#nomis piy

[s-capegoats]

Nomis Piy - Enigma: Quest For The Code Book

Date: 27th May 2017 Players: Apple, BHox, Chuck

It’s good to be back, and what better way than to play Nomis Piy’s awesome events?

Most of our currently limited presence in Singapore attempted Nomis Piy’s latest game. We thought we might struggle a little with only three players, but as it turned out that wasn’t quite an issue.

Nomis Piy changed their game format slightly for this session, with no team tables and more of a runaround style instead, which was refreshing. Without tables, they also made their puzzles conveniently require smaller amounts of writing. There were also multiple (actual proper) rooms in play this time, making things all the more interesting. This brought about much greater potential for storyline immersion and integration of the environment, and it was done very impressively (two separately-themed military bases, infiltration, and more!).

As was expected, the puzzles were creatively put together, intuitive and all-around pretty high-quality. The structure this time was more linear than usual (quite possibly due to the multi-room aspect) (it probably benefits smaller teams like ours), but that made for a steady sense of progress. Despite the linearity there were still a reasonable total number of puzzles, which meant the structure was much deeper and less wide than Nomis Piy’s usual style.

Overall, the event was very enjoyable, and in fact the small team may have helped in the sense that we were kept constantly engaged with puzzles to solve. In closing, Nomis Piy have suggested that they will be moving towards a different sort of event format in the future, and I’m certainly looking forward to that.

-xTheBHox

Rating:

Difficulty - Low-Med-High Enjoyment - Low-Med-High

If organised again: Strongly Recommended

[s-capegoats]

Nomis Piy - The Triads

Date: 3rd September 2016 Players: Apple, Garflow, jonger, Midori, Slow, xtanha1rrmx

What would you do if time went backwards, and you started to retrace all the footprints in your life? Would you do things exactly the same way in reverse? It’s been a while, but this week we’ve got a (rather late) review of Nomis Piy’s The Triads! It’s a race against time to defuse the bomb that has been planted, and as with all other Nomis events, holds to a high standard of gameplay both in immersion and difficulty.

As to be expected of any Nomis event, the puzzles presented were by no means straightforward, and required a fair amount of critical thinking and (no spoiler) constant referral to earlier puzzles was required. It’s set in the same room as the more recent events, but as always there is a clever use of space to accommodate the story that presents a fairly realistic picture of the situation.

The puzzles in particular were, personally, not as complicated as previous events, however they still held to a high standard, and were by no means simple or easy. As always, they were excellently weaved together, and let’s just say that there was *special* attention paid to the distribution of puzzles as well. There was only one minor gripe we had with the puzzle which came at the final stage, which was a slightly misleading clue. When we asked about it, however, there was no thought given to the specific aspect of the clue we found misleading, and it was a case of us thinking too much about it, unfortunately.

Of course, it was somewhat disappointing to falter at this final stage, but it was still an enjoyable experience nonetheless, and as with other Nomis events, this still gets a high recommendation simply by virtue of being unique in its ability to blend puzzle and atmosphere together into a small room without feeling claustrophobic.

-Garflow

Rating:

Difficulty - Low-Med-High Enjoyment - Low-Med-High

If organised again: Strongly Recommended

[s-capegoats]

Nomis Piy - Murder on the Blue Atlantis

Date: 19th March 2016 Players: Apple, BHox, Elurion, Garflow, Jels, jonger

This round of Nomis Piy’s escape game was no less engaging then the first two. There was good use of the place, and greater utilisation of on-location puzzles than simple paper puzzles. In a similar fashion, there was the initial flood of simple puzzles, more than one metapuzzle (on the same set of answers!) and then a converging chain of puzzles leading you to the final answer.

What was interesting this time, however, was that there was a side-quest which necessitated devoting quite some time away from the main puzzles, and not only after you were done with the main puzzles. In fact, it was a timed puzzle, and the first set of very important clues were only present for the first twenty minutes. The clues were then swapped out for another set lasting another twenty minutes, followed by a third set and then a final set. In other words, wait too long to start on the side-quest and you will end up missing key clues to the answer.

It certainly is a very interesting trade-off - while you’ll have time to solve it once you’re done with the rest of the stuff, it’s much more difficult; and if you start early, you lose time on the main puzzles. The side-quest gives a nice background to the game and completes the story for you. In fact, I can’t quite remember the main story-line now, only the side-quest.

Also, this time the first meta was fairly solvable without finishing the underlying puzzles, which I suppose is unavoidable at times but it was slightly disappointing. This round was also more ‘sneaky’ which is always interesting, with quite a number of red herrings.

Logistics-wise, there were no problems. The game ran pretty smoothly. I guess the experience counts very much! Atmosphere-wise, I don’t suppose too much was necessary, but the increased use of sub-rooms and the major props like the bed or the typewriter did make a big difference to the sense of a ‘ship’. And of course, we had Nomis Piy was playing as the ship’s captain and involved as a puzzle too, which was cool!

Nomis Piy will also be organising another event very soon. Look out for it!

