Escape First 2

confusing puzzles

Every step is either too easy or too hard. The arrangement of information is lacking.

Loved the first one. Puzzles where we needed help had us going "oooo that makes sense".But in this one we were saying "how the fuck does that make sense"

Tons of red herrings or gotcha tactics for puzzles which make them near Impossible unless you can read the devs mind.

Not only that but a game breaking bug has been in the game since it was released and they haven't fixed it yet.

Escape First had its fair share of issues, and sadly the sequel is not an exception to that rule.

The controls in this game can be very frustrating, especially if you are trying to closely inspect objects for clues. The game would benefit massively from an inventory system so you don't risk dropping your clues and losing them amongst the other crap littering the area. It could also do with a better method of inspecting items in general.

The game suffers from an inability to signpost what clues and puzzles are associated with eachother. Boxes immediately next to clues turn out to be of no relation, and you basically find yourself trying codes at random until you find the right box and can continue. Sometimes, items just drop through the furniture (thankfully you can reset item locations in case this happens, but it does happen frequently).

Spoilers for the three cases below:
Clown 2:
This has maybe the most cases of poor signposting for what clues match which puzzles. I accidentally skipped an entire step, because the passcode for the first door was so obvious when looking at the options. The tickets and seats in the book are incredibly misleading and aggravating, as they contradict the actual instructions you are supposed to follow. Even then, there is no real indication what the actual start point is supposed to be when counting the arrows on the chairs, and nothing on the instructions indicates that you need the arrows on ALL the chairs in the path rather than the individually noted seats. One of the Tarot cards was invisible, and I only found it by chance when I noticed there was an outline in the box for it.

This level also has a ton of (really annoying) red herring clues. Why is there a note about the order the dolls are in? It has no bearing on the puzzle at all! Why have the tickets with the seats and rows, or the book with the seating plan? It contradicts the actual solution to the puzzle!

Escape Factory:
While better than the Clown level, this level expects some real leaps of logic from the player. You can associate the pipe the keys fall into with the Air Compressor easily enough, but nothing suggests that you would need to pour water into the pipe. The pipe itself doesn't even display as interactable, so I only found out that I needed to pour the bottles into the pipe by sheer chance. The room is so dark that I completely missed the bucket next to the pipe, which also needed to be filled with water. The equation puzzle is just bad. it is poorly explained, and (unless my smooth brain has finally given up on me) breaks the rules of equations in the first place! There is no indication that you should start on 1 and then work your way up either. When you have to place pipes into the wall for the Air Compressor, there is no rationality to how the corner pieces will place. Despite it being easy to just rotate the pipe 90 degrees and make it fit, you need to find the one specific spot the developers intended.

Perhaps the worst part of this room however, is the fact that if you interact with the Air Compressor at all before it is ready, it breaks and renders the level unfinishable. The developers even acknowledged this bug in 2019, and stated that they have pushed out a bugfix for it. 4+ years later, I can confirm that it is still broken.

Torture Chamber:
This one was definitely the best of the three. a lot of space to explore, some interesting puzzle ideas, and a very different vibe to pretty much all the other rooms they've made in the series so far. It still has its' issues, but they mostly are not unique to this level specifically.

This is the worst room for connecting the puzzle to the resulting action. There is no indication that the shield puzzle opens the Mirror room, and there is no indication that the Sword puzzle unlocks the final room. I found out that both were open by sheer chance. There is a chest where the 'puzzle' is picking up a key from a table a few metres away and using it. Why bother having it locked in the first place?

The tile puzzle in the final room could really do with having the unchangable tiles in a different colour, or marked so it's obvious that they cannot change so they can be used as a reference for the other tiles.

Ultimately, you could do worse if you're looking for an escape room game. However, you can also do a hell of a lot better.

If you enjoyed the first game it’s still an enjoyable co-op or solo puzzle game. *Doesn’t actually require a friend* Still a blast hunting for collectables and try some of the other game by the developer. Fairly easy to join friends in games.

I'm sorry to say, Escape First and Escape First 2 are one of the most frustrating escape room game I have ever played (Only played the circus scenario on this one). A load of things does not make any sense. I thought It would be decent as the free one and the Curious case and the newest Alchemist looks really promising from playing the demo, so I bought the bundle but it kinda sad to say that I kinda regret it. Me and my friend does not have a great time at all and this is my first ever negative review of a game.

[Added] After I've played the 2nd and 3rd scenario, it kinda make overall of the game decent enough to enjoy eventhough we encounter a bug on 2nd one where the air pressure thing cannot be interact and have to start from the beginning again (luckily it's short).

This game is bugged to hell and unplayable. There's a bug in the bathroom level that the DEVELOPERS ACKNOWLEDGED in 2019 that STILL ISN'T FIXED. I wasted literally 15 minutes thinking I was doing something wrong when in fact one of the final tasks had become impossible to complete because of this glitch. Waste of my time. Absolute trash. Shame on the people who made it for selling it in this state. Do not buy.

The first 2escape are useless.
The last one is good, but the bug in duo are frustrating (you pick up and item, your mate have it).

Game is broken and filled with bugs, the 2nd map isn't able to be completed due to an awful bug which was addressed in 2019 by the devs but it's 2021 almost 2022 and the bug is still present.

This game is good BUT there are a few issues. In the first game it was very clear when you got something wrong or right within the context of the puzzle you're solving. With the second game the puzzles are much harder which is a plus BUT there is never enough information for you to solve the puzzles without asking for multiple hints. This installment also has an issue with letting you know if you got the puzzle right or wrong because the indicator is so subtle that sometimes you get the correct answer for the puzzle but you may not know because there is no indication that you solved the puzzle. I would say if you're looking for a good escape room game go and download Escape First which is there first installment. That game was so enjoyable that I bought the second game and was disappointed.

