The City of Ashes

The room was heavily influenced by silent hill. Horror themed and immersive. That was good. However, gameplay wise the game was bad - the game master had to enter the room 3 times because of malfunctions or badly designed tasks. Also- there was no timer in the room so you were basically clueless of how much time had elapsed. Ultimately it did not live up to expectations.

I should preface this by saying I have never done an in-person horror experience before (i.e. a haunted house), but I also am someone who finds horror movies silly and funny. BUT….this room truly terrified me. I guess in that sense you could call it extremely effective for scaring the crap out of you. It’s a surprisingly long room, and the ambience is creepy as heck, and we were jump scared more than once. This room is not for the faint of heart I suspect the puzzles would have came to us more easily if we weren’t so affected by the horror atmosphere. So in that sense it felt quite difficult. The theme is Silent Hill - ish, and there were many moments where we came to and realized our pace was slower than usual, because we literally would tip toe towards the next thing with actual trepidation. Game master was super helpful, and nice! There was one puzzle he had to coach us through, but I don’t think we would have arrived at the mechanics of it, especially in the dark. I’m glad I did this room, but I’m feeling like horror escape rooms won’t be my go-to going forward

It was an easy to solve room that had a spooky atmosphere. We only asked for 1 clue - because the sound box wasn’t working - but they blamed it on our lack of experience with stethoscopes and not putting it over the sound box (which we did). I found the puzzles to be easy to solve, but the game flowed well.

I will be honest. I personally did not enjoy this game, but also, I do not enjoy horror stuff in general. The set was amazing, but it was really creepy and unsettling. I just felt uncomfortable the entire time which I think was the purpose of the room. The clues were quite difficult and much of the room was done in the dark (another aspect I don’t enjoy). I can see why and how others might enjoy the game, but it wasn’t for me personally. But if you love a horror theme, def check this room out. It has some really cool concepts. Good to do with a few people - def would not recommend for a 2 person group.