and is super responsive in doing so. There was never a lag or delay, but he also never jumped the gun and gave us any inadvertent hints as to what we should try next!
Puzzles
There was some real outside the box thinking required to crack some of these puzzles, and they definitely challenged both me and Tim in different ways. Due to the format, there wasn’t any need to “search” the area, but instead we were rifling through the dossier constantly.
The puzzles were very varied, and surprisingly branching for a single-camera game. We played as a two, although I think four people could work concurrently. Russ recommends having more than one device, and having the file open on both my PC and Tim’s phone meant we could work on different puzzles at the same time.
One puzzle towards the end frustrated us, but during our post-game debrief with Russ we suggested a slight variant on it which he has now adopted! It’s always a pleasure to play games where the designer is proactively interested in constructive feedback.
Russ operates a scoring system, where you get points added for finishing early and deducted for any clues. We finished the game with a solid 10 points, which placed us second in the leaderboard at the time (though we’ve been overtaken since).
Summary
A fantastic homebrew game which just goes to show what’s possible with a bit of ingenuity and some DIY skills. I’ll be watching Russ’s future builds with interest! Note that it’s quite hard to rate this room compared to physical ones – I’d definitely recommend giving Russ’s rooms a try.
Theme: 3/5 | Puzzles: 3.5/5 | Difficulty: 3/5
Clue system: ask Russ (penalty applied)
Success: yes, 12:20 remaining
