daniel19

Reviews

Reviews

Neighborhood Watcher

Neighborhood Watcher

The Escape Ventures

  • Escape room
  • IRL
Everything you’ve read is true, it’s one of the best escape rooms in the country, a must for any serious escapist. Unfortunately we had difficulty as a bottleneck button broke, forcing us to pause the game. Then, a flashlight went out, twice. Then we ran into a design that removed, which then changed the intuitive lines of a solution and burned time. Despite all of that, we had the best Game Master we’ve ever met, Elle, and she played a character and interacted in a way that completely kept us immersed despite these pauses/delays. My lord, if you just don’t overthink it, this might be the best flow I’ve ever experienced in a room that kept the creepiness cranked to 9 and the theme deeply disturbing that I’m still thinking about it hours afterward.
Captain Spoopy Bones

Captain Spoopy Bones

Doldrick's Escape Room

  • Escape room
  • IRL
Negatives: it’s marketed as an award winning “comedy room” - there’s no comedy. It’s cute, but it’s a challenging pirate theme. We had a few lock issues, but the staff added time back, and they were kind and courteous with our clues. The room shouldn’t be taken lightly. It’s very challenging and has an extended split-team sequence that if you can’t break free from, could burn up time you’ll definitely need later. There are many puzzles and challenges that 2 experienced escapist can do but 4 would be best. It’s all about communication and teamwork and trust with the extended team split. We solved it with help a little over the time limit.
Outage: No Vacancy

Outage: No Vacancy

The Escape Ventures

  • Escape room
  • IRL
Game Master makes or breaks this room. One of a kind room, very rare, but not particular interesting theme or difficult once you get going, without the gimmick of lights out, it’s a boring theme. If they upped the creepy factor past dirty wall paper and a few creepy crawlers, this could be a special room experience and even more immersive. Elle our GM stayed in character throughout and just gave us subtle nudges. She made the room experience worth talking about. Without her, this was just another room on the belt.
Prison Break

Prison Break

The Escape Game

  • Escape room
  • IRL
First, it was an amazing immersive experience. It truly felt like real cells and real rooms until the common Escape Game fuck up in the last room with multiple same # of digit solution locks. This was soooo good until the last room. Then it fell into this trap and ruined the experience. It also suffered from the too subtle issue on the bookcase. Escape Game and their bookcases…. Be warned. But the first two cells was incredible. Felt like Clint Eastwood in Escape from Alcatraz. Was absolutely exciting and a great teamwork room. Highly recommend.
The Quest

The Quest

Escape Goat

  • Escape room
  • IRL
Here’s my humble opinion of what separates good from great to incredible escape rooms: FLOW. Good ones are thematic and challenging. Great ones are intuitive from A to B to C with blending into the theme. Incredible rooms put you in the EXACT plotline and order the room wants you to go, enhancing the plot, which nudgestt you in the right solution direction without needing a clue. This falls between good and great. All the puzzles were thematic and difficult, all the mechanisms and tech were seamless, but it wasn’t clear where to begin or go next. Each of the 4 orbs seemingly were isolated from each other (probably for groups to work separately) but it wasn’t clear what order you needed to solve the leftover lockboxes and mech. The last orb box order wasn’t intuitive, until the game master gave clues, which was frustrating to need that so close to the end because there were three areas where design impeded the escapist and burned unnecessary time. The artifact map, the fire box and the swords. I’d HIGHLY recommend this room for novice groups of 2-4, but a solo player has to be very fast, very experienced and guess-right-the-first-time-lucky to finish the room in time. While that seems negative, the props, plot, design, character, theme, and mech were incredible. I’d play it again with first timers. Loved it.
Strange Magic

Strange Magic

Mind Masters

  • Escape room
  • IRL
Here’s my humble opinion of what separates good from great to incredible escape rooms: FLOW. Good ones are thematic and challenging. Great ones are intuitive from A to B to C with tech blending into the theme. Incredible rooms put you in the EXACT plotline and order the room wants you to go, enhancing the plot, which nudges you in the right solution direction without needing a clue. This falls between great and incredible. All the puzzles were thematic and difficult, all the mechanisms and tech were seamless, but two important bottleneck clues were too subtle to get without a hint, which was unfortunate. There was a “triggering” device that was used 3/4 times throughout the game, which makes thematic sense and was great subtle tech/mech. However, the correct way to use it was so subtle that only the luckiest/most astute escapists/hint would get how sensitive it was and even when I figured it out, it didn’t necessarily work the first time. Unfortunately the most complex solution came near the end and required 3/4 layers of data analysis to grasp without a hint, and even then, it sucks up a huge amount of time for a solo player. The room is better served by 2, but no more than 3. Other than the subtle solutions, the mech/tech was seamless and the staff are passionate and spent over an hour with me after the game talking shop and showing me insights to the design. Loved them, loved the room, and here’s to more soon.
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