Lab Of The Lost

I am sorry to have to say this, but this is a bad room, and I would not recommend it. My friend and I did it on a whim after a Cubs game since it was in the neighborhood. We just walked up and they graciously allowed us to play without a reservation. My feedback: The set design is so-so at best. Overall it's pretty cheap looking. There's some video content which is nice, but the volume was turned down so low we had to really lean in to hear it. The hint system is walkie talkies. Walkie talkies are a bad hint system. I should be able to talk and the GM hear me. At one point we did ask for a hint, and the GM basically gave us the answer to one of the puzzles. That's not much of a hint, but it was near the end of the game so didn't matter much anyway. The main lab puzzle is ridiculously involved, unclear, and tedious. It's not fun. There's crawling involved, which is OK. But once we crawl through, we should be able to unlock the door to where we are instead of having us crawl back and forth a bunch of times. Crawling once is fun. Crawling 5 times isn't fun. The tech on the last puzzle we were on didn't work. The GM said if we'd had more time, he would've seen it didn't work and reset it. Why didn't he reset it before we ever started then? The puzzle itself was pretty weak, too. There's another puzzle which basically requires no skill or thinking at all--I don't want to say more because of spoilers but there's not much to spoil. The game requires using a dry erase marker for keeping track of stuff. Our dry erase marker didn't work. We asked for a new one. The new one ALSO didn't work. GMs need to check the dry erase marker with every reset and definitely check a replacement marker before bringing it in. You would've thought that they would give us a few extra minutes when time ran out since we had to wait on the replacement dry erase markers (and crawl back to get them each time), but nope, as soon as time was up, the GM came in the room to tell us we'd failed. Our GM also did a very poor job of explaining the remaining puzzles left when we ran out of time. We did the room with 2 people, which is of course a low number and adds difficulty, but the room is almost entirely linear so I don't think more people would've made much difference. Of all the puzzles we did, there was exactly one that I thought was interesting. I've done 234 rooms at the time of this writing, and this is a bottom 10 room for me.

Thoroughly loved the set design. Highly immersive and impressive. Still mad at how close we were to finishing (like last puzzle I think?) I loved the side balance you had to keep up while playing the game. Made it more interesting and contributed to the difficulty. This one is highly physical at multiple times (but not straight) so be ready. Definitely left a lasting impression. The GMs (we did 2 rooms here) were extremely friendly and enthusiastic and we had a good time with them too!

We were so close to finishing this one! Quite literally 2 puzzles away. We did this with a team of 2 and it was pretty tough! The puzzle variety was fun and well thought out. There is a maintenance system in place throughout your game and it’s so clever! Physicality is needed in some parts, so be ready. It was a little heavy in puzzle density, however it was still enjoyable. I recommend a group of 4-5 play this and it’ll work out just fine! If in the Chicago area, check this out!