Locked In: Sub-Agents review

The game starts with a video, where a man with a blurred out face gives us a brief of our mission. We have been hired to try and find the group that has threatened the lives of civilians. Our job is to stop them and save the world. After the clip, we’re given case files to investigate to be able to track down the suspects and prevent the tragedy from happening. The game keeps to the theme well, especially during the first stages as the stories all link back to the brief with the latter stages being more about the prevention. Unfortunately I can’t go into too much detail as it may spoil your game play.

Sub-Agents is an online spy-themed game from the Folkestone-based escape room company Locked In. There’s a vague premise that involves the UK security service needing our puzzling expertise to help save millions of lives. We’re given a little intelligence to study, a couple of videos to watch, and puzzles that all link to the secret agent plot. They culminate in a final game that puts our skills to the test to avoid disaster. The website design and graphics are a bit basic, but everything works well, which is the main thing. There isn’t much of a story, but the puzzles are all themed to the spy genre.

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The puzzles were linear, so you had to complete the stages in order. The online game wasn’t the most high-tech one I’d seen, but it was good enough that you could type codes in, the imagery was clear and the site enabled you to move objects around. Each section seemed to grow in difficulty, with the first half involving deciphering of text and images, and the latter stages where maths and logic problem skills were your best tool.

There didn’t seem to be many puzzles in the game, however as mentioned, the puzzle difficulty seemed to get more complex as the game went on. We took at least 30 minutes on the penultimate challenge! I feel we messed up our gameplay by all of us having a login to work through the challenges. This prevented team play and encouraged individual advancement without your team knowing what you did. I think it would be better for others who want to play in a team to share the one login.

The logic puzzles involve investigating, map reading, decoding and spatial awareness. A couple of them really got our brains working. We found the final game particularly tricky, taking quite a few attempts until Bharath eventually divined the correct solution. We managed to solve one puzzle a different way to the one intended, which confused us for a bit as we were left with codes that we didn’t use. If you get stuck, there are 3 levels of audio clues from ‘Cluerissa’ available for each puzzle. At the completion of the game, you’re informed how long you took and how many clues you needed. We took just over 80 minutes, not needing any clues.

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I didn’t leave this game feeling wowed or full of enjoyment. I don’t think this is the creators fault, but more of a personal issue. I think it was due to all of us having our own login that we may as well have played alone. I personally found the maths/logic puzzles at the end particularly hard, so I feel I zoned out and waited for the other goats to solve them. For those that play this game, I feel you either play alone or share the screen as a team to get the most out of this challenge.

Although the design and theming were lacking slightly, the main event – the puzzles – were decent and included some different ideas. They put our brains to the test and I enjoyed the challenge of working through them.

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At £15 per team this is at the lower price for an online challenge. It may not be the most advanced online game we’ve played, but for the price you have to give the creators credit for their efforts. For me, I think I would sell this as a solo game as it’s very hard to solve logic problems as a team.

Sub-Agents costs £15 per team, which is the upper average for this sort of game. Locked In state it will take 1-3 hours to complete, but realistically it will take 1-2 hours, depending on your skill level. Bear in mind you have 48 hours to complete your mission once you’ve started it. This might not be a standout game, but if you’re looking for logic puzzles, these ones should satisfy your itch.

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