Secretul lui Bachus (Game duration 60 minutes)
Fury team: Anton Konduzov, Svetla Ivanova, Vanya Stoitseva, Nadezhda Danabasheva
Fury time: 51:00 minutes
Date: February 23, 2019
Leaving the rest of the company to fight the orcs in Morya, we set out to see if we could still find the truth at the bottom of the bottle in the “Bachus Secret”.
A few positive things to start with: the room is made in a real (until recently) winery, which adds a lot to the atmosphere. The smells are discrete. There is a little grape, a little moisture, a little quince, and a tree soaked in fruit syrups. The interior is authentic, and the story is not so believable, but Romanians and Bulgarians are a little burdened by the years of communism and often go back, as is the case in this room. The story has to do with a little mysticism, a lot of scammers trying to screw up the system, and a lot of money. A bit like the Ocean’s Thirteen, but for the poor people.
Classic first-generation room, with a few padlocks and a lot of mechanical puzzles. It is one of the most interesting hint systems I’ve ever seen; every puzzle on our path has a symbol. If you want a hint, instead of yelling at a walkie-talkie or waiting for someone to push a button or write something on the computer, you have a crate with bottles. Quite relevant to the theme, each bottle has an image of a symbol corresponding to a puzzle. If you are stuck, you take out the bottle, look at the back of the label, and get help. Simple but quite effective, very much in the spirit of the theme and the room, sometimes the simplest solutions are the most elegant.
The problems in the room are a few; first, of course – I found a hiding place that I didn’t have to find until we solved a puzzle about how to find it. The hideout opens without any problems; they have to tell me to put everything back and wait for the game to lead me there. This, of course, not only got me out of the game, but it annoyed me a little too; it’s an unfinished design. The second is that the inventory is quite worn out; most of the barrels and objects in the game were used systematically and not with much love. One of the puzzles (it’s an interesting idea, I appreciated it) we solved by chance, there was a lack of information not only what to do, but also how many tries we had (it was a dexterity), communication was through different premises and with a lot of shouting we just somehow came up with the right solution. By the end, we didn’t know if we had solved it or just brute-forced it. It’s not cool.
SPOILER AHEAD: If you have claustrophobia, it’s a good idea to read the text TO THE END. Of course, we often impulsively read the first sentence and move forward, after which we realize that the small text at the end of the page is not only important but should also be capitalized in red letters.
With a little investment for new barrels, better-placed mirrors, and possibly a simple clarifying for logic puzzles, this can be a pretty decent room. In this condition, the best part is that the room has a wonderful-smelling quince brandy, which, unfortunately, is not for drinking (it’s diluted for the purpose of the game). We still had fun, and I remember this room with a wonderful feeling, but rather because of the company, not so much because of the game.
