Scooby-Doo Escape: If You Liked The Books In Which You Are The Hero, You Should Like This

It is on a dark and stormy night, in the middle of the countryside, that your Mystery Machine decides to break down. Fortunately, in the distance you see a dismal old mansion, whose occupants will no doubt be able to come to your aid. Play as Vera, Sammy, Daphne, Scooby and Fred, and discover the mystery behind the ghost that haunts these places.

Scooby-Doo Escape is a game ofescape cooperative: players cooperate to solve puzzles and uncover the truth.

At the start of the game, you find yourself in the first room of the mansion, the foyer. Thunder sounds, the lights go out, and a ghostly figure appears. When the light comes back on, Vera finds herself all alone: ​​all her companions have disappeared.

Various objects are in the room (a table, a door, a cupboard, etc.), labeled with a three-digit number. Each character has a special skill, a number, and a multi-page booklet made up of numbered paragraphs. Vera for example can “Search”, and its number is “1”.

If the group wants Vera to look for clues in the cupboard, we associate the number of the character (“1” in our example) with the number of the object in question (“401” for the cupboard). We then read the corresponding paragraph (“1401”) in the character’s booklet. The latter indicates what happens next while advancing the narrative. Sometimes, it is necessary to associate several objects recovered previously to arrive to reconstitute a paragraph number.

Regularly, puzzles, visual or logical, slow down progress. Sometimes the game will ask you to open an envelope to use its contents. Little by little, we find our comrades. Sammy first, who had hid in the piano in plain sight of the ghost. Each brings their own skill: “Eat” for Sammy, “Use” for Daphne, “Smell” for Scooby and “Investigate” for Fred.

We also discover the other rooms of the manor, as well as its occupants: the butler, the chef, the driver and the gardener. Not surprisingly, in the strict tradition of the cartoon, it is one of them who hides under the costume of the ghost. It’s up to you to find out who it is …

We will not go further in the description of the game, so as not to spoil the pleasure of the discovery.

Why play Scooby-Doo Escape?

Scooby-Doo Escape is a real mix of genres. It’s an investigative game, since in the end the goal is to find out who is posing as a ghost, but whose mechanics are those of an escape game. We don’t look for clues, we don’t question suspects, but we solve puzzles while using the skills of the characters on the objects found in the mansion.

But it is above all a narrative game, since, like a book in which you are the hero, each paragraph of the character-specific booklets takes the story forward. And, of course, in the pure tradition of the cartoon. Scooby and Sammy who run away in fear at the slightest opportunity, Fred who arrives as a hero, Vera who uses her intelligence to thwart puzzles, etc.

The adventure, in its entirety, is quite long, allow about three hours in all. But it is divided into two acts, and it is possible, even recommended, to play it in two sessions.

Getting started is very quick, and the difficulty of the different puzzles varies, depending on your experience and your way of thinking. Small regret, however: it is possible to skip certain scenes, without having discovered all the previous clues, and we can then find ourselves blocked. Do not hesitate to go back to check everything.

So here is a escape game narrative, with a coherent story and theme, to play with family or friends. Scooby-Doo Escape is only the first in the series. Two other opuses have already been published in English, in two other universes: Shining and the Goonies !

• Scooby-Doo Escapeis a game by Jay Cormier and Sen-Foong Lim
• Illustrated by Rob Lundy and Rick Hutchinson
• Published by The Op
• For 1 to 5 players from 10 years old
• For a game of about 180 minutes
• Priced at € 22.50 at Philibert

Some links in this article are affiliate. We’ll explaine everything here.