Review Rundown: One More For The Road
It’s the FINAL Review Rundown of 2021. THREE REVIEWS.
This year has been, well it’s been something.
We initiated the Rundown this year, but somehow it feels longer. We’re going out on a small but sweet edition, with come Christmas Cheer thrown in for good measure. SPOILER ALERT: everybody liked everything.
Check back on Thursday of this week for a double whammy of our Critic’s Picks for 2021 and the podcast that goes alongside those.
More From The Review Crew
- The REVIEW CREW podcast is taking a break, but you’ll hear them on our main show THIS WEEK & NEXT.
- Our most recent edition of the Rundown is right here.
The Club Drosselmeyer Radio Broadcast of 1944 — Green Door Labs, $30 — $45; Remote (web and phone); through 12/31
Christmas really snuck up on me this year. Luckily, The Club Drosselmeyer Radio Broadcast of 1944 was standing by with festive puzzles, puns, and a fast-talking switchboard operator to jumpstart my holiday season. There’s something inherently merry about a madcap radio drama set to a swing-time rendition of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite. And the fact that this show doesn’t rely on Zoom (it’s played through an automated phone tree, paired with online audio) encourages a kind of nostalgia that makes getting into the holiday spirit easier than… well, easier than any of Club Drosselmeyer’s puzzles.
Not that I’d know; I leaned heavily on my cipher-loving friends during our playthrough, preferring to focus on the excellent voice acting and foley work that brought the streets of WWII Boston to life. I did note that everyone in my group was lively and engaged from start to finish; the puzzles seemed to lend themselves well to collaboration. They also didn’t feel shoehorned into the narrative, which zipped along at a decent pace. All that plus a glass of self-supplied holiday punch made me feel like The Club Drosselmeyer Radio Broadcast of 1944 was about as close to a proper holiday party as I’m going to get this year, and that suits me just fine. My group had tuned in to laugh, to be present with each other, and to fulfill our official duties as Radio Club Drosselmeyer Field Agents.
After reaching our story’s thrilling conclusion (one of seven possible outcomes), I’m pleased to report that the mission was a success. There were moments that clanked — I had a hard time distinguishing live telephone interactions from prerecorded prompts, which led to at least one awkward call, and many of the show’s spoken instructions were ambiguously worded and minorly confusing. But none of that caused my group significant frustration. It’s clear that Green Door Labs values learning and iteration, and that each of their experiences will always be a little richer and more intuitive than the one before. This year, my friends and I made it through our run of The Club Drosselmeyer Radio Broadcast of 1944 feeling jolly and bright. For a timed collaborative puzzle game during an otherwise stressful season, that’s a Christmas miracle.
— Leah Davis, New England Correspondent
Ghost Light — Myss Tic Rooms
$35+; Brooklyn, NY; Ongoing
There’s a peculiar sweetness that makes Ghost Light, by Myss Tic rooms of Brooklyn, a standout in the escape room scene. While not the theatrical tearjerker presented by The Man From Beyond, or a 13th Gate style blockbuster, there’s an undeniable charm that makes me rank Ghost Light among some of the best escape rooms. Your party plays substitute stage managers, setting up the theater for the night just as the ghosts of the Ziegfeld girls who used to tread its boards like. Contrary to horror though, the ghosts here take a more ambivalent tone. While perhaps spooky, and occasionally performing minor (if gorgeously executed) feats of magic, they’re spirits of beloved friends from the past, to be respected and remembered.
Puzzles are elegant and all suit the escape room theme beautifully. There are almost no analogue locks, leading to the room having a sense of enchantment as the theatre unfolds. While the first room, a backstage dressing room, might feel chintzy at first, the combination of rooms in the backstage of the theatre lead to a real sense of verisimilitude that suits the room well. As is universal to Myss Tic rooms, clueing is responsive, in character, and fair.
After the battle of wits to get there, the final room gave a real sense of joy and reward not just in a puzzle solved, but of getting to celebrate and toast these ghosts, giving them happy memories of days gone by. By interacting with their belongings, there becomes an inevitable connection to them; you can’t help but know they lived.
Ghost Light fires on all cylinders, and cements Myss Tic as a favorite. While other rooms may have more flash, Myss Tic provides a perfectly balanced combination of puzzles, environmental storytelling, and care.
– Blake Weil, East Coast Curator At Large
Welcome to Meadowlark Falls: The Very Merry Christmas Contest — Tin Can Productions
$75; Remote; Deliveries Concluded
In what is fast becoming a holiday-season tradition, Welcome to Meadowlark Falls is back; this time with The Very Merry Christmas Contest. The format is very similar to last year’s Christmas at Home and features a postal play style show with handcrafted elements paired with audio and video recordings of the residents of the fictional small town Meadowlark Falls.
The Very Merry Christmas Contest trades the packages and letters of Christmas at Home for a 40 page long scrapbook. However, it does not trade any of its Christmas spirit away with the change. Christmas Contest emanates the same warmth and cheer of the previous show while maintaining that handcrafted aesthetic (in what seems like a more sustainable way). I was, once again, shocked, by the tremendous amount of work and writing that Tin Can Productions put into the production of this experience. Seriously, the scrapbook is just packed with articles and recipes and letters that help flesh out the characters and the town.
Christmas Contest is very much a sequel and picks up a year after the events of the previous show, but nothing is too complicated to prevent newcomers from jumping right in. The show throws some predicaments at the residents of Meadowlark Falls as they have to make big decisions about their lives during their Annual Holiday Festival and Top Elf selection. Along the way there’s rom com tropes galore, new layers to old characters, and a hunt for a Christmas cryptid.
This is a delightful addition to the Meadowlark Falls series that once again captures the charm of a holiday movie while maintaining the love and care of a handcrafted Christmas gift.
— Kevin Gossett, LA Reviews Editor
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