Not perfect but still quite good, especially for the price. Seeing other reviews, I have to assume this game has had a lot of patches and updates since it released as we didn't encounter any significant bugs. The only one you're likely to run into is an item becoming inaccessible when you drop it and while this sounds game breaking, the devs were aware of this possible issue and let you instantly reset items. This *does not* reset items you've already properly used in puzzles. It functions great.

In this particular set of escape games we came across only two puzzles that were truly bad and required us to look up answers. This isn't ideal but they weren't enough to take away from the game as a whole, but do know that even with the answer in front of you for these two, I don't think these two were properly designed or solvable without the answer.

I usually write a decent review for most of the games I truly enjoy, and while this game is an enjoyable 4 player co-op experience, there comes a part where some of the puzzles bottleneck in difficulty. I recommend that some of these things be fixed in order for me to come back and play them again with friends:

1. Make an apply button in the settings menu.
   
2. Fix the sound, so when you lower it, IT STAYS LOWERED.
   
3. Fix when players inspect an item at a distance, that it cannot be dropped outside or under the map.
   
[*]A more extensive graphics setting would be nice, some of the hints were obscured by bad resolution.

We bought the bundle of the OnSkull Games with all the Escape Room games and i have to say that , some puzzles and rooms are very joinable , specially if you played with your friends . The estimated time is about 40 minutes per room .
If you searching for a co-op puzzle game and you find it at a offer , at my opinion its worth !

Completely unplayable in VR. Cant even complete the first level because it is so bugged. If you pick up a torch, everyone has a torch in their hands. It just doesnt work and is complete and utter garbage. We played with 3 people and it just doesnt work.

It glitches, bugs out, Crashes, Freezes and multiplayer doesnt work, or stops working midgame. Items vanish, forcing us to restart or alt+f4 the game. It is unplayable.

played two rooms so far faced bugs in both, had to restart the game after getting so close to the end of the puzzle, some of the solutions do not make sense and u end up guessing.
its an ok puzzle game but expect a lot of bugs

Okay Game 5/10

I have played both escape first one and two, and both lack that competitiveness.
server lists are empty, and only 3 maps to choose from.
Once you have finished the game its most likely to never be picked up again.

It's still gets a 5 for effort, although i felt like some of the challenges were stolen from another game that you should check out if your interrested in these types of games. "We Were Here" price/quality much better.

Greetz Rdx

There are some bugs that are unforgivable in a puzzle game - namely those that drive you to walkthroughs because you no longer trust the internal logic of the game.

Looks great in VR, but utterly fails as a puzzle game.

Too many issues to list in just this short description. Every level has major bugs, doors unresponsive, lockpads unresponsive, multiplayer is a complete mess, required items glitch through floor, vr movement options just stop working, second level literally couldn't even complete as after an hour of trying to work out what we were missing, looked up the solution online and turns out it had just glitched and the air compressor wasn't working as intended. Absolute waste of time

* SPOILERS IN THIS REVIEW* I will make a line up per chamber as of why i review it negatively.

The first chamber. (Psycho Circus)
Two of the puzzles were illogical.
The one with the seats and the arrows do not make it clear in the letter that you have to take all chairs inbetween those indicated on the letter.
The second puzzle that is illogical is the one with the dolls. In order to solve the dolls there is a letter with a whole story saying in what order the clows got the dolls and how. That order is not the order you need to do it. But a very illogical order. The puzzles are easy but because of the illogical thoughts behind it and the illogical clues we were forced to look it up. We found a couple of forums with the same complaints that it makes no sense at all.

The second room (Factory) This room didn't work for us. The mechanics were very cool but the players were always out of sync forcing us to restart to the point we didn't want to anymore.
The equation puzzle with the numbers you need to round up and down makes no sense in common math either. You solve an equation and you have an answer. A clue for the rounding up and down should have been given.

The third puzzle (Torture Chamber) The puzzles were super nice but was made unplayable because the reset items button didn't work. At one point at the final puzzle with the weights, Three of the weights dissapeared and we couldn't get them back. This made for us to stop playing.

We thoroughly enjoyed the first part of escape first. We were overjoyed when we saw a part two and three were released and we are going to start Escape First 3 with great joy.
But this game was too broken and frustrating to give it a good review. If the problems I stated above are solved then you should get the game. If they still exist i advice you to wait.

This game is a disappointment. The amount of glitches inside this game makes it impossible to play the game properly. I found myself searching up how to do things only to find out that a card was invisible and could only be picked up if I new where to look. Even without the glitches, this game is piss-poor. It's so obvious that this game was rushed to meet the success of the other games in OnSkull's library as they repeatedly reused puzzles. When they didn't reuse puzzles, they made ones that barely make sense. I hope the games which follow this are better but I feel like the developers are running out of ideas and are trying to squeeze every cent out of this series. Fuck this shit.

Very challenging in comparison to the previous game. Rather than giving you the direct answer after the first hint, it simply repeats the prior hint. I can see this being very annoying to some, while rewarding others who enjoy a greater challenge. If you'll get too frustrated due to the lack of hints, might want to wait until detailed walk-throughs are available. Sometimes items can fall through what appear to be solid surfaces; didn't take away from the fun I had with my friends though. Super fun game to get you thinking with other friends/strangers!