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Free escape games to play at home during Coronavirus social distancing

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Please stay home. Without saying much more, we are here to give you a list of games to play from home for free, without having to wait until they deliver. We will give some good boardgame and puzzle book alternatives that need to be purchased further down. Order them so you get them asap!

Last updated: 24th May 2020@10pm CET. We’ll keep adding new ones we find.

Free games from home

  • Unlock, tutorial + 5 free scenarios. Awesome game series, you can print&play the first 5 demo scenarios: The Elite, 5th Avenue, The Doo-Arann Dungeon, In Pursuit of Cabrakan, The temple of RA (Also in German)
  • 50 clues “The Home temple” (demo) great print&play start for the three full games.
  • Puzzled Pint – archives have sets of puzzles for many years. Pick a month (recommend starting with the recent ones) and go on. Hints provided.
  • KeyEnigma demo game (running Kickstarter) Use e-mails, investigate audio and video. Well integrated, even includes acting. Easy, short (30-60m), but highly recommended! (English+Spanish)
  • Braingle puzzle hunts The Hypatia + Svalbard. Not played yet.
  • Wish you were here 1, Enigma emporium offers the first one for free. Each postcard hides multiple riddles. Hints provided. (difficult)
  • Cryptex Hunt 2020 Hints provided. (very difficult)
  • Free print&play games from BGG (meta-list: many long lists!)
  • MIT Mystery Hunt (hardcore, difficult and puzzles are long and tedious) We solved some spare puzzles but never finished a full year. With solutions (no progressive hints).
  • Cryptogram Puzzlepost (3 free issues, corresponding to 3 months). Beautiful art, puzzles that give you an answer that is the input to the next puzzle. We found it hard to start, we’ll give it another try.
  • Galactic Puzzle Hunt web-based hunt. looks veeery long. Not tried. Difficult.
  • Escape This Podcast, an audio based adventure. We haven’t tried it yet.
  • Escape Room Frequency, another audio based adventure. Not tried yet.
  • Hogwarts Digital Escape Room, starting as a Google Forms. Given its forms nature allows for trial and error, but try to solve it! Another very hand-made Harry Potter based game: Caesar’s Cave. This second one has no clear way to submit answers. We have not tried either.
  • Trap door escape stream offers two free streams (check schedule on their website), and typically you can pay to play. US-friendly times.
  • Squonkland offers custom run escape games through VC, depends on his availability. Pay-what-you-want. US times.
  • Escape team, a print&play game, offers the first out of 5 scenarios for free: “Central Station”. (English and German)
  • Potter’s escape a free puzzle inspired by Harry Potter. They claim more puzzles to come on the next days.
  • The Escape Game has 7 free escape rooms (Monthly Mystery). Solved 1/7. They are the same people behind “Chasing Hahn”.
  • Search of Sasquatch – an online escape game of searching webpages and social media.
  • Down the rabbit hole, a PDF with a few easter themed riddles by Cryptic Events.
  • Mr X. Escape Durham online and requires some online tools (Google, Twitter, Maps…)

Paid experiences

  • YouEscape, paid $30 per game. If you can only play one game, play game #3! Otherwise, games #1, #2, #3 are highly recommended.
  • The case of Uncle Herbert (German or English) by Inside Breakout. 30 CHF, 60-80min sent by post to CH, DE, AT, UK.
  • The insiders by Deadlocked Escape rooms. You’ll join a secret agency and hunt for clues through the internet. Three parts, 1 hour each. Printed recommended but not mandatory. Best money-value of all paid experiences we played. (£10, buying a voucher on the provided link) (played 1/3 parts so far)
  • Paruzal live-hosted online escape rooms to be joined by video. (Eastern US)
  • ReadyMayorOne.com live-hosted online escape-room, needs booking and installing Android/iOS apps (US timezone)
  • Reality Break Escape – Mystery of the Missing Mare run through the app Cluekeeper ($30, discounted to $20. 30-60min)
  • CSI: Grounded a web based escape game experience, 60 minutes of gameplay including video, audio and visual content. ( £15-20) releasing April 3rd.
  • Wndrbox (US) online bookable games for $25/hr. The Briefcase and The Picnic Basket
  • OuterSpace An adventure in a spaceship that will have you play a videogame in your browser. $2.50
  • Stolen IQ Cluequest cut-print-escape 12 GBP. Requires printer (a lot to print).
  • Das Aurora Vermächtnis at Lockedroom.de. 12.99 EUR. Only in German. App needed.

