RATING: 5 Keys RESULT: Win REMAINING: 10:39
We always find a way to make a computer program go haywire.
Your friend Jonathan Adams, a software engineer, disappeared after being accused of a massive digital attack on the government. Perhaps there are clues within his studio that you can use to clear his name? Oh, and be sure to be nice to Ada, his A.I. digital assistant…you wouldn’t want to get on her bad side.
Jonathan’s friends receive a phone call with concern for his safety. No one has seen him lately right after there was a large scale hacking attempt on the government. It just so happens his friends carry around a spare key to his place and can stop by to see what’s going on.
There’s only one small catch, Jonathan equipped his studio with a sentient AI named Ada. Things get a little tricky dealing with her. Upon entering the studio Ada turns on the intruder alarm and locks everyone in.
Further investigation shows that Ada has taken on a mind of her own, wanting to control more than just a simple home. Ada wants to infect networks across the world, taking overall digital items in the process.
Taking place across two rooms, Jonathan’s studio and his lab, The AI game keeps us highly immersed throughout the experience. From the moment we enter, something is amiss in the small living space. The lights are off, and all that is left on is Jonathan’s computer.
The studio is lined with standard ‘nerd decorations.’ From the bookshelves of comic books, to the Funko Pop! Figures, to boxes of toys stashed in the closet, Jonathan invested heavily in his hobbies. Looking around the room most of the items have some kind of reference back to a nostalgic video game or comic book hero.
The lab is what truly shows off the tech behind this room. Fully illuminated, large circuits run across the room providing us with a line directly in to Ada’s source code. Manipulating any of these objects causes the background lighting to change, and appropriate responses from Ada herself.
It looks like Ada was working on an robotic body to give herself a more humanoid form, as a full scale Terminator-esque robot is chained up to the table in the lab. Along with large server racks and many schematics, this space exhibits the programmers high tech lab.
With a room so heavily invested in the tech driving all of the puzzles, what really sticks out is the custom game created on the computer. Interacting with the in-room computer game reflects changes to the actual room itself. Your computer avatar can manipulate the virtual world to influence the real world.
The puzzle track follows a clear and logical path, with no hiccups along the way or puzzles for puzzles sake. Each puzzle has revolves around something malfunctioning with Ada. Repairing these problems or finding solutions changes the respective area’s lighting, providing a nice feedback loop for completed tasks.
With clear progression after every puzzle, this fast paced game has next to no rummaging whatsoever. All the puzzles present themselves as either in-game tasks on the computer, or interacting with the various modules and machines inside of the lab itself.
While the main game is on the easier side, enthusiasts have a specific hidden challenge available to them. Because what video game doesn’t have secret paths? The AI room has a hard mode puzzle track that can be enabled if the main track is completed within 45 minutes. If this mode is activated, Ada goes in to full virus mode and must be shut down, adding an additional challenge by revamping prior puzzles with more difficult steps.
Exit Game is a venue that has many high quality scenic rooms that fully immerse their players in to the storyworld, in this case a rogue AI gone haywire in a video game like setting. With the hard mode track this becomes an even better storyline as we have to shut down Ada while she is glitching out not just the programs, but the room itself. When we did visit the venue there were difficulties in obtaining hints, as a GM would have to walk in to the room and get caught up on what puzzle you were on. However this issue was being worked on with a better integrated hint system.
We were all wowed by the technical implementations and integrations of the puzzles in the room, and absolutely enjoyed the visual feedback on puzzle progression along the way. With the decorations being references to games we loved in the past, it was as much fun completing puzzles as it was just looking around the room.
Show your support for Escape Authority and get social with us:
Venue: Exit Game
Location: San Diego, CA
Number of Games: 4
GAME SPECIFIC INFORMATION:
Duration: 60 minutes
Capacity: 10 people
Group Type: Public / You may be paired with strangers.
Cost: $32 per person