Escape Room Reviews: The A.I.

Company: Exit Game
Room: The AI
Date Played: 9/30/17
Player Count: 2, but would work well with 3 or 4.
Success:  Success!

Premise: You’re visiting the apartment of your missing friend and his pet AI, a murderous, SHODAN-looking thing. 

Immersion: This room looks like someone should be shooting their webseries or Syfy original programming in it. Which is to say, it looks good but a little cheap, with a lot of colorful lighting. 

Highlights: This room has some cool tech interactions that are unlike anything I’ve seen before, including a take on virtual reality that isn’t what it sounds like. Certain things, like inserting the ‘cores,’ has a great sci-fi movie feel. Also, I like interacting with computers in escape rooms, and this game has a lot of opportunities for that.

Lowlights: We got caught up on search. The volume was very low and hearing our departed friend and his AI's taunts and hints was a little tough over the music. And customer service is always kind of a drag at Exit Game. There’s the silly metal detector thing they do, but more than that there's the sense that your game master isn’t paying attention. We called for a hint and the delivery system here was someone coming in after a couple of minutes and trying to offer advice without knowing where we were.

And Finally: I'm surprised that we don't do more rooms themed around being high-tech in some way. Maybe it's hard to pull off, or maybe we're more likely to naturally spot the shortcomings because we interact with touchscreens and computers and stuff a lot more often than Egyptian tombs. In any case, we'd been looking forward to checking this room out. For my money though, The Lab is still the room to beat at Exit Game. Out of 35 games played, I'm ranking this one #23. 

How to book this room yourself: Visit https://www.theexitgame.com/artificial-intelligence-la-escape

(and while you’re there, check out some of those photos. Particularly this one. This is exactly what I’m afraid of whenever I see a room that says it takes 8-12 players.)

#2,393: IT

Brad's Status - ★½☆☆☆
I hate Brad. I don't care a whit about him and every time he starts narrating I get a little bummed out. I have no sympathy for this clod.

And besides that, how many times is Ben Stiller going to make this movie about being an adrift adult who regrets his life choices? Good thing he's got another one coming to Netflix next month.

It - ★★☆☆☆
Too much of a muchness. The actors playing The Losers did great work, but the movie stops being creepy or suspenseful once you realize the monster attacks in every scene. There must be a better way to convey the toll taken on these poor kids by relentless magical attacks than by battering the audience with the same thing. (Lucky thing it decides to leave them alone when they're at their weakest as a group!) It's a real breath of fresh air when the plot occasionally advances.

There was a part in the middle where I thought maybe we were going to learn something about what's going on in the town, like why the adults are both unaware of IT and also all so corrupt. I was hoping some reveal would explain that everyone in town is a ridiculous caricature on purpose, all a part of some clever plan. Or at least why they don't move out.

Also, the generic high school bully archetype sucks.

Kickstarter Monday: Apparel

For the first Monday of the month, Media Monday is a Kickstarter Katchup. This month, some projects that let me wear my backing on my sleeve:

A hat that says ‘movies’ on it - You know how sometimes, if you don’t want to buy the actual thing being made or whatever, but you still support the project, you can back at a lower level and just get a thank you, or a bumper sticker or something? I got a t-shirt that says ‘movies’ on it. I'd have understood if it was a shirt that said "A hat that says 'movies' on it" but it doesn't. It says ‘movies.’ I consider backing this project a great success.

Slim 360 Wallet - The wallet I bought from the book store / gift shop when I was visiting colleges was pretty well worn out after a decade and change, so I found a new one on Kickstarter. I went with this one because the campaign was running when I was looking, it must have seemed nicer than the others available at the same time, and it wasn't too expensive. It turned out great, and I backed one of the same creator’s later projects in order to get a gift for my dad, who by all accounts is happy with his new slimmer wallet as well.  

