Review: The Prism Escape Rooms - Mystery Manor

RATING: 1 Key RESULT: Win REMAINING: 17:38

This is one of those murder mystery cases we would have rather left unsolved.

Story

After hours of interrogation, none of the suspects seemed remorseful for Pearl Hamilton’s death. Interesting, but unhelpful. Your chief can only hold the suspects for one more hour without any evidence, so he sends out his best detectives to solve this case. When you get to the scene of the crime, there’s not a thing out of place. As you keep digging, you find there’s much more to this polymath than you thought…

The Prism Police Department needs the best detectives to help solve their case! Is that you?

In a not so stunning turn of events, there is yet another murder mystery abound. With very little information provided at all on this case, your team of Junior Detectives are sent in to investigate the crime scene.

All we know is there has been a murder and the team has only an hour to investigate the crime scene… because escape room. Track down the killer, collect evidence, and escape from the door you walked in from.

The Prism Escape Rooms provides us with little story to go off of, in preparation for what lies ahead…

Scenic

Though the title of the room implies this game takes place across a manor, it takes place in a single room. That is one single small office space with drop panel ceilings converted into a makeshift study or library of sorts. Larger groups may have issues with space, as there isn’t much of it to go around per person.

With a tight space, there isn’t a whole lot left in the scenic properties of this game. The centerpiece of the room is our murder mystery victim, a taped off outline of a body somewhat comical in nature. At least the body has been removed, but there seems to be no other signs of why or how the murder was committed.

Aside from the tape, there is a bookshelf filled with miscellaneous books, some of which are glued down and some which are not due to wear, along with many props that play no role in the game. The bookshelf serves many purposes, such as housing multiple things that are locked since there wouldn’t be anywhere else to place them.

It’s strange to see a haphazard collection of items in this eccentric persons home, as it just seems thrown together to fill out the room with random trinkets, because why not. As far as how these things tie in to the storyworld or make sense, we leave that up to the investigation team.

Puzzles

The end goal is to deduce the lead suspect from a list, and find the murder weapon. Kind of like Clue, but with many roadblocks thrown in the way. Up until the final few puzzles that actually do reveal the conclusion of the “story”, the other puzzles are there just because escape room.

It’s disappointing to see the lack of cohesion on the puzzles fitting the story. It’s a further let down to find a four digit combination, and have to spread out across multiple locks with the same number of digits to see which one works. This happens multiple times across several puzzles.

Speaking of frustrations, when a puzzle is looking up a page, then a line, then a word just to get the number eight, and to repeat it four more times, this is the kind of puzzle that is to be expected in Mystery Manor. How does this help us find the killer? If we are bored to death we may be added to the killers victims. Maybe the dictionary was the murder weapon after all.

This is a solidly Gen 1 room, with all puzzles relying on keys and/or combinations to pass. While there weren’t any logic leaps or flow issues, and the room does run on the easier side of the spectrum, it’s just filled with time consuming puzzles for puzzles sake.

Overall

If there were any tension building up over the course of this room, it may have been slightly interesting. But with a generic theme, and a vast majority of puzzles and props just being there to fill in the time and space, there’s much to be desired.

With a lack of surprises, the room is extremely straightforward, finishing with an anti-climactic ending of walking out the same door you arrived through. Even though evidence is found to who the killer is, there is not a solid conclusion or sense of satisfaction on solving the crime.