Monday 25 January 2021

Ready Mayor One - Rock Avenue Escape Review (USA)


Hi everyone

Back in June 2020, my family tried our second overseas-based escape room over the internet.  I had heard good things online about a virtual escape room outfit in Florida called Rock Avenue Escape.  They were one of the very first escape room businesses to adapt to the new Covid world and offer rooms virtually.  And unlike the Clue Crypted room that we had tried, Ready Mayor One is a real life escape room (with a real life avatar) that has been adapted to online play.  

We were a team that consistent of my wife and I, my mother in law and my 2 daughters.  This was our 143rd room to date. The summary of Ready Mayor One is as follows (taken from their website):

Art mimics real life! Everyone in our small town of Davinport is nowhere to be seen, however, our fearless Mayor is still trying to solve the mystery of what happened to Dominic Fontana, but he can't do it himself!

We were lucky enough to have the real Mayor Rob as our game master.  He acted as our avatar to manipulate puzzle pieces and to look at different props and puzzle pieces.  He stayed in character the whole time and was obviously well-experienced in telling jokes and funny one liners throughout our play.  

Ready Mayor One was a lot of fun for all of us.  There was a really nice mix of puzzles in this experience, as well as some hunt and seek fun.  

One of the most impressive aspects of Ready Mayor One was that some puzzles allowed players to remotely manipulate puzzle elements, such that puzzle elements would move/change in the real world room in Florida.  This was truly awesome.

The theming of the room was pretty strong too.  They had replicated an apartment building's hallway area and an apartment.  The puzzles were all pretty straight forward - I would describe them all as being at the easier end of the spectrum.  Accordingly, the room is very family-friendly (and this of course is how the room has been marketed).  

As with all virtual escape rooms, we found that the experience was much slower than a real life escape room (where most teams would typically divide and conquer), given all players instead follow one avatar and are therefore working on the same puzzles one at a time.  

That being said, we had a lot of fun (particularly my daughters).  Having tried about another 20 online, real life escape rooms at the time of writing this review, I would consider Ready Mayor One as one of the better online virtual rooms on offer. It was also very reasonably priced at around $70AUD all up (for our team of 5 on one connection).

Where:                       Virtual room (online)

Virtual Room Type:   Live Avatar

Duration:                    60 minutes

Themes:                     3 themes

No. of players:           1 to 6 players

Cost:                           $54USD (around $70AUD)

Overall Summary:      A humorous and very family friendly hour of fun

More details:              https://rockaveescape.com/ready-mayor-one-1

 

No comments:

Post a Comment