"DARIUSTX vs. the Angels of Goliad" - This is an album by Darius Holbert, who wrote music for my podcast, Better Radio, for free, even though we’d never met. I was very happy to be able to repay him in some small way. I haven’t ever listened to this album, but I wear the t-shirt around a lot. 

I know how officially and all, kickstarter isn't a store, but sometimes it kind of is. It's a little less exciting than an aluminum car or a perpetual motion machine, but backing three simple projects that do exactly what they say is still pretty satisfying.

Escape Room Reviews: Mortuary Mystery

Company: South Bay Volunteer Center
Room: Mortuary Mystery (Beta Test)
Date Played: 9/24/17
Player Count: 4 (2 and 2 strangers)
Success:  Eventual Success! (as part of the testing process, we completed the room, but it took us longer than 60 minutes)

Premise: The South Bay Volunteer Center’s annual fundraiser this year is an escape room. There’s some kind of plot about employee malfeasance, but the real story is that this is an excellent pop-up room escape.

Immersion: The center itself was once the county morgue, and so the setting of this room (a morgue) is strikingly realistic!

Highlights: Interacting with real mortuary-ish props is neat. One of the most creative uses of a key I’ve ever seen.  

Lowlights: The flow of the room is kind of confusing. Both from a plot perspective, becuase I’m pretty sure the story doesn’t make sense, and from a puzzle perspective. I was unclear of what our ultimate goal was, and it kind of snuck up on me. Also, I got tricked by a thing that has fooled me before in other rooms. I need to learn!

And Finally: I played this room as a tester, so there is a very good chance things will change by the time you play it. The testing experience itself was great though - the designers were excited to see us run through it all and cheered on our successes. Story gripes aside, this is a pretty neat room. It’s more inventive and more physical than a lot of “pro” rooms we’ve played, and definitely worth checking out while it lasts. Which is only 5 weeks!   Out of the 34 games I’ve played, I’m ranking this one #14.

How to book this room yourself: Visit https://www.volcenter.org/escaperoom before October 29, 2017! Hurry!

#2,391: Kingsmen: The Golden Circle

Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me - ★★★☆☆
After wrapping up The Return, it was time to go back to the movie and look for clues. I thought the insights of the new show would make the movie more palatable. What I'd forgotten was that the chunk of the movie that relates to The Return, the first part with Chet Everett, was always the good part. Then they stick you with hours and hours of garbage about Laura Palmer. I've never cared about Laura Palmer. She's an impossible character with an insane, retroactively engineered to do list.

Logan Lucky - ★★★☆☆
I was clueless about this one. I didn’t know who was in it, what it was about, or that it was another experimental Soderbergh project. Which is a shame, because I like experimental Soderbergh projects. So it was only chance that I got to see this one. And I liked it! I’m a little suspicious that the logic might not exactly hold up, and there was a part where I got all distracted wondering if people in the Carolinas refer to freeways with a "the" in front of their names. Other than that, a fun heist.

I just need to see Lucky now, so in case the awards season is lousy there’s a chance that my top ten list for the year might include Logan, Lucky, and Logan Lucky!

Kingsman: The Golden Circle - ★★½☆☆ I didn’t love the original but this one clicked for me. You know right from the opening that it’s all nonsense and somehow I felt free to get on board. Like you know it’s Brave and the Bold, not Batman Begins, so don’t worry about what the grappling hook is attached to.

When I saw the original I wondered how they were going to do a sequel without the most / only interesting character. Then, as though out of spite, he’s both a) in this movie anyway, just because, and b) bland.

I bet that people making spy movie sequels just love doing that meta joke of repeating gags from the first one, because it’s like getting paid again for the same screenpla–I mean, because it’s a bitingly satirical look at the formulaic nature of classic Bond movies.

Also, I wonder if action scenes where everything is played back a little too fast (see: Civil War, Fury Road) read as sped-up to ‘normal’ viewers. (Normal used in this case to refer to people who aren't editors doing tricky things to video all day.)