Escape Room Reviews: Déja Vu

Company: Escape Era San Diego
Room: Déja Vu
Date Played: 2/19/17
Player Count: 2, which was just right.
Success:  Success!

Premise: You’ve received a package telling you to be at a certain place at a certain time. And the package is from… you!

Immersion: Middle of the road. The room feels a little bit cluttered, with a lot of stuff packed into a small space, and it's in no danger of being confused for the "real thing."  All of the props looked good though, and one element half way through is especially effective at drawing you into the story.

Highlights: I came out of this one riding high because I caught a few good solves in a row. (Unfortunately, that's because some of the puzzles are fairly single-player affairs.) There are some puzzles I haven't seen anywhere else, one of which is especially delightful because you'd think it would be everywhere. But it's not. It's just here. Along with a fair mix of locks and tech objects.

Lowlights: HUGE sequence breaking is possible in this game. Almost a third of the game is a chain that culminates in a hint for a puzzle that is available and solvable early on. We just happened to backtrack a little in the name of exploration, which turned out to be a waste of time. Actually, there was kind of a lot of backtracking. 

And Finally:  We did this room and The Diner in one afternoon, on the drive back from San Diego to Los Angeles from a DDMTA screening. On the day, my attitude towards both rooms was influenced pretty heavily by my own performance. If you've only got time for one or the other, The Diner is the better bet, but I'm still looking forward to Escape Era opening their awesome-sounding Video Arcade room. Out of 20 games played, this one clocks in at #10.

How to book this room yourself: Visit http://www.escapeera.com

Escape Room Reviews: The Diner

Company: Quicksand Escape
Room: The Diner
Location: San Diego, CA
Date Played: 2/19/17
Player Count: 2, could easily be 4
Success:  Success!

Premise: You’re running with a wild crowd, baby, and if you’re gonna act like a mob goon, you’re gonna have to rob a place now and then.  A place like this diner!

Immersion: This diner looks great! Like a peppermint sundae. Like so many escape rooms, it's set in the past, and nothing weirdly anachronistic is going on here. There are dozens of locks, and by and large the puzzles lean more toward reasonable and real things that could be in this setting to secure items or pass messages, and away from games and puzzles included for their own sake or to make the room longer.

Highlights: I won't say more than this about it, but the end game is super fun and exciting. The puzzling was a good mix of the easily understood that just requires a little elbow grease, and the 'flash of insight' variety that are so satisfying when they click in.

Lowlights: I think when we first stepped out of this one, I was a little bit down about needing a couple of hints. Our most commonly received hint is 'keep going!' Especially in a room with a lot of Spot Hidden challenges like this one, and especially when playing with a very small group. (More eyes means faster finds!) One puzzle that I took point on, I took it in a totally wrong direction until a clue put us back on track. 

And Finally:  Pain is temporary! Those light wounds to the ego pale when I look back over everything The Diner has to offer and how well designed it is. Like a movie that doesn't waste a scene, where everything turns out to be important sooner or later. It's easy to see why this room is so highly ranked in the San Diego area.  Out of 19 games played, this one comes in at #4. 

How to book this room yourself: Visit http://www.quicksandescape.com/the-diner.html

Escape Room Reviews: The Villain's Lair

Company: Exit Game
Room: The Villain’s Lair
Date Played: 2/4/17
Player Count: 2, more would have been better
Success:  Failure! Even with a bit of extra time!

Premise: You're in jail in North Korea, and it only gets worse from there!

Immersion: The jail is the most jail-like jail I've been pretend jailed in, and I guess I don't know that the rest of it is not what it's like in North Korea. The video introduction is... let's say a little broad.

Highlights: The set decoration and production design is quite nice. The glowy hall shown in promo photos on their website was fun to work through. There are several elaborate puzzles that would be fun for a larger group to work through.

Lowlights: We were unattended and/or forgotten during our game. Early on, something got stuck and after no response to our call for hints I straight up cheated to fix it with something I was carrying. At the end, time expired and nobody came to let us out. We weren't discovered until a host came in to start the next group. (Granted, we probably should have used those extra minutes more effectively to finish the escape, but it was kind of a confusing situation, and unclear whether the game was still functional.) 

