OVERALL PRODUCT RATING: 3 Keys
Professor Noside is back! If only he came alone…
We’re starting with the OVERALL section, which typically closes out each of our reviews in order to provide the big picture information about this product. From there, we’ll bounce to one general SCENIC section for the entire product – as all four games have equal quality materials and graphics used. In place of the traditional STORY and PUZZLES sections, we will be replacing them with three mini-reviews – one for each included game.
Unlock! Mythic Adventures is Space Cowboy’s eighth commercial outing – packing not one but three different full length home games inside the box. As with each Unlock! offering, a playable Tutorial is included. It should be noted that the Tutorial is the same in every Unlock! series, so once you’ve played it, there’s not much benefit in revisiting it.
Earlier Unlock! releases could be purchased in one of two ways – individually per game, or as a package set housed in a single themed series box. Interestingly, we’ve found that in some instances, it has proven cheaper to purchase each single game one by one on Amazon. Unlock! has since moved to presenting all new sets as a three game pack, but if you’re just wanting a small taste, they do now sell Unlock! Short Adventures as individual 30 minute products.
Space Cowboys also has a series of free, downloadable games – called Unlock! Demo Adventures – available through their website, which you can find by clicking here. They range in length, although several are full 60 minute games. To play them, it’s best if you have access to a printer and several sheets of cardstock, as well as a scissors to cut out each individual card. Just for fun, we did try playing one game “fully digital,” with the help of Photoshop to lay out each of the cards on our virtual desktop – and while it did work, and we still were able to enjoy the Unlock! experience, we found this to be far more time consuming than just taking a few minutes and a few sheets of paper to print them out as intended.
Progressing through an Unlock! game will lead players to either a number or letter – and if correct, this will indicate the next card(s) to draw from the deck.
Each Unlock! game is run through a free app, available in the Apple iTunes and Google Play stores. Through it, you’ll not only manage time limits and receive hints, but also enter various codes and even solve some of the puzzles in tech-driven, digital setting.
The app allows games to be played either with or without penalties for incorrect answers. We prefer playing without penalties, as we feel it more truly mimics a physical escape game experience where you may try a code in a lock when you’re uncertain. Although the penalty free mode is activated (in the app’s Settings) by turning off the timer, rest assured you will still receive your escape time at the end. In fact, turning off the timer is the only way to receive an accurate escape time, as penalties add multiple minutes to your overall duration.
Although the Unlock! Mythic Adventures Box does indeed hold three unique stand alone games, we’ll be presenting them as one single review simply because they cannot be purchased separately. You’ll notice there is one “OVERALL PRODUCT RATING” above – which we’ve combined together to give an average score. Each individual game within the box will also get its own rating below.
As we’ve touched on previously, being a home game, we define “Scenic,” from a graphic design perspective, as well as the quality, weight and feel of print materials inside the box.
We mentioned that Space Cowboys goes the route of fully card-based escape home games. Each edition is produced to the highest levels of quality – with thick, glossy textures that have the feel of a upscale deck of playing cards. Unlock!’s decks, however, are larger than a traditional card – measuring in at nearly 4.5″ tall by 2.5″ wide.
Something we’ve always enjoyed about Space Cowboys is their use of multiple different artists for each Unlock! box set. What results is a distinctly different animation style, evoking unique moods that help bring each storyworld to life. No two decks within a set will ever feel the same, or even slightly similar, for that matter.
Each game’s respective page within the Unlock! app fully compliments the theme of its storyworld, with unique buttons, sound effects and background music scores to transport the adventure off the cards and bring its storyworld to life all around players.
In the clutches of hades
RATING: 2 Keys RESULT: Win REMAINING: 1:12
The city is in turmoil. Aricles, its beloved hero, has disappeared… The people organized a ceremony at the Great Temple to implore the gods for his safe return. In Aricles’ house, Alix, a young and talented slave prepares prestigious offerings in their honor. She secretly dreams of escaping her social status and to that end, what better way than to find her master? It’s set! She must run away from the workshop and listen to what the gods have to say…
It does seem interesting to tell a story of Greek heroes and gods without Hercules, though perhaps not as much so as setting the lead in the role of a slave. Alix could have been anything – an apprentice, a friend, a fan – but here we are. In the Clutches of Hades has a lot of problems, and that’s hardly the biggest of them, unfortunately.
Throughout Alix’s epic journey, there are several moments where the app, and even the cards themselves, are put to very creative use. There’s a good deal of outside the box thinking in this quest – some of it admittedly fourth wall-breaking. Just the same, it helps to make the adventure feel fresh and different.
But then there’s everything else. Since we’ve brought up fourth wall-breaking anyway, I’ll break away from the typical third-person storytelling style of an EA review to just tell you bluntly, there were no less than three different instances where I wrote “WTF” in my notes. And to be clear, those are just the times I abbreviated it. Simply put, the easy difficulty game in the box should never be this annoying.
