RATING: 2 Keys          RESULT: Win           REMAINING: 3:28

Heather? Heather?! HEATHER!!! Hmm, she’s not here…

The Hardin House Mystery is an audio-based escape game that is completely separate from the venue’s brick and mortar location offerings. Although audio-based, this game does utilize visual graphics, including room maps and puzzle pieces that evoke the sense of a physical escape room experience. To read our Pro-Tips on how to best enjoy this new Remote Play genre, click here.

The year is 1988. You are high-schoolers trying to find out what happened to a classmate who’s gone missing at Hardin House—you know, the house with all the locks and puzzles? The house where a famous archaeologist disappeared without a trace a few years back? The house where people see strange lights and hear odd noises?

What could go wrong!?! So grab your Members Only jacket, throw on some leg warmers and get Nancy Drew-ing!

Ah, the 80’s. A time of brightly colored jumpsuits, scrunchies, poor taste in interior design, and some totally rad music. Oh, and also when that creepy house down the street started acting up again.

This isn’t the first such instance of a mysterious disappearance linked to the Hardin House. There was the archaeologist that was never heard from again, and now it’s Heather. One day she is a cheerful high school student, the next she just vanishes into thin air.

Concerned friends team up to brave the mysterious home in an effort to locate just where Heather may have disappeared to. Along the way they’ll encounter plenty of 80’s pop culture leading them to a surprise ending that may leave them scratching their scrunchie covered heads.

The Hardin House Mystery is an audio based game that utilizes a series of images to depict the adventure.

Starting with the exterior of the home and moving from room to room as the puzzles are solved, the scenic is made up of mostly wide angle shots of various areas in the house. From there, there are a few close ups of puzzle items that show more detail when needed.

All of the images are actual photographs from a real house (or houses) that are distinctly 1980’s in style and decor. Dark wood paneled walls, well worn carpeting, upholstered furniture that screams “Grandma thought this looked hip when she bought it – she was wrong”, and a slew of iconic movie posters paint the scenes. Any investigator with nostalgia for all things retro will certainly enjoy seeing the Easter egg references sprinkled throughout the Hardin House.

Red Lantern Escape Rooms has developed The Hardin House Mystery to by presented on Prezi, a program we will touch on more in the Overall section. Doing so allows the scenic to have a bit more of an organic flow from room to room or when zooming in to get a closer look.

The puzzles that Heather’s classmates will encounter as they search her house are a mixed bag. Starting out front, they will find that the house is lock up tight. Once the group of friends makes their way inside they will be able to move from room to room by solving a series of puzzles that work to hide the homes mysteries.

While some of the challenges provide fun revelations, there are multiple points throughout the game that come across as clunky or slightly uninspired. A couple instances of what would be freely available information or items are only revealed after completing a multi-step puzzle track, resulting in a sense that this is more of a guided walkthrough than a true escape game.

There is one moment that comes dangerously close to requiring outside knowledge and unfortunately those are the puzzles that teams will most readily remember after the game.

Highlights of the game come in the form of creative observational puzzles and outside the box thinking needed to solve a particular step. The flow is mostly intuitive through the middle section of the game, but the front and back ends get snagged on a few problematic challenges.

Red Lantern Escape Rooms has created The Hardin House Mystery to be a remote play option experienced over Zoom. The host runs the game by sharing a Prezi to the group. Prezi is a platform that essentially allows for PowerPoint style presentations in a totally free form environment. This creative use of that tool gives an organic visual flow to pair with the audio game play.

The biggest benefit of audio escape games is that real world limitations no longer constrain what is possible. Unfortunately The Hardin House Mystery doesn’t fully take advantage of this as most of the game follows a rigid path where there is only one correct way to solve puzzles. While there are a few fun and satisfying moments during the hunt for Heather, the weaker sections made it understandable as to why she’d choose to leave this house for good.

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Venue:  Red Lantern Escape Rooms

Location: Remote online play at home, broadcast live from Brea, CA

Number of Remote Play Games: 1

GAME SPECIFIC INFORMATION:

Duration: 60 minutes

Capacity: 8 people

Group Type: Private / You will not be paired with strangers.

Cost: $60 for up to four people (+ $15 per each additional person)

We thank Red Lantern Escape Rooms for inviting us to play this game. Although complimentary access was generously provided, that in no way impacts the opinion included within this review.