Escape room the game – Nuclear Countdown

The third of the Escape room the games that we played (actually on New Years Eve! I got a little behind on writing the reviews for the games we’ve played this year!) The game is self rated as a 3 out of 5 difficulty. As with Prison Break and Virus the game is in three parts, you complete a part fully to move on. You use the same set of keys in the chronology decoder for all the games.

The beeping of the fax machine catches you off guard. You didn’t even know it was plugged in. Who still uses a fax anyway? Intrigued by the old-fashioned beeping you walk to the fax machine. The fax is a bomb threat, not the first you’ve seen and probably not the last. It says a bomb will go off tonight somewhere downtown. No ransom, no demands, no reason, just this single piece of information.

If you had a penny for every bomb threat that came into the office since you’ve been working at the agency you’d be rich. Mostly drunk teens on a dare or a confused man that needs a little attention. It was always easy to separate a real threat from just a prank or desperate cry for help. This threat definitely had all the characteristics for the “do not take serious” pile, otherwise known as the garbage can.

Thirty minutes later you’re distracted once again by the sound of the fax machine and it’s the same message, plain and simple. You get a very bad feeling and decide to take the threat seriously. You call your boss for permission to put a team together. Don Rubin, a 58-year-old veteran, is not amused; he reminds you of your silly goose chase during your first week and says he really thought he’d taught you better. You think back to that first bomb threat when you panicked and warned the whole agency that the world was coming to an end. It was a rookie mistake.

But somehow this felt different and every bone in your body was telling you this was no false alarm. You decide to lie and tell some of your colleagues that you have permission to react on a threat and you form a team. The fax was easy to trace, it was from a small apartment on the wrong side of town. Raelcun Street 37-05. You and your team head out and 23 minutes later you knock on the door of one William Teller. No answer. The lock on the door is as worn down as the building you’re standing in and within seconds you’re in the apartment.

You see a table that is filled with all kinds of materials that send shivers down your spine. You also see a flickering red light in the corner, it’s the fax machine. You’re certain now this is no joke, it’s the real thing. Only you and your team can stop a disaster from happening. You and your team start searching the place immediately for clues.

At that moment Don Rubin calls you back and says a man named William Teller has been arrested at the Riverview restaurant. He was making a big scene, saying he wanted a window seat to watch the explosion at 8:00 pm sharp. You look at your watch and realize that’s in exactly one hour . . .

We really enjoyed this game, it was harder than the other two games in the pack, and generally I would put it middle of the road difficulty wise. I really enjoyed some of the puzzles in the game with some puzzle types I’ve not seen so often in escape games. Even after playing numerous escape rooms and games, there were still some things we didn’t catch onto. Pay close attention to the information in front of you. At some points in the game you may need to think wider than the game material to solve some puzzles. The escape room the games do punish you for using a trial and error method, if you input an incorrect code in to the chrono decoder you lose a minute from the time left, go through everything thoroughly and don’t try and skip steps!

Having played all three of the games we for in our box, we’ve since gone and bought our first expansion pack which we look forward to playing soon. One thing I like about escape room the game is that any perishable materials can be downloaded and printed from their website. We’ve lent the first three games out to friends for them to play (especially during lockdown when we can’t all go and play physical rooms together) so being able to download the content you need to destroy is great!

I really enjoyed Nuclear Countdown, I think it was my favourite of the three games in the pack. We did end up taking 2 hints and ‘escaped’ with 11:00 left on the clock, I think we made a few mistakes so lost a few minutes through that. It’s a game I think everyone who enjoys escape games would enjoy.

Overall 3.5/5

Difficulty 3/5

Atmosphere 2/5

Variety 3.5/5