The Lost Temple

Review

Game Description

“It’s the 1930’s and there are rumors of an ancient temple hidden deep beneath campus. Your favorite professor has long studied the temple, but now he’s gone missing. Do you have what it takes to beat the challenges of the lost temple and save the world?”

Personal Experience

This was a lot of fun! CU Adventures took the already fun Office Hours and made it even better, using all of the lessons they learned in their first year in business. Despite having the same story and theme as Office Hours, they managed to create all new puzzles in the experience. So while things like the basement were no longer a surprise, there were all sorts of new things to discover throughout.

We were making great time in the beginning, but we got stuck on a puzzle halfway through (totally my fault) and didn’t make it to the secret ending in time to try it. That said, the world was still saved, so mission accomplished!

Narrative

The story was familiar as we had already ran through it before, but it was still excellent. In addition to the spectral professor, they added a talking skull to interact with during the course of the adventure. As with all CU Adventure rooms, the objective wasn’t to escape the room (their rooms are always unlocked) but to save the world.

Puzzle Play

The puzzles were well-developed and fair. There was surprisingly no re-used puzzles from the first incarnation of the game, which was very impressive. There were still props in the room from that first game, which occasionally acted as a red-herring to those of us that had played through it before.

The puzzle I got stuck on involved arranging wood blocks to form numbers for a padlock. It was much easier than I managed to make it. But, that’s why it’s always good to go in with a diverse group.

Recommendation

This room was shut down and replaced with the internationally acclaimed at-home game Lost Temple (At Home Edition) in 2020. It’s a very good game, you should play it.