Review: Floor 13 | CU Adventures In Time & Space

Game Website | Company Website | Based In: Urbana, IL, USA

OFFICIAL SPEC

🕹️ Stay At Home Games » Online Puzzle Game » Point & Click Escape Room

🕹️ Stay At Home Games » On Hand Items Required » Print & Play (PDF File Based) Puzzle Game

💪 Difficulty: Not specified.

⏲️ Time duration: 60-120 minutes.

🔢 Capacity: 1-6 players.

💬 Hints: Via hints tab below each puzzle. Hints appear from vague nudges to specific directions in a stepwise fashion.

🛒 If you PURCHASE due to this blog, please give EscapeMattster.com a shout-out! ;)

MATTSTER'S REC 😃

💪 Difficulty (as perceived by Mattster): 4 to 5/10 (team of 1).

🔢 Ideal team size: 1. Why? Difficulty very suitable for solo play, and definitely way creepier when played alone!

RECOMMENDED

Review: Floor 13 | CU Adventures In Time & Space

OFFICIAL PREMISE

You're trapped in your office building after-hours, and you stumble into a place that shouldn't exist. Discover the secrets of Floor 13 and escape the building...if you can! Discover clues, piece together login codes, and go face to face with a haunted computer. Solve the challenges of this slightly spooky escape room from the comfort of home!

IN A NUTSHELL

Somewhat of a spiritual successor and a Halloween special rendition of "The Lost Temple", "Floor 13" examines the dread of getting stuck at work beyond operation hours... possibly forever. Enjoy some mildly creepy office-themed puzzles and battle a sinister CPU to escape this turn-of-the-millennium virtual escape room with some serious Y2K throwbacks.

Review: Floor 13 | CU Adventures In Time & Space

OVERALL IMPRESSIONS

Back when I reviewed CU Adventures' "The Lost Temple", much was brand new to me. The overall game format of hosting a virtual, point-and-click escape room, supplemented with real-life print-and-cut game elements to increase a sense of connection the world depicted behind the computer screen was brilliant. The creators themselves must've felt the same sentiment, because new game "Floor 13" follows the exact same format, albeit with a new coat of paint.

The color? A nice, thick layer of creepy black. Just in time for a late October Halloween release.

Everything that made the storytelling so effective last time around is back. The soundtrack, now less jazzy and more spooky, is spot-on and not overly scary, just unsettling enough to portray the sense of solitude and helplessness one may feel when trapped inside another dimension of both space and time. There are also occasional narrations by voice actors to minimize enforced reading and to help set the mood, though they're utilized to a lesser degree compared to "Temple".

Because "Floor 13" is a new original tale, and not based on any currently existing room that CU already owns on location, the plot isn't nearly as enriched with myriad plot details that are already available for repurposing. Instead, the main frame is kept simple, straightforward, and much easier to follow.

Although I once heard this game's being described as a "ghost story", I find that to be inaccurate. There is most definitely something off about the mysterious thirteenth floor, and the paranormal energy certainly palpable, but nothing materializes quite enough to qualify this as an apparition experience.

Review: Floor 13 | CU Adventures In Time & Space

The kind of puzzles that appear in "Floor 13" is very similar in spirit to those of "Temple", specifically in that many of them can be plausibly modified to be implemented in a live, real-life escape room. There is a lot of finding combo, passwords, and keys, so your escape room puzzles-solving logic (with a slight inclination for gen 1) can be put to good use once more. The variety, however, is much more expansive; and much to my relief, there's minimal cipher decoding this time!

The print-and-play assets plays a much less prominent role in "Floor 13", to the point that I was able to complete the game with the alternative "printer-less" PDF file without feeling missing out. Much like before, having an option to ditch the scissoring saves me much time, which I actually appreciate. (I did end up constructing one prop "just because", perhaps for fun or for a more "complete" experience, though I still don't find my craft-less approach any less rewarding.)

Perhaps the most surprising element of all is the time-traveling aspect, though now it's just dawned on me that I am reviewing a game published by a company entitled "Adventures In Time & Space". Well, duh! Of course this eerie experience would transport the players through both elements and land us in a "90s dot-com bubble" era office!

All the retro-heavy reference--whether it be the iconic dial-up modem sound effect annoyingly lurking in the background, or the deliciously-parodied, Microsoft's Minesweeper-inspired puzzle--they all make me smirk so, so hard. I am a child that grew up in the 90s, after all. Now as a 30-something-year-old, I am comfortably at home, enjoying an online escape room through the magic of internet--technology has come such a long way.

One last note: group play mode is once again available, though I did not use it. (Details available on game site.)

Below are some more key points you may wanna know...

Review: Floor 13 | CU Adventures In Time & Space

STORY

➤ I would characterize "Floor 13" as an inconvenient late-night encounter with an evil spirit of sort, necessitating an escape from another realm or be potentially stuck there for eternity. It is not a traditional horror tale featuring ghosts, monsters, or anything readily recognizable, and hence, it gets some points for being nonconforming.

➤ The plot is all too "realistic", in that if I was stuck in the same scenario, I would also want to just gtfo and be done with the night. As such, the story focuses much on the escape, and does not provide enough exposition. There are still a few questions left unanswered, and the finale does not, for me, provide a satisfactory closure, and I really wish for otherwise!

PRODUCTION

➤ Not to over-repeat what I've already discussed above, I would add that in addition to featuring a game interface system that's received much acclaims already in the past, "Floor 13" also possess exceptionally pleasing artworks, both still and sometimes animated, that bring this office from hell to life on your screen.

➤ Just top-notched quality across the board, especially for the well-justified, arguably bargain price tag.

PUZZLES

➤ It's really difficult to pinpoint to one category type these puzzles fall under, simply because the designers have cleverly embedded such a wide variety of challenges. And to do so in the same story world organically and somehow still manage to have everything make sense, this is indeed a job splendidly done, and I tip my hat to you folks at CU Adventures.

➤ To give a general idea of what to expect: there are puzzles that feel very gen-1, those that require you to extract letters from here and there to form a combo or password. Then, there are more creative problems that challenge your listening skill, visual acuity, and spatial logic. Finally, there are also even more abstract riddles that involve pattern recognition and the application of. There's really something for everybody, and the key word remains to be variety.

➤ For those who have played "The Lost Temple", the amount of puzzles, or rather, the time needed to complete this entire game is shorter by comparison. While I don't think the overall experience necessarily suffers because of this, when in fact, I would argue the puzzle quality has improved, it is something to be cognizant of before purchase.

Review: Floor 13 | CU Adventures In Time & Space

BEST FIT FOR...

★ Beginners and up. The hint system guides novice players with just the right amount of help.

★ This is NOT that scary, if at all. Suitable for teens or even scaredy-cats that are just bold enough for an hour or 2!

★ Even though Halloween is over, any day is great for a slightly chilling and ominous game. Best for night time play.

EXTRA TIPS

★ There's no real trick to remedy a faulty copier fiasco, but to stare at it. Stare at it long enough--it'll come to you.

READY FOR FUN?

"Floor 13" is available for purchase HERE.

If you PURCHASE due to this blog, please give EscapeMattster.com a shout-out! ;)

Signing off,

ESCAPE MATTSTER

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Full disclosure: complimentary game access was generously provided for review or testing purposes. All media are sourced from and credited to rightful owners. No copyright infringement intended. In certain cases, media materials are made available under fair use doctrine of copyright law. CUA13.