RATING: 2 Keys          RESULT: Win          REMAINING: 53:30 

Elegant production values befitting its fictitious namesake establishment cannot check us out from the realization that these puzzles are anything but Grand.

Owned by the wealthy but mysterious Blossom family, this once magnificent hotel was in danger of being closed for good until the sudden return of the Blossom son, Kurt and his beautiful wife, Lauren. They want to restore the hotel to its former glory but nothing is quite what it seems!

All opulent old establishments from a bygone era come with their fair share of mystique, and The Great Hotel is certainly no exception. A long, storied history of fame and fortune has sadly done little to keep this former place to be in the limelight. Now, after years of neglect since the disappearance of the Blossom family, Kurt, the son who was to inherit it all is back with his brand new wife, Lauren by his side – ready to return The Grand Hotel to its glory days.

With a gala set to commemorate the reopening and eight of the most high-brow guests personally invited to attend, that should create the buzz needed to get the word out. Until….

Escape From The Grand Hotel is one of the most story-driven home games on the market. Each new “door” opened leads to more evidence and surprising plot twists. Yes, there’s a lot of reading in this one – but Professor Puzzle does a solid job of keeping it compelling and engaging – leaving guests genuinely interested to learn more of what really happened to dim the lights of one of high society’s brightest showplaces.

Interestingly, inside the box are eight actual, mail ready envelopes – each stuffed with a formal invitation to The Grand Hotel, which doubles as a character profile card. Professor Puzzle encourages guests to dress up and act out their parts to make the overall experience more immersive. This interesting approach is rather unique to the escape home game scene – and for that, we appreciate the effort. Unfortunately, at no point in time does this come into play within Escape From The Grand Hotel’s storyworld.

As we’ve touched on previously, being a home game, we define “Scenic,” from a graphic design perspective, as well as the quality, weight and feel of print materials inside the box.

First impressions will quickly show that Professor Puzzle is a high quality product, at least in terms of production value. The outside packaging has an almost satiny texture akin to expensive wrapping paper, with the game’s logo embossed across it in a shiny gold leaf foil. Inside the box is no different – with a solid, upscale-feeling box lining holding each of the nine “rooms” of The Grand Hotel.

The rooms are highly themed, custom created envelops that unfold to reveal the space within. Each is printed on a durable, glossy paper stock, making them “feel expensive.” The attention to detail within the graphics themselves is impressive – giving the clear impression that each room within the hotel is a very distinctly different place. Unfortunately, none of that comes into play throughout the course of the game – as nothing you see in these “rooms” is ever used. Each door merely acts as a very nicely themed envelope to hold your next paper or puzzle piece.

Professor Puzzle goes an almost exclusively paper-route in their production materials for Escape From The Grand Hotel, not that this is a bad thing. Don’t expect to fund many custom pieces, nor any actual locks or keys.

Unlike many other home games, Professor Puzzle has no companion app of any sort – meaning Escape From The Grand Hotel has no themed background music, sound effects, ambiance, or official game time. (The instructions suggest you use your phone’s stopwatch.)

Unfortunately, hotel guests will quickly learn that the puzzles have apparently arranged for an early check-out. Escape From The Grand Hotel is an odd mix of “too easy” and “too illogical,” each hiding behind different doors.

The arrival experience within The Grand Hotel starts of logically – although very simplistically on a difficulty scale. Make no mistake, we fully welcome “easier” games, and genuinely believe they have a valued place in any conversation; there are a lot of newer players out there, and as such, it’s wonderful to have an option to point them toward.

The problem, however, comes in Professor Puzzle’s lack of balance. In a sort of “going 0-100” style, Escape From The Grand Hotel is either too easy for experienced players or too difficult and/or frustrating for newer ones, all depending on the puzzle at hand. For example, once we entered the kitchen, something hidden within the cupboard was so disjointed that even after a hint, and worse, even after reading the actual solution, we still have no idea how it was achieved. Later, a classic “seating chart riddle” – a style of puzzle we generally do tend to enjoy – felt out of place in its complexity given this game’s intended target audience. Another, like the pictured De-Coder 2000 (shown in an official promotional image from Professor Puzzle) is clear, but entirely tedious. For the record, you’re seeing less than 1/4 of that fax page that needs to be decoded.

Most bizarre of all, Escape From The Grand Hotel just… stops. Like, there’s no puzzle that leads guests to the end of their stay, and opening the final “door” becomes a matter of “Um, I guess we just… open…. this… now? There’s nothing else to do?” It actually left us thinking we might have misplaced an envelope in our first play-through.

If home games were rated merely on production value, Escape From The Grand Hotel might get a score more befitting of its fictitious namesake. Professor Puzzle unquestionably packs a polished, elegant-feeling product both inside and outside of its box. Unfortunately here, the reality is we highly doubt anyone – ourselves included – are purchasing a home game just for how its graphics look.

Escape From The Grand Hotel flounders with puzzles even worse than the neglected establishment does within its storyworld setting. At times too easy, at times too hard, like Goldilocks this game struggles to ever find its own “just right.” At best, Professor Puzzle has assembled a weak syllabus of challenges, despite his or her apparent PhD; at worst, however, they’re just flat out bad. On our way out, we were sure to stop by the lobby desk to sign the guest book: “We stayed at The Grand Hotel, but we never had fun.”

*Montu, Escape Authority’s VP, Dog Business™ and lead home game correspondent endorses the opinions found within this review.

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Venue:  Professor Puzzle

Location: At Home Game

Number of Games: 2 (1 in this box.)

GAME SPECIFIC INFORMATION:

Duration: 90 minutes

Capacity: 8 people

Group Type: Private / You will not be paired with strangers (but if you are, call 911 immediately to report a home invasion.)

Cost (at Publish Time): $24.50 (Amazon.com)