
richardherrera
83 escape rooms
Heavily overrated room. Our whole group of enthusiasts agreed. The good news is that the setting and production design are amazing. Top marks for that. The rest of the experience left a lot to be desired. The puzzle flow was..... woof! Puzzles and clues did not connect to each other in any kind of sensical, narrative driven way. We finished one of the early major puzzles completely by accident. Another puzzle, which seemed like a central set-piece to the room, merely resulted in a basic clue for a puzzle we already completed. And don't get me started on the Red Herrings. So. Many. Red. Herrings. And things you accomplished but the room doesn't let you know that you have. Oh, and do you like puzzles where after you solve it, you have to wait 2 minutes to get the result? I'm not kidding, after you solve one centerpiece puzzle, you *literally* have to wait 2 minutes before you get the information from that solution. If there was other stuff you could do during that time, great! But we'd already done everything else, so we were actually just standing around waiting for two minutes. It's a shame that in such an immersively set-designed room, we were left feeling bored and confused most of the time. But that wasn't even the worst part. The worst part is that, in our opinion, our time was cut artificially short by the GM, and we lost the game. With no clock in the room, our time "ran out" right at 3pm on a 2pm reservation, even though the GM started our game at about 2:10. We had arrived a few minutes before our start time. Finished the wavers before our start time. The GM disappeared to finish resetting the room. I used the bathroom. After, we were still waiting on the GM to finish resetting. Finally, about 10 minutes after the hour, the GM let us in and gave us the spiel. She was good at this to be fair. And then our experience ended *exactly* at 3pm, 50 minutes in, and we failed the game with a couple puzzles to go. Frustrated, we called them out on this. Upon realizing they may have messed up, they offered us free sodas. Sweet. I guess that's what tipping them on top of the booking price prior to the experience got us. Look, I don't want to fully bad mouth this room, because there are plenty of awesome qualities about it. But overall, as escape room enthusiasts who have done many, many rooms, this was one of the more disappointing rooms we've experience.
Gameplay
Rough. Real rough. Utterly nonsensical puzzle flow. We finished things by accident. Finished puzzles that provided clues to other puzzles we'd already finished. Red herrings galore. Non-narrative driven, random puzzles. No flow. No sense of building. Just random junk. Not fun.
Atmosphere
A+. Fantastic production design. Just wished the puzzle flow matched it.
Customer service
Meh. The girl was nice, but in our opinion, cheated us of a full hour long escape room. With no clock in the room, our time "ran out" right at 3pm on a 2pm reservation, even though the GM started our game at about 2:10. We had arrived a few minutes before our start time. Finished the wavers before our start time. The GM disappeared to finish resetting the room. I used the bathroom. After, we were still waiting on the GM to finish resetting. Finally, about 10 minutes after the hour, the GM let us in and gave us the spiel. She was good at this to be fair. And then our experience ended *exactly* at 3pm, 50 minutes in, and we failed the game with a couple puzzles to go. Frustrated, we called them out on this. Upon realizing they may have messed up, they offered us free sodas. Sweet. I guess that's what tipping them on top of the booking price prior to the experience got us.
Particularly interesting or different
Yes
Despite not liking this room overall, yes, there were some awesome elements to it. Without spoiling, a dark hallway, a room with powder, being able to physically alter the space, there were some truly awesome moments. I just wish it made more sense.
Story
Wait, there was a story? Yeah, I guess there was a decent setup from the GM, but what happened after? no idea.
Difficulty
Expert
Well, as enthusiasts who have done about 100 rooms each, we failed. So hopefully that tells you what you need to know.
Game tech
Mechanical
Ideal number of players
6
Scary
Spooky
There's one section that's dark and a little spooky, but nothing overtly horror-related.
Minimum age
16
There are some very adult themes in this room. We loved it, but it could be severely inappropriate for kids.
Was anything broken?
No
Live actors
No
Physically active
Very
A lot of moving back and forth through the space! It sounds like it would be fun, but it wasn't.
Easy to find location
Yes
Parking
Easy