Review Escape from the Asylum: 10 hours of escape room

Your Escape from the Asylum will not be easy at all, here is the review of the most exciting escape room of the dV Giochi

Contents

Points in favor

Points against

One of the novelties of summer 2020, Escape from the Asylum is the most full-bodied table escape room among those in the dV Giochi catalog. The game is divided into two parts, each part consists of 5 stories and each of them lasts an hour, so you are faced with 10 hours of gameplay during which you will have to solve puzzles and make decisions to be able to implement yours. escape from the asylum. Each story has a different character to play, but the aim is always the same and that is to escape from North Oaks.

Components | Review Escape from the Asylum

When we take the game in hand we find ourselves in front of a sort of dust jacket that contains the two boxes of the game, one box has the components for part 1 of the story and the other box has the components for part 2. In the box of the Part 1 found:

1 main deck with 130 cards (there are black numbers on the back of the cards)
1 additional deck with 6 cards (there are red numbers on the back of the cards)
14 envelopes: they contain objects and the contents can only be viewed if we are told to do so
a floor plan
3 booklets: 2 with tips and one with solutions
3 double-sided timepiece cards
a list of components
regulation

In the box of the part 2 found:

1 main deck with 163 cards (black numbers on the back)
1 additional deck with 15 cards (red numbers on the back)
15 envelopes: these also contain objects and can only be opened if you are told to do so
a floor plan
3 booklets: 2 with tips and 1 with solutions
3 double-sided timepiece cards
a list of components

IMPORTANT! Do not mix the contents of the two boxes.

Setup | Review Escape from the Asylum

First of all, put away your cell phones and any other electronic devices and keep a pen and paper handy, they will be useful for taking notes. Then put the planimetry on the table, it must be clearly visible to all players. In the center of the table, place the main deck and the additional deck, the two decks should not be mixed and the front of the cards should not be looked at. Put on the table i booklets of tips and solutions to have them at hand. Finally, take one timepiece card and write the start time above.

How to play | Review Escape from the Asylum

In main deck there are cards that are numbered from 0001 to 0005 in the Part 1 and from 0006 to 0010 in part 2, these cards refer to the story you are about to play. If you are starting to play then you have to take the 0001 card for the first story and you have to read the instructions written on it, after doing so put the card in the discard pile which you can consult whenever you want. The stories must be played in order, only when you have completed all the adventures of part 1 can you move on to part 2. Now you have all the tools you need, but remember that the most important thing is that you cooperate well with each other and in that case escaping from the North Oaks Asylum will be a breeze. Have a good adventure!

Tests to face

Let’s see in the specific what you will face in the course of the game:

envelopes: Most of the rooms in the asylum correspond to envelopes that have the same number as the room. If you are instructed to open them then you must examine what is inside, then keep only the transportable items in front of you and put the others back in the bag. It may happen that some rooms are locked and to open them you have to solve a puzzle to find the 4-digit access code, in this case it may happen that you have to take the envelope and that you have the precise instruction not to open it, your task will be to examine the envelope on the front to see if it contains clues for solving the puzzle
puzzles: to solve them you need to find codes consisting of 4 digits, these correspond to a card in the main deck. To look for clues that help you discover the code you can consult the envelopes already opened previously, but you must be careful because some clues could be used to solve other puzzles. Once you have managed to find the code you have to take the corresponding card and read it

Remember that you have the tips booklets at your disposal tips and of solutions: these booklets are for you in case you need help solving a puzzle. You always have to start from the booklet tip 1, in case you still need it you can proceed with the booklet tip 2 and only as a last resort use the booklet solutions

Penalty

It may happen that during the game you receive penalties which then add up to your total playing time. Penalties can be given for:

tips and solutions: every time you use the tips or solution booklets you must tick a box on the timepiece card and if you decide to go directly to reading the solution you must in any case tick a box of both suggestions 1 and suggestions 2. Each tip 1 it costs you 1 minute, each tip 2 it costs you 2 minutes and each solution costs you 3 minutes, these penalties must be added to your total playing time
mistakes: you also receive a penalty if you find a code that does not correspond to any of the cards or if you have taken a card that has a different symbol from that of the story you are playing, because these two cases are equivalent to errors and each error costs 1 minute

Choices

During the game you will also have to face choices, some simple and others that could be decisive, so you must face each choice in a serious way. If you fail the mission, you can always retrace your steps and try again to make the right choice.

End of the game | Review Escape from the Asylum

When you get to the card that says “Finish” or “Continue”, it means that you have completed the story. At this point you have to write down the time in which you finished the story and subtract it from the beginning. For to calculate the final score you must add the number of minutes corresponding to your penalties to the time obtained previously:

tip 1: 1 minute for each ticked box
tip 2: 2 minutes for each ticked box
solution: 3 minutes for each checked box
error: 1 minute for each ticked box

If you are under 60 minutes you are very good! If you go over 60 minutes, you did it anyway but you can always improve in the stories that follow. When you have completed the story, place the cards from the discard pile into a clear bag and return it to the box. The cards from the main deck and those from the additional deck that you have not used, place them in two separate bags. Instead, the transportable components should not be put back in their bags but should be placed inside the box. At this point, if you still lack stories, continue your adventure and if you have reached the end of all 10 stories, you can rearrange the game with all the components in their original place.

Conclusion

I start immediately by saying that I am not a lover of boxed escape rooms because the idea of not being able to replay a game hurts me a little, as a rule I prefer to have a game to exploit several times. Escape from the Asylum, however, managed to make me appreciate this genre of games because, unlike other escape rooms, it has a much longer duration and allows you to use the game for more evenings, then the theme is really beautiful and this made me want to more to get closer to this genre. Another thing that I really liked is the intertwining of stories and events. It goes without saying that I recommend playing this title with the maximum number of players, the solitaire mode does not allow you to make the most of it.