Your aunt had left an inheritance on your name at the 44 winter wood lane. But before finding out its location, can you find the reason behind her daughter’s death?

Mass Escape

44 Winterwood Lane

Escape room

This likely was a decent room at one point, but it hasn't aged well. And a lot depends on the game master.  The room has some unique elements (or at least less common ones), such as the remaining time is shown in Candles (each set of candles is 5 minutes, though we didn't find that out until after the game ended so we had no idea how much time was left).  The GM talks to you as a ghostly voice through the radio (seen this before and even walkie talkies but less common). The problem with out GM was she was more focused on her characters ghostly voice than actually making sure she could be heard, which lead to multiple and frequent requests for her to repeat something (often 3-5 times) because she was too quiet.  Hints would be for the final puzzle with the table when we weren't even close to that point. And didn't seem to be paying attention to our game as when we would ask a question, we would often need to repeat it as apparently, she hadn't been listening/watching. No time warnings were given. No hints when struggling or focusing on a puzzle impossible to complete yet. Generally, lead to a less enjoyable experience. 

We did this room as two people, which is apparently not ideal, as one "puzzle" requires three people to touch objects at the same time, and the GM was more than happy to let us try to figure out how to do it without getting 10 foot arms. Apparently, the solution was to ask for help from "the spirits" aka the GM.  None of the other puzzles require even two people to accomplish, and none are particularly hard. The difficulty is in vague riddles and flooding you with clues for add-on puzzles or the final puzzles early in the game. Most of the puzzles are pretty serial and can't be done out of order, so having a very large group might help with people noticing more things it doesn't mean you can work on more than one puzzle at once as you will often be missing a critical object until the end. 

This would be fine except several things in the room simply haven't been maintained. A couple of the locks had the numbers mostly worn off making them hard to see (even in good light which the game doesn't have to set the mood). You need to place laminated cards in slots, except the lamination in pealing making it difficult to do. Another puzzle has a video of a girl showing you what to do. Once you do it the video changes to her dropping a key, though at least in our case the key didn't actually fall to the ground for several minutes afterwards. A key doll needed for a final puzzle needs to be identified, one of the main ways is how she looks but the doll is falling apart (the hair completely fell off leaving a hole in the head when we picked it up by its body). 

Other frustrations were do not touch stickers on items you need to interact with (you can interact without physically touching them but it definitely leads to some confusion). Needing to turn off lights in a room but there are no light controls in that room (perhaps not the best puzzle for the room then if you don't want to use a lamp instead of overhead lights). One solution involves measurements but doesn't state which format to use (ie. inches, feet and inches, cm, meters, etc). 

Overall, all I am more disappointed as I probably should be. The game is older and showing its age. Not all GMs are created equal and are only human. My disappointment more comes from how many other Escape room GMs told me about this company, and I just didn't really enjoy it. Perhaps another game of theirs would have been better or had I gone years ago, or maybe it was just an off day. I fully admit that I wasn't fully on my game that day. And I have no issues losing a game (this was not the first and definitely not the last), but when I lose and the puzzles are pretty easy and its just a weird order, things don't work, and the general feeling the GM is paying more attention to their phone than you just makes it feel like a waste of money (especially after an hour drive). There are some places where I enjoyed a game so much I stayed and did another (especially when they are a distance away), this was not one of them.

The theming and story are great, there are some exciting elements, the story is quirky!

This is my favorite from mass escape. Creepy dolls, creepy room? Count me in. Puzzle were excellently made and executed. One of my all time faves

My first spooky game experience and I’m so glad it was with Mass Escape. This was frightfully fun and immersive. My team and I enjoyed the decor, the puzzles, and the thought that went into the theme. Well done.

An exceptional and spooky escape room experience! Features original and logical puzzles that all stay within theme and make sense within the narrative. Bonus puzzles help to keep even the most advanced players challenged to the end. One of my all-time favorites.

44 Winterwood Lane

Mass Escape

Ratings

Reviews

barbara45

erikajenkins

Gameplay

yhopkins

watsonmichael

tbailey

Editorial

ESCAPETHEROOMers