Escape rooms, are a fun challenge for a group of friends or strangers to be locked inside a location for a certain amount of time and have to work together to solve clues to puzzles to escape. But what if you can’t go out to one? OR you rather play with friends, or want to go solo without the stress? Play Together Studio and Nejcraft were awesome enough to let me experience my own escape room experience with Mad Experiments: Escape Room 1 and 2!
The story for both games revolves around the secrets of the experiments of Doctor Cheshire and his assistant Hildegarde where you and your friends (if you play with them) can find clues to what happened as you’re locked away within Cheshire’s mansion.
Now, onto the game itself. Controls for both games are simple due to being minimal but hitting the pause menu will help remind you if you need it.
The art of both games is great, and the cozy vibes of some of the levels offer an interesting warmth in the otherwise mysterious atmosphere. To help add to it, I love the soundtrack, for being simple it’s pleasant on the ears as you go around exploring.
When it comes to the gameplay, in both games it’s straightforward, you explore the room you’re in and look for clues to help you solve puzzles, you can even pause the game and use an aide for hints (even the solution to the puzzle itself). You can either play the game timed or relax mode (no timer), which is a nice option. Now when it comes to the puzzles, some make sense and can be figured out but in Mad Experiments: Escape Room 2 I encountered puzzles that made no sense, and when I looked up and got the solution I thought “How the hell was I supposed to figure that out?!”
Overall, I enjoyed the first Mad Experiments: Escape Room over the second as the puzzles in the second one were more frustrating but both had good art, sound, music, controls, and an interesting vibe to settle into by yourself or with friends. On my scale of 1-10 the games combined are an 8.4 but individually the first is an 8 while the second is a 5.
Mad Experiments: Escape Room is out now on PC, PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch
