Crime of the Century - Clue Crypted Review (UK)

 

Hi everyone

Back in April 2020, my family tried our first overseas-based escape room over the internet.  At that stage, we had been in lock down for over a month and I for one was certainly jonesing for an escape room fix...

I had heard good things online about a virtual escape room outfit in the UK called ClueCrypted.  They are based in New Milton in England. 

We were a team that consistent of my wife and I, my mother in law and my 2 daughters.  This was our 142nd room to date. The summary of The Crime of the Century is as follows (taken from their website):

It has long been a family secret that your late ancestor was suspected of being involved in the crime of the century. All you know is that he led a very secretive life, rarely speaking of his past. Will his old trunk help reveal the mystery of his early life?

This room is not set in a real world escape room (like many other online rooms).  Instead, the experience resolves around a box that you first need to open and then players need to solve various puzzles contained in the box.  

Our game master Gemma was very good at letting us figure out the puzzles by ourselves.  She acted as our avatar to manipulate puzzle pieces and to look at different props and puzzle pieces.  

There was a nice mix of puzzles in this experience, as well as some hunt and seek fun.  Whilst we all really enjoyed The Crime of the Century, it felt quite different to a true escape room experience.  This wasn't just because it was an online experience (as I have since tried many online escape rooms) - the experience was more of an "escape room in a box" style game, with a live game master who acted as our avatar.  It was a lot of fun, but be aware that it is not a full room (which is what my team was expecting going into the experience).

As with all virtual escape rooms, we soon learned that it is much slower than a real life escape room.  Usually my team divides and conquers escape rooms, but with one avatar all players looking at the same puzzle simultaneously, it is certainly much slower than a usual physical escape room experience.

As I said earlier, we certainly had fun and it scratched the itch (for a little while at least).

Where:                        Virtual room (online)

Virtual Room Type:    Live Experience

Duration:                    60 minutes

Themes:                     1 theme

No. of players:           1 to 6 players

Cost:                           30 UK pounds (around $55AUD)

Overall Summary:      A simple but fun online room based around a box

More details:              https://www.cluecrypted.co.uk/