Part of the problem with this game is a decoder card mechanic that often times just does not decipher the images in the way they were clearly intended to be. It creates needless frustration in moments that should actually be pretty cool. But that one problematic example is greatly outweighed by logic leaps and unitive steps that make In the Clutches of Hades truly feel like an eternity in the Underworld.
professor noside’s Animal-O-Matic
RATING: 5 Keys RESULT: Win REMAINING: 5:23
In a unique twist, Professor Noside’s Animal-O-Matic trades the traditional story card for an absolutely inspired preshow video to perfectly set the tone for the irreverent adventure that awaits:
Professor Noside games have become an iconic staple of the Unlock! brand, beloved for their humor, storytelling and all-out silliness. The titular evil(-ish) mad scientist always seems to be up to a new scheme, and the invention of his Animal-O-Matic ray gun is, without a doubt, his most memorable to date.
The commercial couldn’t have been more clear – use the left trigger; not the right! Well, Noside is a certifiable genius in all areas – except one. He never did learn his left from his right – and now, a chaotic hour of hilarity is the result. Using the gun has drained the atomic battery, and getting it back won’t be easy with his mind trapped in the body of Liederkanz, his cat. Sure, that cat’s got claws, but this recovery mission is going to take the skillsets of the entire animal kingdom combined. Hopefully the gun has enough juice left in it, because there are a lot of different animals to swap brains with!
Every creature big or small has its own unique ability, and all will be needed – in a very specific order, of course – to return Noside’s brain to his own body. Every puzzle along the way is some of the most, delightfully nonsensical actions perhaps ever to be found in an escape game, including several genuine ‘wow’ moments using the game’s app in ways that are so organically story-driven that they produce instant, fully charged ear-to-ear smiles. It’s not always this easy to make an At Home game be so engaging, fun and clever, but Professor Noside absolutely gets it left!
….or was that right? It’s so hard to keep track!
Around The World in 80 Minutes
RATING: 1 Key RESULT: Win REMAINING: 14:07
It had been twenty-five days since you started your amazing 80-day around the world adventure as Phileas Fogg and Jean Passepartout… You are chased through the Indiana jungle when suddenly, Passepartout stumbles and bangs his head. His vision blurs…
Fogg and Passepartout enter into a bet with two other men amid a card game to see who can travel around the world in eighty days. A hefty cash prize will be awarded to the winner. It’s the perfect set up for an out of the box Unlock! adventure.
Or it would be, if Around the World in 80 Minutes wasn’t so impossibly convoluted. Beginning with some iffy logic centered around what percentage of a banana is its peel, this adventure quickly slips and falls from one side of the globe to the other. Nonsense is the name of the game, with steps that, even after taking a hint, will likely result in questioning how that can be the intent.
One of the highlights of Unlock! Games is often the clever integration of the app, turning the tablet or smartphone running it into a physical tool to interact with the puzzles. In this chapter, however, all the app seems to turn into is a headache. There were so many moments of frustration that by the end, it was difficult to even want to participate in the finale puzzle. You could say when it comes to our motivation, that ship has sailed.
We made it around the world, just in time for one last illogical slap in the face, allowing Fogg and Passepartout to win, apparently. Somehow. Next time we’ll just stay home.
Unlock! has become the one home series that we find ourselves constantly checking online in hopes of finding a new release – and the moment one is available, we order ours immediately. The Unlock! series has consistently proven to be a breath of fresh air in the home game setting – providing experiences that are always clever, fun, story driven and set in a wide variety of unique themes – with the one consistent constant being their ability to inspire the feeling of playing a genuine escape game without ever leaving the comfort of our own home.
In their eighth commercial release, Space Cowboys tests our patience more than our wit. It’s tricky discussing the overall product when it comes to Unlock! Mythic Adventures; two of its adventures frustrated us to the extreme, but the third, Professor Noside’s Animal-O-Matic ranks among the most creative and fun products in their entire library. It’s times like these we really wish Unlock! still offered the option of purchasing games individually.
At the end of the day, Professor Noside’s Animal-O-Matic is an absolute delight, and among the very best Unlock! has to offer – the truest form of compliment for a brand that, despite suffering a bit of a miss with this Mythic Adventures set over all, remains one of the very best when it comes to At Home escape games. Given a good sale price, this one is worth it for it’s one shining star attraction.
*Montu, Escape Authority’s VP, Dog Business™ and lead home game correspondent endorses the opinions found within this review.
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Venue: Space Cowboys
Location: At Home Game
Number of Games: 50+ (3 + 1 Tutorial game included in this box)
GAME SPECIFIC INFORMATION:
Duration: 60 minutes
Capacity: 1-6 people
Group Type: Private / You will not be paired with strangers (but if you are, call 911 immediately to report a home invasion.)
Cost (at Publish Time): $22.99 (Amazon.com)