-xTheBHox

Rating:

Difficulty - Low-Med-High Enjoyment - Low-Med-High

If organised again: Strongly Recommended

[s-capegoats]

Nomis Piy - The Abandoned Chapel

Date: 28th November 2015 Players: Apple, BHox, Garflow, Jels, jonger, Slow

Last Saturday we set aside some of our time to pay a visit to The Abandoned Chapel, an event organized by Nomis Piy. The story this time focused on the main protagonist (a.k.a. YOU) visiting a chapel to try find the secret behind your supposed frequent visits, and it is revealed at the end of the game. But not before getting trapped by your arch nemesis (a.k.a. Nomis Piy) inside the chapel which he will blow up in 70 minutes.

In a similar fashion to Meltdown, Nomis Piy’s previous event, the puzzles involved were interesting, intuitive, and most importantly, intricately woven together with the story-line in order to enhance the theme as a whole. Of course, no two events are exactly the same, and differences include the larger room, making it easier to maneuver about, and also accommodate more teams than its predecessor.

Touching on my earlier reference to the puzzles, they followed the “meta-puzzle” style as most events do, but improved on it even further by linking next-tier puzzles with those of the earlier tiers, meaning that a puzzle you used to solve one part of the initial meta may be used multiple times throughout the game. The result is that it forces players to actually solve all the first stage puzzles, not because the game master won’t give you the next clue if you don’t, but because you won’t actually be able to solve the following puzzles if you don’t.

Another contrast to the previous event comes in the form of the puzzle solving method itself. In our review of Meltdown, you may (or may not) recall that we mentioned “a severe lack of tedious puzzles”. No such comment will be made this time! Of course, most of the puzzles were still the observation-intuition kind, but there was a puzzle that required a bit more tedious work. It’s great because it kept us engaged! There was really very little downtime just staring at puzzles. Don’t be surprised if you happen to see such things again the next round, should you decide to participate. (And you should!)

Finally, the biggest downside for me personally was the backstory. Don’t get me wrong though, while the atmosphere, puzzles, and “lost story revealed at the end” held true to the theme in magnificent ways, I wasn’t entirely convinced by the whole “arch-nemesis trapping you inside the chapel to blow both of you up” theme, as it held no merit at the end (which ironically, seems strikingly similar to the first event. Hmm…). But then again, it served as a convenient excuse for giving you a time limit I suppose.

That aside, I can safely say that my whole team definitely enjoyed the event, as it wowed us with it’s design creativity yet again. I would definitely rate this one as one of the more enjoyable escape events I’ve been to yet, so if you decide you’d like a go at Nomis Piy’s escape events, do watch our space (or theirs, if you so prefer) for any updates! They will probably be organising one early next year.

~SLow~

Rating:

Difficulty - Low-Med-High Enjoyment - Low-Med-High

If organised again: Strongly Recommended

[s-capegoats]

Nomis Piy - Meltdown Escape

Date: 25th July 2015 Players: Apple, BHox, Jels, jonger, Slow, xtanha1rrmx

Meltdown Escape was an escape event organised by Nomis Piy and a small group over several time slots on a single day. We weren’t sure what to expect from this event, whether it would play as a room-based event similar to The Dormitory, or as a puzzle-based REG style event. As it turns out, the event felt very similar in style to the older editions of REGs such as Haunted Ship and Moon Base.

The event was held inside a small seminar room, with puzzle boards lining the four walls inside the room, as well as individual puzzle and answer sheets given to each participant. Fully coloured, the boards looked pretty good in comparison to the plain REG boards we’ve seen before, with great attention to detail put in. The event followed the style of multiple short, easier puzzles converging into a linear series of puzzles at the end, with an ‘optional’ side puzzle. Similar to REG, many puzzles were visual in nature and required good observation and intuition to solve them.

The puzzles were also very thematic - almost overbearingly, in fact - and it is much appreciated. However, one suggestion for improvement would be that the backstory could be something more convincing that the typical ‘guy who likes to sabotage infrastructure but leaves puzzles to test you’ excuse. I’d think that even the recently overused ‘this is a false alarm meant to test you’ not-so-twist at the end would be more believable.

There was also a severe lack of tedious puzzles. Most could be solved within a minute or two, if not less, once you picked up the idea and only if you did. It’s definitely commendable and it’s no simple feat, and it’s far better than having a lot of tedious puzzles. However, I think it gives rise to a little too much downtime and generally puts the less-experienced players in a team at a major disadvantage. A single ‘work-required’ puzzle will probably be able to negate said downtime and offer these players a sense of contribution.

The only real complaint would be a lack of floor space for the event. There was some setup of tables at the front of the room to represent different places within the nuclear reactor, but it felt cramped compared to REG, which usually has separate rooms or at least different corners of the rooms. The room was fairly chaotic throughout the hour, with over thirty people clamoring over each other to look at the puzzles within the confined space, and it was difficult to discuss puzzles openly without someone else overhearing it.

Nonetheless, it did give a somewhat cozy feeling, and meant that you didn’t have to rush around the hall like you usually would in REG. You could, pretty much, sit at your desk and look at the posters, although everyone feels the need to be thorough and moves closer anyway.

Overall, we were extremely impressed with the overall design and quality of this event, and look forward to future events. It is encouraging to have independent groups organizing such events, and hopefully we will be able to see more frequent escape events in Singapore throughout the year.

-xtanha1rrmx

Rating:

Difficulty - Low-Med-High Enjoyment - Low-Med-High

If organised again: Strongly Recommended