RATING: 2 Keys          RESULT: Win          REMAINING: 3:24

We meet once again at an Egyptian tomb.  Only this time it’s different… it’s a pyramid inside of a portal!

You are a world traveler and one day you find yourself amidst a crowded marketplace in Cairo. There you meet an older gentleman who tells you the story of the long-lost treasure – The Ankh of The Gods. Once every hundred years, a mysterious inter-dimensional portal opens up in the Sahara desert and an ancient pyramid rises from the sands. Built to protect and ensure its owner’s eternal peace the pyramid hides the clues that will lead you to the key of life. Do you dare disturb the Gods’ peace and take what was once their source of power?

We start out journey in an Egyptian marketplace looking for the key to open the mysterious portal.  Once opened, we can finally enter the tomb and steal The Ankh of The Gods.  Be sure to watch out for the traps … or lack thereof …  that the Gods have placed to seal your fate.

Gods of Egypt does little to immerse us in the marketplace of Cairo nor the hidden tomb in the Sahara.  It is sparsely decorated with a few Egyptian-esque activities.  We were ready to quickly make our escape … not because we angered the Gods … but more because the Gods angered us, with little excitement from start to finish.

Gods of Egypt begins in a Cairo marketplace.  However, it can only be described as a square office with Egyptian decorations.  The walls are painted in a yellow sand color.  A poster of sand dunes is hung on one wall, and several of the other walls have Arabic tunics pinned to them.

There is a canopy made from Arabian-style sheets, and inside the canopy there is a hookah pipe, a laminated map, and a few other items commonly associated with Egypt.  There is even sand … inside a plexiglass container. 

The entrance to the tomb is represented by a pyramid painted on the wall with a standard office door leading into it … this doesn’t look like the portal I envisioned.  The camel statue is the best looking prop in the room.  Unfortunately, we didn’t get to interact with it in any way.

Once inside the tomb, the scenic is better, but it doesn’t improve enough to give us the wow factor that we seek.  We are met by a sarcophagus and a couple pharaoh statues.  Instead of creating impressive stone work like we have seen in other tombs, the walls were simply covered with hieroglyphic wallpaper.

Gods of Egypt fares no better with its puzzles.  In one instance, we were so confused by a task that the game master had to walk into the room, breaking immersion, to explain it to us.  And even after she explained it, we still did not understand how the solution was correct.

We have seen smelling puzzles executed well, but the one in the marketplace was not one of them.  While the scents that Escape Pro chose to use were all in-theme, they could only be differentiated by Gordon Ramsay himself… coming dangerously close to being outside knowledge.

The marketplace also contained a more physical puzzle we had to “hack” in a way the designers obviously didn’t intend because it was seemingly impossible to otherwise achieve.

Once inside the tomb, there were a few counting and hieroglyphic deciphering puzzles – with a black light, of course.  Just like the marketplace, there weren’t any memorable moments inside the tomb, either.

Gods of Egypt is supposed to start in an Egyptian marketplace and take us to a hidden pyramid through a mysterious portal.  The story is just a slight twist on ones we have heard before.  However, in this case, a generic story also comes with a generic set and lackluster puzzles.  The marketplace looked like an office with Egyptian decorations instead of transforming the space into a believable destination.  I would have liked to take the camel statue home with me, though!

Escape Pro put more effort into the decor in the tomb than they did the marketplace, however, using wallpaper instead of textured stone or scenic painting will certainly never give us the level of immersion we look for in tombs.  Unlike in the first half, we did not have any frustrations with the puzzles in the second part of the game.  Just the same, none of the activities in the latter half really impressed us, either.  This is one tomb that perhaps should remain sealed… forever.

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Venue: Escape Pro

Location: Bedford, Texas

Number of Games: 6

GAME SPECIFIC INFORMATION:

Duration: 60 minutes

Capacity: 8 people

Group Type: Public / You may be paired with strangers.

Cost: $28 per person