Escape Room Reviews: The Crime Scene

Company: Enigma Escape
Room: The Crime Scene
Date Played: 5/14/17
Player Count: 2, which was enough
Success:  Success!  We not only escaped, we solved the murder!

Premise: My Uncle, the one who died a little while ago and we attended the reading of his Will? It’s time to discover what exactly happened to him, in this probably-flashback mystery.

Immersion: Enigma Escape has a particular level of quality and design that isn’t precisely matched by many other companies out there. Things feel solid, and old, not made of pressboard. What it may lack in the sense that an object or puzzle might not 'really be there,' Enigma makes up for in craftsmanship in their build-outs. 

Highlights: Some of the reveals are pretty fun in this room. Our typical opening sweep of the environment paid off. I'd love to be able to see heat maps, or some kind of time graph, of various escape rooms to see how much time the average group spends on various points of the puzzle flow. We did get stuck at one point, but according to our GM, not where people usually do, and we supposedly breezed right through some interactions that are usually sticking points. (This could be a specialized case of the rule where the GM has to tell you how smart and wonderful you are, but without a chart, I can't tell!)

Lowlights: We smashed against our most frequent, most dreaded hint: "keep going!" One box was open to us as soon as we saw it, and I was never clear on whether or not it was a mistake.

And Finally:   In our visit to The Will, we got the sense that this company's rooms would be playable as a duo, and we were right. Enigma's rooms are typically a mix of locks and interesting (sometimes mechanical) tech, and I think this is the first time I've played a room that made a bonus goal of actually comprehending the story. Out of 24 rooms played, I'm ranking this one #12. Because trying to rank all of the rooms numerically is a little bit absurd, I'm pretty sure that this reflects that this room is among the finest of what escape rooms were capable of a year or two or three ago.

How to book this room yourself: Visit http://www.enigmaescaperooms.com/room/info/4