If you click on a link and make a purchase we may receive a small commission. Read our editorial policy.

Escape from the Two Base Stations gives you and a friend a home escape room to play over video call

Poles apart.

A new home escape room game lets you and a friend solve puzzles together without ever being in the same room.

Escape from the Two Base Stations includes two “game kits” - one of which you keep for yourself, the other designed to be sent to a friend, family member or whomever your fellow puzzler of choice may be.

The physical kits - comprising a number of envelopes, including a spare one to post the kit in - are labelled North Pole and South Pole, and include unique information and contents that the players must use to solve a shared mystery. The game’s story sees the players investigating a secret organisation’s communication bases at their respective polar regions, attempting to halt the development of a powerful weapon.

The game was specifically designed to be played over video call apps such as Zoom and Skype, with the two players communicating and sharing their unique information over text, voice and video. Unable to show each other their respective manuals directly, the players must combine their available information to escape from the bases. Unlike many other escape rooms, there is no time limit to the experience, which is estimated to last between one and two hours.

Watch on YouTube

Escape from the Two Base Stations was originally released in Japan, where it was created in collaboration between Scrap, a company specialising in real-life escape rooms - including puzzles inspired by anime Evangelion and video game series Metal Gear Solid - and Shigeo Takahashi, half of observational comedy duo Savanna. Scrap says that over 30,000 players have played the game since release.

The English version of the game is available now via Amazon US, where it costs $37.13. The Japanese-language version costs the same, but isn’t compatible with the English translation.

Dicebreaker is the home for friendly board game lovers

We welcome board gamers of all levels, so sign in and join our community!

Related topics
About the Author
Matt Jarvis avatar

Matt Jarvis

Editor-in-chief

After starting his career writing about music, films and video games for various places, Matt spent many years as a technology, PC and video game journalist before writing about tabletop games as the editor of Tabletop Gaming magazine. He joined Dicebreaker as editor-in-chief in 2019, and has been trying to convince the rest of the team to play Diplomacy since.

Comments