Real Escape Game Offers Online Haunted House Challenge on Tuesday Morning

There’s two days until the start of Real Escape Game‘s Escape from the Haunted House.

What is it? In video game speak, it’s an online narrative puzzle from the Escape the Room genre. You will find yourself in a locked room and must pickup items and information around the room to solve the puzzle and escape.

It is a race to see who can figure out the clues and escape the room first. The live main event costs $5 to play and starts at 13:00 GMT on July 24, 2012. That’s 8:00 AM EST according to my “don’t hold me accountable if I am wrong” conversion. You are advised to login at least ten minutes before the game begins. You may login up to one hour before the game if you wish. I would advise purchasing your ticket early if you are going to play. You’ll need to make sure that your computer meets the system requirements, as well as print out the answer sheet. The game also recommends a fully charged cell phone (or telephone) and pen/paper. There’s an hour time limit on the real game, so it is possible that you just won’t figure it out.

With that information in hand, I decided to give the free trial a spin. It puts you in a spooky, old room complete with eerie music and gives you a puzzle to solve to escape the room. The time limit on the free trial is just 15 minutes. Pen and paper in hand, let’s see how smart I am.

It was my first time playing a digital escape the room game. Here’s what I figured out:

You hover over objects with the mouse to examine or pick them up. There ended up being five objects around the room in the free trial, and I found them fairly fast. I also found the information that was needed to solve the puzzle pretty fast, too. But I made a big assumption about the game, which turned out to be false. That led me to spend most of the game looking around the room for the final piece of the puzzle. With about two minutes to go, I realized that there was no more information in the room. I put the clues together, unlocked the door (it had a five digit combination), and escaped with about a minute to spare. WHEW!

When I saw the first news story about this online game, I was a bit skeptical. I wasn’t sure that it would be any fun. But after doing the free trial, I think I’m hooked. I’d love to know how I do against the rest of the world and I definitely want bragging rights!

You can play the free trial and join me at http://regame.jp/ticket/en/.