To celebrate Merge Mansion’s newest update, which has players entering the Boulton family mansion for the first time, publisher Metacore has turned the Spanish-style venue into an escape room-like experience that takes you from the study to the ballroom and beyond as you decipher clues. It’s also a live-action production with actors playing in-game characters like protagonist Maddie, strobe lights and fog, and at one point, you’re crawling through a false fireplace. As I recount the experience to Pascal, his eyes light up. “Going into one room, and the safe opening, and putting the knife in the bust, and the money coming out of the chimney, and then going down in the kitchen. And the pies,” he smiles, as if salivating on the hopeberry pies that were brought to life from the game. “It’s just delicious.”
