danielbowman
9 escape rooms
The facility is a little hard to find, in a one-way street accessible through a neighborhood and hidden in the back of a house-turned-business-park. They let you in 5 minutes before your start time, and if you haven't done waivers you will need to fill them out quickly while rules are being given (which I disliked, as I hadn't been sent a waiver by my group organizer and could not focus on both the rules and the waiver, and I missed some of the room details). The room itself was fun. The GM had a character and engaged with us in an immersive manner. There were a fair number of padlocks, unfortunately, but also some more unique puzzles, including several cool alchemy puzzles and a twist on a common code puzzle I quite enjoyed.The room was linear, but also fairly challenging, as we had a group of 8 and only about 3 minutes left when we succeeded. I liked the in-character hint system as well. The GM took a photo with one of our devices, and told us our official time, but those details were not sent to us afterwards.
Gameplay
Flow was pretty good, but the first puzzle can be unintuitive to figure out if you missed some of the intro while doing waivers.
Atmosphere
Most of the room was immersive, but there is only so much you can do to disguise that this was once a living room.
Customer service
The GM was fun, engaging, and did some good character work.
Particularly interesting or different
Yes
Some puzzles I had not encountered, and a twist on a more classical code puzzle that I really liked.
Story
The plot was simple, but the majority of puzzles matched.
Difficulty
Hard
Without hints we wouldn't have made it.
Game tech
Mechanical
There are a couple of Gen-2 puzzles, and some chemistry puzzles as well.
Ideal number of players
8
Barely made it with 8 (though several were first-timers)
Scary
Not scary
Minimum age
14
Chemistry puzzles best done by adults, and a couple of things require some reaching that a small child could not do.
Was anything broken?
No
Live actors
No
The intro and success are done in-character, but there are no actors in-room during play.
Physically active
Not at all
Accessibility
There is one section that requires stepping over a 1-foot-tall divider. A couple of puzzles require crouching. Good eyesight is fairly important here. Reading comprehension is mildly necessary. A steady hand is strongly recommended. Groups must be able to hear to get clues, and able to speak to solve at least one puzzle.
Easy to find location
No
Use your GPS, trust me.
Parking
Medium
There were enough spots for our vehicles, but if another game or the other businesses there needed the spots it might have been problematic.
