This week, we deviate from the classic escapes (but not too much) by focusing on escape game books (which we will call Escape Books). A rather recent concept that has seduced us.
A portable escape game
First of all, what is an escape book? As its name suggests, it is a book whose goal is to recreate the experience of the escape game through a different medium.
The basic pitch seems similar to the "Book of which you are the hero" (where you move from page to page following the instructions of the book), however this one is more developed. As in a real escape, you have 60 minutes to complete your adventure, with or without the help of clues. Initially intended for one player for the most part, it is not impossible to participate in several to the resolution of the adventure.
Instead of following the directions to find out which page to go to, each puzzle refers you to an index containing the various probable solutions. This index allows greater flexibility in the range of possible answers, allowing authors to create extremely varied and diverse puzzles.
Less expensive than a classic escape, escape books can be used alone or with others, at home or in transport, in serious ways by counting time or simply for fun.
A co-production by escape professionals.
Two excellent escapes participated in the creation of these books (Epsilon Escape and Majestic Escape Game) but also Mélanie Vives and Melissa Faucher, two young women with each more than 300 escape games to their credit. The experience that the authors have accumulated within their respective escapes is felt from the first pages: the narration is captivating, the puzzles are varied and complex without being out of reach for beginners, the clues (which you can consult at your convenience) are always useful and appropriate.
In addition, each book is very well paced: we were able in each of the books to reach the last puzzle around 50 minutes of play (using an average of 3 clues per book), which corresponds more or less to our usual performances within escape games.
With 6 books currently available, with themes ranging from Blake and Mortimer and Lucky Luke to more classic scenarios such as "a demonic funfair", "a forgotten maze" or "a fantasy library", and 3 in production, all types of players will find a scenario to their liking.
The team and I tested A Night at the Library, The Labyrinth of the Forgotten and Prisoners of the Fairground.
Each book gave us a great time and we highly recommend escape fans to try their hand at this experience.
Try to win one of the 3 books that we were able to test by participating in the contest that will end on April 11th: to do this, simply fill out the following form.
Double your chances by liking the Justfocus Lifestyle, Majestic Escape Game and Epsilon Escape pages!
