"On a completely unrelated note, does everybody have their seatbelt on?"

overview

Story-driven, multi-room, and ultra-immersive. Ruins: Forbidden Treasure is a whole new kind of escape room.

Your journey begins aboard a rusty (and hopefully trusty) propeller plane piloted by the plucky Captain Theodore MacManus. Captain Mac has always dreamed of the Ehlari treasure buried deep in the ancient ruins but has never found it. Can you?

Ruins: Forbidden Treasure is the best temple themed game I've ever seen, and probably one of the best games I've seen, period. With one of the best introductions to any game, leading to the jungle, the ruins, and the traps within, this game has it all, and nothing feels out of place. 

The one grudge I have against this game is that of the story of Captain Mac. The Captain is probably the best character I've ever encountered in an escape room. He's funny, silly, and has a great personality. But we only ever see or hear him in one room. It feels like a huge missed opportunity to develop such an amazing character and incorporate him for all of two minutes. 

That being said, the rest of this game is phenomenal. There's only three generation one locks in the room, and they're all in the first set, which is designed to be more tactile and manual than the rest of the game. The temple has some incredible features, and nothing feels out of place. There's a lot of companies out there that say their rooms make you feel like Indiana Jones, but this one actually does. 

quick stats

gameplay time: 60 minutes

recommended team size: 2-4 players

difficulty: 3/5

scare level: 2/5

location: Nashville, TN, or online

website: https://theescapegame.com/

considerations: -everyone must crawl -one room slightly shakes/vibrates -claustrophobic -flickering/strobe lights used -low lighting conditions

scenery

Ruins looks goddamn amazing. 

Every single square inch of this game is detailed, weathered, and awesome. Theme parks wouldn't go this far. It is an absolutely incredible looking game in every aspect. 

Players start in the hold of a plane, which looks more suiting for luggage than passengers. Once the plane- er- gets through the rough air, players solve a quick warm-up puzzle to get into the thick of the jungle. 

The jungle and the surrounding ruins are beautiful. Vines cover the top of the crumbling walls of the Ehlari civilization. A massive temple door stands in front of you, twice the size of an average human. The floor is covered in dirt, rock, and occasionally a stone tile or two. A narrow passage leads to a small area with dozens of stone bricks, and the weathered exterior of the airplane takes up an entire wall. The noise of birds and other animals surrounds players through the dozens of speakers around the room. All this happens before players even enter the ruins, and it just gets better from there. 

Once adventurers discover the secret passage into the temple, they're greeted by a hallway with a fifteen foot ceiling, almost double the height of the jungle they were just in. Activating the ancient mechanisms lights up the room, revealing statues, carvings, and a giant head taken straight out of Indiana Jones. Spiderwebs cover the desolate corners, and flickering lights add to the eerie ambience of the ruins. Custom soundtracks compliment the entire space, and the adventure really starts up.

But that's not the last chamber you'll see. Ruins takes up 6 rooms, each with intricate design, puzzles, and special effects, including a couple of pressure plates that I never got used to, and a multi-level crawlspace. In every single chamber, the attention to detail is insane, and our motley crew of two laughed in amazement every single time a new room was revealed. There's a reason this room is $3 more than any of the others. 

puzzles

You've probably guessed by now, but Ruins had some of the best puzzles we've ever encountered, and even the types of puzzles were thematically well thought out. The first section with the plane and the jungle has very traditional, manual, lock based puzzles, which fits the whole plane aesthetic and idea. It works, and it works really well- traditional puzzles are the hardest to pull of successfully. But once you enter the ruins, everything changes. There's no more padlocks, and everything is tech-infused, making for a lot of compartments sliding open and secret passages being revealed. It feels very thematically appropriate and works so well. 

Ruins incorporates multiple exciting special effects to elevate the puzzles. The environment and the attention to detail makes for clever puzzles in an incredible environment. In the first chamber of the temple, Ruins made some complicated puzzles, realized they were a little too hard, and added some careful and clever cluing to help players along. Most other companies wouldn't do this, but The Escape Game wants the experience to be perfect. 

The last couple of chambers do have some less interesting puzzles as the first few, but there's some features of the room that make up for the puzzles, and the puzzles are good on their own. The worst puzzle in Ruins is probably the best puzzle in your average escape room. 

I played Playground on the same trip as Ruins. Playground was designed to be fun. Ruins was designed to be epic. Both succeeded, and I would say the puzzles in Playground (which won awards) weren't even as good as some of the puzzles in Ruins. 

This is an incredible, wonderful, insane game. 

pros and cons

pro: amazing scenery and puzzles that rivals anything I've ever seen. 

pro: we always appreciate a good secret passage. We especially appreciate secret passages that we don't know about. 

con: we love Captain Mac! Bring him back in the game, we want to see him more!

pro: there is nothing more terrifying than accidentally stepping on a pressure plate you didn't know was there. You feel like you're about to die. 

con: the coolest room in the game had a ceiling that was covered in safety features like a sprinkler and alarm that weren't painted on theme, as well as rows of black bristles. After playing, I understand why they were there, but they need to be hidden more. 

pro: oftentimes in escape rooms, the only urgency is prompted by a timer. In one specific chamber, they used a different method to make players rush to complete puzzles. 

pro/con: the screens weren't working for about the last 2/3 of the game. Our guide Clayton did a fantastic job at warning us of this beforehand, and delivering clues through the intercom. I'm not sure if Captain Mac reappeared on these screens or not, but not having the timer on the walls did make the game more immersive. 

pro: 3 extra dollars is a small price to pay for a game that's twice as good as any of the other offerings. And those offerings are also incredibly high quality games. 

pro: the last puzzle chamber. Oh my god. Suggestion: give into your desire. It makes the next sequence so much more thrilling. 

note: I've played another one of The Escape Game's rooms online. From what I experienced, it's not nearly as fun or fulfilling. If it's at all possible to play Ruins in the next year or so, do it in person. It's half as fun online, and it makes for an amazing experience in person. 

overall

As of the time I'm writing this review, Ruins is the best escape room I've ever played (not counting 5 Wits or Boda Borg or similar establishments). I seriously debated changing all of the other ratings on this website to make room for Ruins. Everything about this game is perfect, from the introduction to the jungle to the temple and everything inside it. There's traps, lore, funny characters (though maybe not enough), crawlspaces, and so much more. This escape game really has it all, and so much more. I made a trip to Nashville simply to play Playground and Ruins, and honestly, it would have been worth it even just for Ruins. So come on down to The Escape Game in Nashville, and get ready to take "just a liiiiiitle bit of a detour". 

rating

10/10