Book - Escape Room Puzzles

Most Unassuming Title Ever

 

Publisher:

Carlton Books (https://www.carltonbooks.co.uk/escape-room-puzzles-hb.html)

Author:

James Hamer-Morton

# of Players:

1 (possibly more suggested - I don't quite picture that)

Game Design & Mechanics

• This book was released as part of a whole series of hardcover, mass-printed books usually best known for their brain teasers and riddles. I previously got a few of these books (in French) at Costco, and was quite surprised when I stumbled upon this particular one (in a gift shop in Scotland, no less!).
• In spite of its very generic title, this book ticked all the boxes of what I expect from an escape-room-in-a-book experience, including an extensive storyline.
• The book is broken down into ten chapters that tell the story of journalist Adam Parkinson and his friend Henry, who get involved with yet-another-mysterious-and-somewhat-scary corporation. In each chapter, the protagonist gets "stuck" into a situation reminiscent of escape rooms. To get out, he'll have to solve multiple puzzles. Therefore, every chapter could be viewed as an "escape room" in its own right.
• Every chapter includes many illustrations, which can be puzzles, hints, or just for show. Some of them have a special icon that tells you should cut off that page, but in such cases you can easily make photocopies, or even try to work things in your head.



Picture from the publisher's website

• At the end of each chapter, you'll be asked to obtain a specific code, or piece of knowledge, in order to proceed. Some other times, though, you'll also get mid-chapter gates - a point where the protagonist tells you, in bold letters: "Once I figured out X, I was then able to proceed." You should then be able to figure out that thing before turning the page.
• There is no time limit per se, although many chapters will mention a certain time limit. ("I had 55 minutes until the guard returned.") I guess one could theoretically try to follow those same limitations, although the book rules make no mention of that.
• Outside knowledge might be required in a couple circumstances, and so you're allowed to search the internet as you see fit. Likewise, you're always allowed to get check back on past chapters, and there are a couple points where you'll definitely have to.
• There is no way to validate your current answer, although the next section you read will often mention what the right answer was. There are also full-fledged solutions at the very end of the book.
• When stuck, you can check at the back of the book for gradually increasing hints (they're grouped by "Hard Hints", "Medium Hints", etc, then by chapter). And as I said before, those are followed by complete solutions.

Pros

• The puzzles are quite varied, and the way many parallel puzzles might converge toward a single answer is fairly evocative of real-life escape rooms.
• I found the story very engaging, and the main characters fairly sympathetic. I ended looking forward knowing what the whole thing was about.
• The illustrations are quite nice. (Which is somewhat ironic, given that they're mostly made from stock photos.)
• The book's binding made it fairly easy to photocopy the occasional cut-out page.

Cons

• The more I played on, the harder the typical puzzle seemed to me. You know, this is always hard to properly assess - maybe I'm just not that smart - but it seemed to me that a number of those puzzles just relied on a series of arbitrary guesses.
• Likewise, there's at least one task that's so hard to complete - even if you know exactly what you're supposed to do - that the solution itself seems to imply they don't expect their readers to do the legwork. Huh? 🤔
• In the hints section, puzzles seem to be listed in arbitrary order - even changing from one hint section to the next. I often would've wanted to get some direction as to which puzzle I should be tackling first, and the only way to get that info was typically to go straight to the Solution pages.
• Speaking of hints/solution pages, many of the mid-chapter "gates" don't list the hint page numbers. You'll have to look for them by yourself. The hints do exist, though.
• Once again, what a bland title. Ugh.

Erratum

• On page 59, the text mentions finding a 5x5 grid, but the picture that follows is 5x6. This is a mistake - the grid really should be 5x5.