Corrupt Muse

This is a review of Corrupt Muse that was originally created by Dreamland Traveller in Guangzhou. It became an instant hit, which is why Umeplay bought the rights to recreate it. I played a Umeplay version in Shanghai (unlike Heiner’s team that played the original version in Guangzhou) and despite it not being a Umeplay’s original creation, this game fits its original philosophy very well, so I will use this review partly as a way of introducing Umeplay.

Umeplay is a very distinctive company from China with the biggest presence in Shanghai, but they also have branches in multiple other cities. They take the philosophy of designing highly cinematic experiences to the extreme. In their games players have basically zero agency, the whole focus is on cinematics. While in more traditional escape rooms you sometimes experiences some “cutscenes” with actors, you may think of Umeplay games as singular ~1.5h cutscenes. The defining lines of what constitutes an escape room are nowadays quite blurry and their experiences are much more accurately described as cinematic shows/immersive theaters rather than escape rooms, but whatever you decide to call them, they are amazing experiences that multiple escape room fans will be thrilled to play. There is a lot of dialogue by actors, but players are not really expected to interact with them that much – they are more of passive observers than active players. Beware that this type of experience will not be for everybody, but if you appreciate cinematics in the slightest and accurately set your expectations, you will be blown away. Multiple TERPECA winners claim that they want players to feel like they are in a real world movie and Umeplay is the company that decided to take that statement to its limits. For multiple of their games there is even a very nice pre-game touch emphasizing that players are entering their own movie!

The first Umeplay game that I’ve played was Haven. And already at that time I thought that this was clearly the most impressive cinematic performance I’ve ever experienced. And that statement became heavily outdated just two days later, after experiencing Corrupt Muse, which has blown Haven out of the water!

Corrupt Muse takes you on a journey of investigating the whereabouts of a novel writer Will. The last sign from him was a letter he left 3 months ago telling that he’s going to the Red Velvet Hotel to find inspiration for his novel, but the contact with him was lost after that. His novels are not just any novels, but horror novels – does it have anything to do with his disappearance? We are his fans and are worried about him, so we decide to investigate the mysteries of the Red Velvet Hotel.

Look, I’ve played a good share of experiences with cinematics all around the world. Yet, the level of cinematics that Umeplay represents is truly unmatched by anything I’ve ever seen. The set design of all spaces, the lights and sound design are impeccable! The scenes that we witness are terrifying, truly impressive and realized with a great level of professionalism. Even if I had decided to spoil you the experience in the tiniest details, I wouldn’t have been able to convey to you the mastery level that they have achieved, it has to be witnessed with your own eyes.

Multiple Chinese games have convoluted stories and while the story of Corrupt Muse is not among the most intricate, it is still very good and lays a solid foundation for the events happening in the game that develop the narrative in front of our eyes.

As another aspect to spark your curiosity … after playing Haven, when we told our GM that we’re going to play Corrupt Muse in two days, she took out a perfume bottle and told us that we’re going to smell that perfume there. I sprayed it on my wrist and the smell was quite strong, I was sensing it for the next couple hours before I finally washed it off before sleeping. When entering Corrupt Muse two days later, I was not thinking of it at that moment, but when I stepped through its door, I immediately recognized this scent. And let me tell you, it plays a central role in this game! Umeplay even produced that fragrance as a limited merch!

And to answer some inevitable questions. Yes, we did play it in Chinese. We had a Chinese speaking friend translating the actors lines for us that we are grateful for. Yes, while clearly better than not understanding anything, it’s still not ideal and I think that I unfortunately lost a lot by not being able to follow the dialogue and story more accurately. However Chinese games are generally good at conveying the story in front of your eyes. BUT BUT BUT, since the time that I started writing this review, Umeplay dropped a bomb by making all their games available in English through an interpreter service – if you book any game at maximum occupancy you may request an interpreter making it possible for you to play Umeplay games (Chinese games often operate in public booking model, so booking out all slots is necessary). This means Umeplay may even make a splash in the upcoming TERPECAs? Also, I suppose trained interpreters provided by Umeplay will know these games and should be able to provide better translations than any external translators.

And it is not Umeplay only that added the interpreter service – Dreamland Traveller started to offer it as well!

It’s not just that this is the best cinematic performance I’ve experienced to date – in this category I’m not even sure if it’s possible to ever top this.