Exit Game always checks players with a metal detector before letting them play. The first time we encountered this, I thought it was fake. This time it wasn't, but I don't know what the point of it really is. I feel pretty strongly that I would prefer to be treated like an adult at any company I visit, and trusted not to take videos or whatever. 

And Finally:  We sort of played this game out of desperation, trying to find an opening somewhere at the last minute. We were fixed on Exit Game because we liked visiting them in the pass, and we had been given a free ticket. Based on their website, this would have been the last game on their list we would have picked, and at least that intuition was correct - it wasn't a great time for us. I don't personally recommend this room, but I have and still do recommend Exit Game to others, and I look forward to trying some of their other rooms in the future. Out of 18 rooms played, I'm ranking this one #16.

How to book this room yourself: Visit https://www.theexitgame.com/m4---the-villians-lair
(We were given one free ticket at a SoCal Escape Room Enthusiast meet up event.)

Escape Room Reviews: The Zen Room

Company: 60 Out
Room: Zen Room
Date Played: 1/22/17
Player Count: 4
Success:  Success!

Premise: You are in your happy zen place, assuming you're someone who likes escape games. Now to put everything right and get back to the world. Or something. The real premise is 'what if everything in the room was white?'

Immersion: Well, everything in the room WAS white. Or as white as can be after X amount of grubby handed players have come through. 9/10 on that front. 

Highlights: Some of the interactions in this room are very satisfying. Several required good teamwork, even though we spent probably half the game split up and working on separate problems. As always, 60 Out makes the best magical objects.

Lowlights: This room falls prey to what might be 60 Out's biggest weakness: room design that amounts to just lining the walls with gadget stations. I mean, you get to check out a bunch of gadgets, so that's good, but it doesn't look like anything. It's less of a simulation and more like a midway. Best case, some stations serve multiple purposes. One of them, I have no idea how it helped us, if it did. 

And Finally:  This is as close as I've seen to an Escape Room-themed escape room. (Which, btw, I totally want to play. Open the second room and... it's the first room again!) and tries to bring to life an idea that fascinated me in middle school, if you could paint everything in a room in subtle shades so that when you walked in and turned on the light, you saw nothing.  Anyway, out of 17 games played, I'm going to try slotting this one in at #5.

How to book this room yourself: Visit https://www.60out.com/rooms/zen-room 
(Visit within 3 days of a player's birthday for a free ticket!)

Escape Room Reviews: The Pirate's Den

Company: MagIQ
Room: Pirate’s Den
Date Played: 1/5/17
Player Count: 2. We could have easily had one or two more.
Success:  Success!

Premise: Treasure is inherently desirable. Pirates have treasure.

Immersion: Some props were a little well-worn, but the pirate ship looked great! It's fun to be able to look through the portholes and see 'outside.' This room is low tech and lock-based.

Highlights: This room had a fun variety of things to do. Although some puzzle types are repeated, they are accompanied by some fun objects that look like they belong on board the ship. The end game was exciting and felt urgent, even though we didn't know how much time was left on the clock.

Lowlights: Succeeding in this room requires a lot of Spot Hidden checks, which is an area where we sometimes come up short when playing as a duo. More eyes means finding more secrets faster!  One of the locks, even though we knew what we were looking for, we never found it and I forgot to ask the GM after. (We spun the last dial of the lock.)  Another puzzle was so well-worn that clues were no longer necessary. 

And Finally:   Thanks to a groupon we didn't want to expire, this room made for a fun date night. I had the prejudice that it was perhaps meant for kids (the room can be adjusted to suit birthday parties and such), and even that the *IQ locations around town were somehow 'less than' other companies, but that's all stuff and nonsense. It kept us busy for most of an hour, had some depth we weren't expecting, and it was fun. Out of 16 rooms played, this room takes the #7 spot away from last week's review.

How to book this room yourself: Visit https://magiqescaperoom.com/los-angeles/pirates