Overview
Escape from the Grand Hotel is an escape room in a box that is for 2-8 players. Realistically you can solo play it, though if you struggle with vague puzzles, then having the additional brains of your co-players can really help you progress at a reasonable rate.
The story starts with the grand re-opening of The Grand Hotel. Owned by the wealthy but mysterious and secretive Blossom family. The hotel has been on the verge of closing it’s doors permanently, then out of the blue the Blossom’s son Kurt returns to take over the hotel with his wife Lauren. They plan to restore the hotel to it’s former glory and save The Grand Hotel from permanent closure.
Something isn’t right, you get a feeling that this grand re-opening is hiding something.
As the guests arrive, all who are rich and powerful members of society, your suspicions are confirmed.
Tonight you and the guests are in for a night to remember, albeit for all of the wrong reasons.
Please let me welcome you to The Grand Hotel.
In Play/ Is it exciting?
Escape from the Grand Hotel involves working together to solve clues for the different rooms that you find yourselves in as you play the game. These are in the form of envelopes made to look like doors to rooms. If you are gentle, you can actually reuse this game which is pretty cool. It’s always nice to share with others and bring new people into the world of escape room games.
The instruction manual is very well laid out and has a great backstory written inside. It gives an overview of how to play, which is very handy for first time players like we were. There is a narrative card in the back of the instructions book, named The arrival. This sets the scene and is really well written. It allows you to settle into the mystery of the game and you may find yourself thinking, oh what have I gotten myself into.
Once this is done, you set that timer for 90 minutes and away you go.
As you progress through the game, you come across puzzles of different difficulties. Some are easy, a couple of tough ones but there was one that we were completely stumped on which is a decipher puzzle. Oh, that was a tough one for sure. We did have to use the Puzzle Solutions envelope for this one. It was just so difficult, and we were running out of time.
No spoilers in here today folks, so you can find out which puzzle this one is when you play. P.S. we have warned you that it’s tough!
What’s In The Box?
The box comes nicely presented with some lovely artwork on the front and back. There is a number of different box designs out there, but all of the contents are the same across all of them. The patterned detail inside of the box is a nice touch and makes it feel like you really are opening the door to a fancy hotel.
An instruction book, a puzzle solutions envelope and a floorplan of The Grand Hotel along with 10 ‘Door’ envelopes which include the puzzles and the rest of the story.
Complexity Rating
The game isn’t complex as such, it’s fairly easy to follow and progress the story. As I mentioned some of the puzzles are quite hard, but that’s what you want from these kinds of games. It can’t be too easy or you’ll finish it way too quickly.
We did manage to actually skip one of the rooms entirely as we guessed wrong on one of the puzzles but managed to skip a room and progress further along in the story than we should have. It did leave us a bit confused but when we finished we went back and it made sooo much more sense to us. My best advice is make sure you double check your answers.
Artwork
The artwork throughout is lovely, it feels very professional and gives off the feeling of actually being in a magnificent hotel. The quality of the printing and paper used for the envelopes adds to its ‘expensive’ feel. A great touch from the makers of this game. We felt that this small detail really added to the immersion of the game.
Our Favourite Part
Unfortunately I can’t actually tell you my favourite part as it will ruin the story, but I will say that there was a particular part in the game where I threw out what felt like a rather odd and random guess, but later on it turned out to be true which was quite thrilling for me.
Our Final Thoughts
Escape from the Grand Hotel is an interesting escape room in a box game with some nice touches added in to make the players feel a part of the hotel. I did feel that one of the puzzles may not have originally been in English and a mistranslation did make it a bit difficult for us to complete the puzzle. After a good google search, it does seem to be a common theme among players, but the game is still enjoyable.
If you are looking for a night of escape room fun, then Escape from the Grand Hotel is one game that we would recommend happily.
Score out of 100: 70/100
Artwork 5/5
Complexity 3/5
Replayability 0/5
Player Interaction 4/5
Component Quality 4/5
Good Points
The quality of the box and contents adds a lovely touch to the game.
An intriguing story that really gripped us.
The price when compared to gameplay time.
Bad Points
A really tough puzzle that doesn’t make a huge amount of sense when read. As noted, this does seem to be a common theme found among players online. It doesn’t stop you progressing or enjoying the story though.
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