Free games in other languages

Puzzle books (and physical)

  • Journal 29 and Journal 29 Revelation, both very good, very tricky puzzle books.
  • Codex Enigmatum Well done puzzle book
  • Trip 1907 and Trip 1907 Forbidden Mine Beautifully illustrated and tough puzzles
  • Vice-Versa Books and others they offer. The Vice Versas come with two books, one for each player, and have different information that cannot be seen by the other player. It is all about communication and puzzle solving.
  • The Enigma Emporium (30% discount with code “StaySafeStayCurious”) They have riddle packs that come in the form of various postcards. We really enjoyed those and the artwork is beautiful!
  • TOP Escape Adventures: They are in German but there is a ton of them. Also available in Amazon.
  • Panda magazine. Technically a subscription (paid) magazine, but they offer a free issue. Newspaper-style games.
  • Escape the crate, a subscription shipping an escape box for $30/2months.
  • [DE] AdventureMail.ch a subscription postcard + box escape game (3 weeks for 35 CHF)

Videogames

Mobile games (Android)

  • The Room and all the following games
  • The Witness
  • Device 6 (apple only)
  • The Cube Escape Rusty Lake series. I just have all of them downloaded on my phone and whenever I don’t have internet connectivity play for a bit.
  • Agent A
  • Cluekeeper, although it’s a platform that requires you to buy (rather expensive) individual puzzle hunts.

Escape Boardgames

Please try to buy these from local businesses that need it the most during the Covid-19 times. Some escape room companies are selling games such as EXIT and Adventure Games.

  • Every game in the EXIT series. Just buy them and thank us later. If you are only buying one thing, buy these. They can only be played once, last 60-90min each but do things with physical components you would never expect. ALL are available in German (original language), most in English and almost all in Spanish.
  • Every game in the UNLOCK series. Also top tier escape games, we prefer Exit a bit better but they have some insane mind-bend things that you could only do with an app (not app-driven).
  • Escape Room: The Game and all expansions. It’s not cheap since you have to buy the plastic-toy decoder the first time but then the expansions are cheaper.
  • Every game in the Deckscape series. This always took us more than 60min, recommended.
  • Every game in the Adventure games. Less puzzly, more story driven.
  • Every game in the UNDO series. Those are not on top of our favorites list but they are fine. Also mostly story driven and no puzzles.
  • 50 clues There are three games that you must play in order. Beware, the topic is very heavy and not for the faint of heart. The atmosphere created is amazing and there are many “ooooh sh*t” moments. Definitely worth it.
  • Escape room in a Box: “The werewolf experiment” and “Flashback”. When we played them we had to buy them in the US but worth if you can get them!
  • Doctor Esker’s Notebook There are two of these. Both equally recommended. Easier to get in the US.
  • [ES] La Casa de Papel Escape Game (only in Spanish) easy puzzles, get it only if you like the show.
  • The Escape Game: Unlocked A nice standalone puzzle adventure. They now have a digital version for $10.

Boardgames

We play and own a lot of boardgames too, but there are many great sources to find great boardgames. We list titles that we would recommend if you like solving mysteries and puzzles. Note they are not “escape room” games at all, but some may include riddles or immersive stories.

  • Chronicles of Crime (+Noir +Redview expansions): Put on the detective hat and solve a crime by talking to various witnesses and drawing your own conclusions.
  • Time Stories (+so many expansions) Not so much of a puzzle but more like an exploration game. Travel in time, solve the mystery and save the world but don’t worry if you don’t: You can (and mostly have to) always repeat!
  • Time Stories Revolution: The new version of Time Stories. Very similar but not quite the same. It skips the tedious part where you have to redo the scenario over and over again and it has done so very well.
  • Mansions of Madness 2nd edition (+expansions). This game will fill a whole Sunday if you let it. Get yourself immersed in the Lovecraftian stories, fight evil monsters and let yourself be guided by a very well done app that enhances the playing experience a lot.
  • Sherlock Holmes: Consulting detective (we only tried the first box). Can you solve a case faster than the famous Sherlock Holmes? You get newspaper extracts, people to talk to and all the time that you need. Very text heavy but not easy at all!
  • Mythos Tales This is Dominiques favourite game ever. Do we need to say more? Ah yes, it is basically Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective but in a Lovecraftian setting.
  • Pandemic Legacy season 1 (recommended 4 players but also possible with 2) Pandemic is a great game in and of its own. But Legacy takes it to a whole new level. What better time to start than now? Fully narrative + boardgame, don’t expect puzzles here.
  • Detective: A modern crime board game (Portal Games) with access to the Antares database, you will unveil five different cases of chained mysteries. We only played the first one.
  • Detective Stories (standalone). First (Adlerstein) in English, boxes 2 and 3 only in German.

Other lists like this

If you get stuck in any of these games, we have played most of them (and working on the rest) and we’ll be happy to offer hints! Please leave a comment or reach us out on instagram.com/blackrose_escape

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Please leave a comment with anything that we missed (English, German, Spanish) and we’ll add it!

Authors: Dominique & Enric