Online escape rooms for birthday fun

March 30, 2021 7:46 AM

I'm looking for a fun online escape room for a birthday activity. There would be five people playing (two households playing from different locations). Or, we could invite two more households if that makes it better. Subject-wise, ideally something that works well in the online format and isn't too creepy (no serial killers, escaped madmen, haunted hospitals, etc.). This is for a family birthday party, so age and tech experience is a range of 12 to 70-something.

I'd also like to hear a description of how you set it up to play it well, in terms of who is on what device and whether you've also got a video call going in order to make it communicative and fun.

posted by xo to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (4 answers total)

We played this one where there was an actual person with a camera in the escape room. Each of our six players were on a Zoom call of their own in their homes, and we also had a screen open to a web app to show inventory and close ups of things. I used two monitors, but it would also be OK with two devices per home.

I did this with a work group. It was fun and we're thinking about doing one with friends.

No murder, ghosts, killing, etc. Just looking for treasure and trying to get there before others.
posted by advicepig at 8:39 AM on March 30, 2021

My 14 year old son and I did the first one of The Escape Game Unlocked series and loved it. We played with friends remotely by uploading the clue files to a shared Google drive and then worked through the game via a Zoom call while sharing our screen.
posted by mezzanayne at 8:46 AM on March 30, 2021

We recently played The Truth About Edith, which requires four "players" exactly to work, but two (or more) people can share a connection. Rather than directing an avatar around, it combines poking around to solve puzzles online and some live interaction with an actor via phone. We enjoyed it.

As with a number of these games, half the difficulty is communicating clearly with each other about what you're seeing on the screen. We had a Zoom call set up on separate devices (phones and iPads). Note that the first person who logs in becomes a sort of relay for certain messages to the team (though it's just getting emails and similar), so if there's someone less technically adept, you might not want that person in that role.
posted by praemunire at 11:14 AM on March 30, 2021 [1 favorite]

Alone Together is free to play: You have two different interfaces, and people looking at one should not be looking at the other, so it should work with your two households. You verbally describe what's on your interface to the other group so that you can eventually unlock everything. If you like this, they have another game called Together Apart but need $5 minimum to play it.
posted by Seboshin at 1:57 PM on March 30, 2021 [1 favorite]