RATING: 2 Keys RESULT: Loss REMAINING: X:XX
Merry Christmas, ya filthy animal!
Your parents left on vacation, but they forgot one thing…YOU! You are home alone and the neighborhood thieves are staking out your house. You don’t want to get your parents in trouble so you don’t call the police. You over hear the thieves of their grand plan to bust into the house in 1 hour. You have 60 minutes to find an alternate escape door and get out before they get in.
If this storyworld sounds familiar, that is likely because it is directly inspired by the children’s classic movie that spawned the game’s name, “Home Alone”. It is largely unclear, however, whether or not the game owns the intellectual property rights to use the movie’s content. This is also the case for the multitude of movie-inspired games listed on padLOCKED INc’s website. Although the movie clearly inspired the game’s online description, there is virtually no story integration. Once adventurers are set loose, there is no plot progression whatsoever, and it is very easy to forget what the game’s original goal was.
Our biggest qualm with the storyline in this game is that the game’s designers soiled a potentially excellent opportunity. Anyone who has ever seen Home Alone knows that the protagonist’s goal throughout the film is to booby trap his house so that if robbers entered, they would be quickly thwarted and their attempts at burglary would be foiled. This sounds like the plot of a really fun and unique escape game. Rather than running with this, game designers decided to simply have adventurers search for an exit door, which does not make any sense in conjunction with the beginning of the established storyworld.
The scenery in Home Alone is average at best. This game is supposed to take place inside of a residential household, so magnificently crafted set pieces are not a must for a good experience. That being said, it would have been nice to see more realistic furniture and home decor than what was present in this game.
One space in the game was particularly disappointing. The final room feels like a haphazardly assembled daycare facility, with many preschool toys placed throughout for no apparent reason, as they had no connection to the game or its storyworld. One of these random toys that played a particularly important role was a large Tickle-Me-Elmo doll.
Home Alone’s scenery thrives in creating compelling hidden reveals. At several points throughout the game, we found ourselves shocked to enter a space that we did not expect to exist, and never could have seen coming.
The puzzle design in Home Alone can be described in five words: locks, locks, and more locks! Solving almost every single puzzle in Home Alone resulted in a code which could be entered into a seemingly never ending stream of locks.
Although there are so many of them throughout the game, there is actually tremendous variety in the types of locks used. From numerical combination to letter to key, the different types of locks lent themselves well to a variety of puzzles. Having many different kinds of locks allowed Home Alone to avoid the common escape game pitfall of having an abundance of four digit codes and not knowing where to enter them.
Unfortunately, some of the locks appeared to be very old, and had suffered from pretty serious wear and tear. Two locks in particular, a directional lock and a high school locker lock, malfunctioned heavily during our game, and took several tries with the correct combination to open, burning valuable time.
Although there is nothing especially unique about the puzzles in Home Alone, we found that they were logical and intuitive. Never did we find ourselves truly stumped, having no idea where to go. Although padLOCKED INc described this as their easiest adventure, we found that there was a heck of a lot to do, and would strongly recommend taking on this game with a large group for the most satisfying experience.
On the whole, this game was the picture of mediocrity. Nothing in Home Alone was bad, but nothing was truly special either. That said, it has a very strong foundation, with a promising story, some interesting reveals, and logical puzzle design. With a minor change in the direction of the plot, a little sprucing up in the scenery department, and some more unique or tech-driven puzzles, this game could be really enjoyable.
It is important to note that on their website, padLOCKED INc describes Home Alone as one of their “standard rooms”, which cost $5 less per person than their “premium rooms”. While we did not get a chance to test out any of the games that they deem to be of higher quality, we found this strategy quite interesting. We left very curious as to what could lead the venue to rate some of their games better than others.
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Venue: PadLOCKED INc
Location: Ronkonkoma, New York
Number of Games: 5
GAME SPECIFIC INFORMATION:
Duration: 60 minutes
Capacity: 8 people
Group Type: Public / You may be paired with strangers.
Cost: $27 per person