Escape Room Review: Cosmic Crisis blasts off to great heights
To celebrate the opening of their all-new escape room, Cosmic Crisis, The Escape Game invited “Attractions Magazine” to Nashville to check it out and give our thoughts. Does Cosmic Crisis rocket to infinity and beyond or is it left in the proverbial space dust? Read on to find out more and see our unbiased review. Having played several of The Escape Game’s rooms locally, we had high expectations for this new experience.
In Cosmic Crisis, players take the role of space engineers tasked with stopping the growth of nearby black hole before it gets out of control and destroys the solar system. The only solution is to set up a nearby space station containing anti-matter to destroy the black hole (and everything around it) in, oh say, exactly 60 minutes. So, yeah, stakes are high.
The premise and general concept is familiar (terrible consequences if you don’t finish your mission in 60 minutes while in space!) but the specific situation led to a very unique twist on the typical game-play. In order to get the space station to destroy the black hole, you actually have to sabotage it in several different ways. In a genre full of trying to repair systems and correct courses, it was a ton of fun finding ways to instead break each and every component of the station.
There was an AI helper (more on them later), but ultimately the way we figured out next steps was by monitoring the status of each system from a display, and looking for ways to break it by specifically ignoring warning signs (if it said “Do Not Block Exhaust Holes” you better believe we looked for a way to block those exhaust holes). I was worried that the space theme meant this would be just another version of The Escape Game’s Mission to Mars, but the unique goals led to a refreshingly new experience.
Aesthetically, Cosmic Crisis is out of this world (not apologizing for the pun)! As a brand new experience, a certain amount of polish and shine is to be expected, but the room was particularly well appointed, clean, and felt sturdy enough to stand up to the rigors of constant guest interaction. The overall feel was of a sleek and retro future space station reminiscent of Space Mountain, Epcot, and Star Trek. The stylized feel made sure that the “science” of the room never got in the way of the fun.
I was particularly impressed by the animations present though out the experience. They were well rendered and high quality. Having experienced low-effort animations in other escape rooms, the extra quality really enhanced the entire room. Another fun aspect was the “AI” helper, Hermes, that guided us through the game. They felt a bit like a Siri style assistant with a fun stylized video screen and funny dialogue through an AI voice modulation. Any hints or clues we might have needed would come from Hermes and my suspicion is the words were all programmed in so the game masters could have Hermes say just about whatever they wanted. We did wish there were additional monitors that would have let us see Hermes more often, but that is a small quibble overall and speaks to how much we enjoyed the little AI.
Game-play and puzzles in Cosmic Crisis, as previously stated, were fun and unique, and offered many twists on classic puzzles. Without spoiling too much, the challenges involved having to keep doing the opposite of what you would consider normal in a typical escape room. In any other space “crisis” game, everything would be malfunctioning and you would be putting it all in working order. Instead, here we walked into a perfectly functional space station and slowly ruined it. The mischievousness of the whole experience was so much fun and the whoops of glee as we destroyed another component (followed by flashing red lights and alarms) was a real joy.
Fivestone Studios Teaser: The Escape Game's Cosmic Crisis from Fivestone Studios on Vimeo.
One particular puzzle (no spoilers) had us all looking back and forth between each other assuming we couldn’t possibly be supposed to do what we thought we were supposed to do. When no one tried to stop us and we finally went for it, our delight and shock that it was correct was palpable. All game-play elements worked as intended and at no point did we have to question if we did something wrong or if the puzzle just didn’t work. We did have one situation where we accidentally made a puzzle unsolvable by pushing some necessary pieces outside of the play area. This issue feels entirely solvable by adding some bumpers or similar and was noted by some of the game’s creators, so hopefully it can be easily resolved.
Ultimately, Cosmic Crisis was a refreshing surprise with unique twists and fun game-play. Our highly experienced team of five managed to escape in about 35 minutes. While that seems fast (and it was, thank you very much, we’re awesome) it didn’t feel short at all. The game moved briskly and didn’t contain the long slogging puzzles that can artificially lengthen some experiences.
The Escape Game is a popular chain with nearly 40 locations, but hasn’t felt like that in any of their locations we’ve visited so far. The games feel professional and designed and built with the care of many mom and pop places. The game masters are all excited and passionate and their love for the games and joy in their jobs shines through in the experiences they create daily. Cosmic Crisis is stellar game and one that all players should add to their list.
Currently Cosmic Crisis is only available at The Escape Game: Opry Mills in Nashville, but we’ve been told plans are in the works to open Cosmic Crisis at many more Escape Game locations soon. For more information or to book your tickets, visit TheEscapeGame.com.
We like to use the Morty app (Morty.app) to track and rate all of our escape room experiences. You can find our reviews featured in the editorial section of any room we’ve done. And of course you can follow us on Morty at @Attractions!
Behind the Scenes of The Escape Game's Cosmic Crisis from Fivestone Studios on Vimeo.
