Escape The Museum

The story's boring and consists mainly of filler. You're constantly getting scenes where someone says "Help is on the way" or "I hope everyone's alright". The hidden object parts get very difficult: everything's cluttered and the items are either small or blend into the background so well you won't see them unless you already know they're there. In the minigame where you need to assemble paintings the pieces are sometimes so miniscule it honestly feels like you're being trolled. First time playthrough: 2 hours 6 minutes 4/10

It's very fun, and 'finding games' aren't very common anymore. I'd recommend this to anyone who wants a nice puzzle game that isn't too stupidly complicated. Also, this was my childhood back in the day and I just had to play it again- so here we are.

I'm going to have to agree with many. It was a part of my childhood but it has aged extremely poorly.

This is a good game for those days you have problems to sleep.

I used to play this game on my dad's old PC (that no longer exists) when I was a kid [i]a lot[/i]. I mean, I even got to the point where I remembered each room by heart, what to do, where all the hidden objects are located. I loved it. So when I discovered that this game was available on Steam I wanted to relive the experience. Note that I wasn't oblivious to the fact that it has "Mostly Negative" ratings, and after reading the reviews I understood why and they were valid. So I waited 'til sale to get it (as I do with all other non-free games I have on Steam). Now for my review for Escape the Museum... You probably saw the trailer. It's a hidden-object game where you play as a mother trying to navigate through a series of museum rooms/areas to reach her daughter, who is alone on the other side of the museum, after an earthquake blocked out a large number of passageways between rooms. Each room in the game can, generally speaking, be divided into two types: "blocked" rooms and "hidden object" rooms. The blocked rooms are like those seen in the first portion of the trailer. The exit to the room is blocked in some way, for example, a locked door or an obstruction, and you need to do some solving by finding and manipulating objects to unblock the exit. These rooms are my favorite type between the two. Some rooms are not blocked. Instead, the museum's curator wants you to save his "artifacts" (some of them are just everyday objects like matchboxes and dice... how can these be worth thousands?) scattered around the room by collecting them in the more traditional hidden-object gameplay. It's a nice mix between two different play styles. In addition to these kinds of rooms, every now and then you get "minigames" which when completed unlock new "versions" of previously-completed rooms, where you are tasked with finding [i]even more[/i] hidden objects... Overall there are a large number of rooms, which offers a good amount of playtime. Voice acting is nice, music is okay, plot/story is okay, though I don't really understand the curator's mentality, like... prioritizing the museum's artifacts (most of which would realistically be worth a dollar or two) over a family's safety? Clearly my little self didn't really care about the logic, nor paid attention to the story/dialogue. As some reviewers have pointed out, the graphics are low resolution, though I can see most hidden objects fine even with that. However, I have a problem with hiding some objects in [i]really dark[/i] places or worse, partially [i]behind the user interface[/i]. Just... why? At least it's great that the cursor pulsates when you hover over a listed object. But the biggest issue I have is the game's window screen which is only 800 x 600 px, and there doesn't seem to be a way to enter fullscreen mode on my PC, even when I set the display resolution to 800 x 600 (just displays an error saying "couldn't find a working resolution for this PC" or something along those lines). I don't recall this being a problem when playing it years ago. So I had to play this game in windowed mode which really detracted from my experience with it. It's also fairly laggy; my computer does better on high-end games like Portal/2. Another thing I dislike is the inability to replay previously-completed rooms/versions of rooms. I get that doing so wouldn't make sense story-wise, but c'mon, even popular games like Super Mario platformers give you this option. So if I want to replay a level late in the game, I need to create a new profile and play through [i]all[/i] levels leading up to it. Which could take a while... I'm happy to be able to play a game I was once fond of. However, I understand that not everyone experiences nostalgia with this game, so I will vote from a neutral viewpoint: I unfortunately will not recommend this game due to the display/resolution/object placement issues. Games of this genre really should not have these problems; it's a huge inconvenience. If you're a fan of hidden-object games, then maybe you'll enjoy it.

Great game I played when I was younger. I can understand peoples frustrations with everything being hard to see because of the resolution. The game is old... back then, the image quality in this game was pretty darn good. Also monitors back then were nothing like they are now. Had fond memories of this game back then and was able to make new memories playing it all over again. For sure recommend to anyone.

Loved this! I already owned Escape the Museum 2. So naturally when I saw #1 on Steam, I bought it. The story line in #1 about the family and the earthquake is the flip side of the story line in #2. BTW, any employer who would send an employee back into a falling down building to rescue items (like a bowling pin) needs to be fired, LOL. It's a fun game with great family values. I read a lot of neg reviews due to dark, hard-to-see graphics. Here's what I did: Graphics: I increased the contrast to 50 through my Intel Graphics Command Center. This may be in a different place in your pc. I changed the display resolution to 800 x 600.

First played this when I was very young, around 9 at the time. I thought of it recently and looked it up, and here it is on Steam. I bought it for 49 cents and played it and ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ has it aged like milk. I can still enjoy it though.