21 Nov Play Escape Room with Alexa
With Amazon's digital assistant, Alexa, you can enjoy many games these days, from board games to trivia, but some options promise deeper experiences. Now, the one that's generated the most intrigue is destined for replicate one of the activities The most popular recreational activity in recent years has been the Escape Room.
There is no doubt, these puzzle-solving games continue to gain ground in several cities in Spain. The reason? Well, you are locked in a real physical room, then you have an hour to find clues and escape. All this makes for a truly incredible experience for the participants.
And while there are web versions of the escape games, a free option called "Escape the Room" has now been launched, which attempts to replicate the experience on Alexa-enabled smart speakers such as Amazon Echo. We'd therefore like to flesh out the details of what it's like to play Escape Room with Alexa.
What is it like to play Escape Room with Alexa?
Some were very sceptical at first, believing that talking to a speaker could never come close to the experience of a real Escape Room game.
Certainly, you should be aware of the occasional frustration of the game in not understanding what you want to do, however, Escape the Room does a surprisingly good job of replicating the atmosphere and basic mechanics of real rooms.
All you need is a pencil and paper, along with a little patience and a big dose of imagination to have a great time playing Escape Room with Alexa.
A game without much of a story, but immersive
The Escape the Room for Alexa offers a variety of scenarios that you can play, from waking up trapped in an office or in a car. But, the first step is to activate the game by speaking into any Alexa speaker and saying "Alexa, open Escape the Room".
At that point, the game kicks into action and Alexa tells you what you can say to control the game. Alexa also warns you that the puzzles can be difficult and gives you a list of different scenarios to choose from. Choose the option you want, then Alexa will briefly describe the scene, tell you that you are trapped, and then instruct you to start taking steps to escape.
Apart from "you are trapped in an office or a car", there is not much of a story. Don't expect to find out who kidnapped you and why. The escape rooms In fact, they don't have much of a story either. Each scenario offers a bit of additional context, for example, you've been kidnapped by an assassin and need to find out where the villains are meeting, but basically you're always looking for codes, clues and riddles to get to the next clue.
Some key points of playing Escape Room with Alexa are:
- The actual answers have little to do with the story.
- The story is only there to help set the mood. In that sense, Escape the Room has scenarios that serve the same purpose.
Physical escape rooms traditionally involve some stakes in their story, for example, the reason you have exactly one hour to get out is because the killer is on his way to get you. Escape the Room doesn't have that. You're not even clear if you're limited to an hour, and there's nothing as startling as the ticking clock that's traditionally present in most real escape rooms.
The implementation
Understandably, it is more attractive to look around a physical room for clues. Some escape rooms are particularly good at hiding clues in one simple place.
If Escape the Room mentions something, you should probably inspect it. Instead of deciding what's important in a room with dozens of things to look at, you simply need to tell Alexa to inspect the 8-10 interactive objects and then figure out how they fit together.
In addition to the limitations of the platform, play Escape Room with Alexa also has some implementation problems. Some of the phrases you need to use are not intuitive and you need to be very careful with the language when you give a command. If, for example, Alexa reads a long track or goes through a series of objects, you can't just say "repeat it". You must examine the area again.
Is it possible to play as a team?
As you might expect with a smart speaker, playing Escape Room with Alexa with multiple people can be tricky. You'll want to make sure, for example, that the group is coordinated when it's time to give Alexa commands. If several people talk at the same time, Alexa will not understand and you will get nowhere.. In real escape rooms, having several groups working on different puzzles and looking in different places is an absolute necessity. Here it is a hindrance.
Escape the Room, therefore, does not capture all the cooperative magic of real escape rooms. You may fondly remember many difficult games where you had a few beers afterwards to recap your exploits, but playing Escape Room with Alexa is different. First of all, it's free and you can do it on your couch and you don't risk damaging any of the objects found in real escape rooms.
Finally, Escape the Room does a good job of replicating the nature of the experience, as long as you are willing to face it with your imagination and your patience.
Conclusions
While play Escape Room with Alexa does not offer the same experience as a game in a real room, it is an opportunity to have fun and even a way to train for an upcoming challenge in a physical escape room.
The fact is that Escape the Room represents a novelty in the sector and will surely continue to evolve over the years. So becoming familiar with this new format is an obligatory action for those who love escape games in any of their modalities.
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