Escape Authority

The World's #1 Escape Game Social Hub!

Review: The Formula

RATING: 3 Keys          RESULT: Win          REMAINING: 17:42 

 

A truth serum is going to make it awfully hard for us to rave about our time spent in Dr. Hoffman’s lab.

Story

SEP 30 1961 / TOP SECRET

1. Objectives: The Department is concerned by the lack of recent reports from Dr. Hoffmann. This genius chemist is involved in the MK project. In his last report, he claimed that his “truth serum” was close to the required reliability. We want Hoffmann and his formula.

2. Means: The team will be taken to the subway station [CLASSIFIED] and will infiltrate the lab, which opens with the code [CLASSIFIED]. You make your way through the maze of New York subway tunnels. In the middle of the tracks, you find a trap door in the ground. It’s open and light shows through it.

Enter a secret laboratory to recover a mysterious serum that has been developed by a scientist…

The Formula is Unlock!’s spy-flavored adventure, sending agents into a secret underground lab to recover Dr. Hoffmann’s truth serum before it falls into the wrong hands. This is your classic hush-hush operation, with few details shared.

Perhaps that’s why The Formula is among Unlock!’s least narrative-driven adventures, or perhaps there’s just not much of a story to be told here. At any rate, The Formula is not a notably immersive adventure.

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.

We mentioned that Space Cowboys goes the route of fully card-based escape home games. Each edition is produced to the highest levels of quality – with thick, glossy textures that have the feel of a upscale deck of playing cards. Unlock!’s decks, however, are larger than a traditional card – measuring in at nearly 4.5″ tall by 2.5″ wide.

Something we’ve always enjoyed about Space Cowboys is their use of multiple different artists for each Unlock! box set. What results is a distinctly different animation style, evoking unique moods that help bring each storyworld to life. No two decks within a set will ever feel the same, or even slightly similar, for that matter.

Each game’s respective page within the Unlock! app fully compliments the theme of its storyworld, with unique buttons, sound effects and background music enhance the experience.

 

Puzzles

One of the things we’ve always enjoyed about the different Unlock! adventures is their use of logical actions through the combination of various cards throughout the deck. For example, if a character is thirsty, and you have water and an empty cup, you can combine them to get him a drink. Oddly, in more than one instance during The Formula’s mission, “two plus two” does always not equal four.

What would be, and should be, logical connections between two objects does not always work in this game, leaving agents occasionally wondering what it is they’re expected to do in order to progress the mission.

Some tasks feel organically “secret agent” – like tracing for finger prints to extract a vital code. Unfortunately from there, what’s done with that code to obtain its correct sequential order feels somewhat illogical. Another distinctly scientific step using a microscope is far more intuitive, but we found ourselves counting it as a specimen sample that could have yielded a much more impressive result with a bit of design creativity.

Retrieving The Formula skates the line of requiring prior knowledge; although most who play will likely recognize the intended subjected, being familiar with art is a must to progress. Unfortunately, this game also befalls the flaw of just a few early Unlock! games, where its cards do not always follow their own directions – resulting in, for example, grey information cards acting like red and/or blue puzzle ones, or combining red with grey (instead of blue) to get a new number value.

Each Unlock! game is run through a free app, available in the Apple iTunes and Google Play stores. Through it, you’ll not only manage time limits and receive hints, but also enter various codes and even solve some of the puzzles in tech-driven, digital setting. As an added bonus, the Unlock! app also includes themed background music that helps bring the storyworld of each game to life, sometimes even triggering sound effects to further enhance specific puzzles.

The app allows games to be played either with or without penalties for incorrect answers. We prefer playing without penalties, as we feel it more truly mimics a physical escape game experience where you may try a code in a lock when you’re uncertain. Although the penalty free mode is activated (in the app’s Settings) by turning off the timer, rest assured you will still receive your escape time at the end. In fact, turning off the timer is the only way to receive an accurate escape time, as penalties add multiple minutes to your overall duration.

The finale puzzle offers agents a “choice” about what they choose to do with the truth serum retrieved. Unfortunately, that “choice” is merely played out in an agent’s own imagination and the game simply ends without ever establishing consequences in either direction.

 

Overall

The Formula is the medium difficulty game released as apart of Unlock! Escape Adventures – Space Cowboy’s first commercial outing. This series may be purchased either individually or as a complete set, packing not one but three different full length home games inside the box. Interestingly, at the time we ordered ours, we’ve found it’s almost always proven cheaper to purchase each single game one by one on Amazon. We advise you to price your options to find the most cost effective way to add Unlock! games to your own collection. It would appear as though Unlock! has since moved away from the individual games with newer releases, instead making them only available as single-boxed three packs.

As with each Unlock! offering, a playable Tutorial is included. It should be noted that the Tutorial is the same in every Unlock! series, so once you’ve played it, there’s not much benefit in revisiting it.

Space Cowboys also has a series of free, downloadable games – called Unlock! Demo Adventures –  available through their website, which you can find by clicking here. They range in length, although several are full 60 minute games. To play them, it’s best if you have access to a printer and several sheets of cardstock, as well as a scissors to cut out each individual card. Just for fun, we did try playing one game “fully digital,” with the help of Photoshop to lay out each of the cards on our virtual desktop – and while it did work, and we still were able to enjoy the Unlock! experience, we found this to be far more time consuming than just taking a few minutes and a few sheets of paper to print them out as intended.

At the end of the day, The Formula is not a bad game, but it’s also not nearly as inspired as the majority of other Unlock! titles are. If you’re in the mood to mix some test tubes and then use them to make a somewhat illogical connection to a numerical sequence, Dr. Hoffmann has just the middle-grade laboratory for you.

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

 

Show your support for Escape Authority and get social with us:

Like us on FacebookLike Us on Facebook

Venue Details

Venue:  Space Cowboys

Location: At Home Game

Number of Games: 29 (1 + 1 Tutorial game included in this box)

GAME SPECIFIC INFORMATION:

Duration: 60 minutes

Capacity: 1-6 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): $16.99 + shipping (Amazon.com) / or purchase the complete Unlock! Exotic Adventures box set for $26.99 (Amazon.com)

Next Post

Previous Post

© 2025 Escape Authority

Theme by Anders Norén