I used to have such a passion for these things. I kind of want to pick them up again, but then I did have kind of a problem with knowing when to stop :v MOSTLY THOUGH I read this thread to see if anyone mentioned the -Escape- series, and no one did, so please play and/or discuss the -Escape- series by Godlimations It's MST3K-type terrible/good. The voice acting is awful and I love it.
Oh man, room escape games! I don't have any specific recs, but Jayisgames.com has Room Escape Wednesdays iirc which is always fun. Also thanks to this thread I just found out that Don't Escape has a threequel so off I go to play that. Actually I lied, I do have a rec: if you've got some extra cash, Nine Persons Nine Hours Nine Doors and its sequel Virtue's Last Reward are combo room escape/visual novels that are really good IMO. Fair warning that they're horrorish, especially the first which gets really gory at times. VLR is a bit tamer, but it's also only on 3DS/PSVita, whereas 999 has a mobile release. #i will be a 999 shill till the day I die
Hotel Dusk Room 215 on the Nintendo DS was a blast as well, part visual novel part object hunt. Good pacing and kept my interest through to the end. I'd forgotten it till you mentioned the 999 name and it pinged about doors and buildings!
Neutral's games Tesshi-e's games (the site's in Japanese but the games themselves have an English option) Mateuz Skutnik's games (Submachine, Daymare Town, etc) These all tend to be time-eaters; tricky puzzles and lots of them.
Necroing the thread because Mateuz Skutnik just released Submachine 10: The Exit and I just lost like five hours. This thing is a monster. I didn't even find all the secrets, which of course means that I need to play it again.
Skutnik Skutnik Skutnik!!! oh my LORD I love his stuff. So good. All of Submachine. Fog Fall (hrrrrrrrrrrng post-apocalyptic). Covert Front. Daymare Town. The Great Escape. augh Waaaaaaay back when I was a wee one (prolly >10 years ago now) I got into the genre with the grandfather of all room escape games, MOTAS. It's slowly been updated over the years, and is quite logical and straightforward. Charming art style and music, story is amusing but also a bit dark. Always worth replaying, in my opinion. I also echo the rec for scriptwelder's games, they're interesting and a nice inversion on the genre. His Deep Sleep series is in a similar style, but less room escapey. Very interesting though. hmmmmm what else. i used to play these all the frickin' time when i only had a little laptop that couldn't handle any more than Flash games XD The Viridian Room series was good, if a bit pixel-hunty. I think someone has mentioned neutral's games? They're good. The Trapped series is pretty good. Gotmail's games are also good - there's an amusing one where you're locked in a hair salon... Also Fongeboon's games and Placeoflight and GUMP can't remember if I ever played JFeltham's games but they look good and my favourite point-and-click adventures of all time are Jonas Kyratzes' games. They're less room-escape games, but The Strange and Somewhat Sinister Tale of the House at Desert Bridge is probably one of the best games I've ever played. Also The Infinite Ocean, which is a game you play when you want to ponder existence. (I have bought his 'new' game, The Talos Principle, and desperately want time to play it properly.)
Reviving this thread to let people know that if they like Neutral and Skutnik-style massive, interlocking puzzle type escape games, Kotorinosu is also good.
abt wheelchair accessibility in escape rooms: I've played two (one in London one in Vienna; one breaking into a museum to steal a vase, one escaping from a dragons cave. The dragon was best) and they both required all us to crawl through a tunnel, so neither of them would be... but they also advertised themselves as room combining brain puzzles with physical stuff (the museum heist had us dodging lasers!), which is part of why we picked them, and at least for the museum one I'm certain they would've just let us start in the Main Room if we'd asked. I feel like most rooms would probably have SOME elements requiring a certain degree of mobility, so it'd get difficult with a group in which NOBODY could do those, but in general... pretty sure it should be fine if you just discuss it with the people there beforehand? They give you a walkie talkie thing to talk to someone who works there while you play, and I'm sure they would help out if needed. so basically the average room isn't DESIGNED for accommodation, but the staff is generally pretty accommodating and perfectly willing to make changes to give you a better playing experience. If you want to give it a shot, I'm sure you could find a room that's compatible with your needs. ((i want to do another escape room so badly... the dragon cave was the biggest adrenaline rush ive had in my LIFE. we got to START the room handcuffed and blindfolded, making the first task finding the gd keys and uncuffing ourselves :'D eventually got out with literally 30 seconds to spare! best room. loved it.))
i would like to officially thank this thread for telling me about the submachine series I just got done with the 8th one (tho I have not been looking for secrets except in the one where all the secrets where tiny blue balls cause then i found so many while looking for other stuff that i just had to get them all) and they are SO GOOD SO satisfying to solve the puzzles (even if I occasionally have to resort to trial and error hahaha) i wanna keep going and play the last ones but it's past midnight so i probably should not :'D
I'm a cashier for an escape room, it's a lot of fun according to the guests (tho I've never played myself, so i cant give away spoilers). It's completely homemade bc the owner is a dink who wants things built for little to none budget, and the theme is a mad scientist trying to kill a group by testing "neurotoxin" and you have to solve puzzles to escape. No one's won it yet, and it has a difficulty level of 4 out of 5.
Putting this here because I'd forgotten the name forever and it bothered me on and off for like two years: Haretoki Pretty good flash escape games, a little tricky, a little absurd (but not nonsensical). The website is entirely Japanese but the games are textless so as long as you can find the games you'll be all right.
and then kite went and became an irl escape game gamemaster accessibility is notoriously bad -- the one i work in is in an old gdr bunker. stairs and no elevator all the way down. (our vr games are in the building above, but even there is a parterre you have to climb. generally if you just can't stand for a prolonged period we offer an additional chair, and in one of the missions you have to crawl you can circumvent via outside the mission, but that's the extent of it.) on the virtual side, ive come to be a fan of http://www.rustylake.com/, theyre a tad bloody and quite spooky. excellent ambience. and the dev team respond to bug reports super fast.
