Review: iPanic Escape Room - Monster Mayhem

RATING: 5 Keys RESULT: Win REMAINING: 11:20

Take control of classic monsters and unleash mayhem!

Story

With the help of Dr. Edward Filmor and his laboratory of oddities, you must work together to finish his monstrous experiments to bring life back into these entities! This is the last opportunity to bring all 4 of the monsters to life before the blood moon disappears and the chemicals keeping them preserved run out within the hour! If you manage to resurrect these monsters in time, you will have the power to cause chaos and wreck havoc as you bring Mayhem to the world. This sinister task won’t be an easy one, as it will take a villainous mindset to complete!

Mischief makers are summoned to Dr. Filmor’s lab and are tasked with helping him bring four monsters (The Creature from the Black Lagoon, Dracula, Frankenstein’s Monster and The Wolf man) back to life and use them to let chaos reign on Earth.

Under Dr. Filmor’s watchful eye, mayhem masters must find 4 discs needed to maintain full control of these monsters before the blood moon is gone. Though there are some jump scares, this is a wonderfully wacky adventure.

Scenic

From the get go, it’s obvious that iPanic really wanted to create a fantastic atmosphere. Every escape game at this facility even has it’s own thematic entrance-way. Entering the mad doctors laboratory, villains immediately see Dr. Filmore himself (who is a crazy and kooky animantronic) in one corner of the room, Frankenstein’s Monster laying on a slab ready to spring to life and a holding tank for The Creature from the Black Lagoon. The lab looks like it’s been in use nonstop with plenty of beakers, pipes, gauges and various pieces of equipment scattered throughout.

Later on, henchman find their way to Dracula’s lair. This creepy cave is littered with cobwebs, bats, and is also where The Wolf Man is held. In the back corner of the room lies a coffin. Just by the decor, it’s clear which monster is housed where and there’s plenty of little touches that really stand out.

Puzzles

Monster Mayhem is a fairly linear game filled with challenges and surprises that all directly play into the narrative. It has a pretty solid puzzle flow and for the most part completing a task will directly lead Dr. Filmore’s apprentices to what they need to do next. The majority of challenges were on the easier side but this game places fun center stage, so that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Each smaller puzzle builds up to a bigger picture (finding the discs needed to resurrect and control the monsters) and once the path relating to each monster is completed there’s almost always some type of a payoff.

A particular stand out was when chaos fanatics finish with The Creature from the Black Lagoon, you can see him splash around and attack the window complete with a water effect. Finding out the after affects of solving each puzzle is almost as much fun as solving the puzzles themselves. Some of the puzzles are common place in escape games but iPanic puts their own special twist on them. Dr. Filmor himself is heavily involved throughout and is even directly involved in one of the puzzles in a very unique way. For every puzzle that might end with a bit of a jump scare there’s two that will make you laugh out loud.

Overall

IPanic keeps coming up with different and exciting ideas for each new game. Previous games they’ve unveiled include Bigfoot the Legend Awaits (which is set inside an RV on a hydraulic system which allows “simulated Bigfoot attacks”) and Dragon Slayer (where players have to defeat a dragon and escape a castle that’s been engulfed in flames).

Monster Mayhem is iPanics next step in their evolution and is a blast to play. It’s not every day that you’re able to play the bad guy and have fun doing it. Ipanic has done a great job of using animantronics to actually further the immersion and it really adds to the overall enjoyment. They’ve done a great job of blending a potentially scary concept with just the right amount of humor to appease any horror fan but still makes sure it’s accessible to anybody who might not like things that go bump in the night.