Escape Room Reviews: Wizard's Workshop

Company: 60 Out
Room: Wizard's Workshop
Date Played: 6/11/17
Player Count: 4, which felt just right.
Success:  Success!

Premise: You know how sometimes wizards accidentally trap their souls in alternate dimensions?  Well it's usually fine because this is why you get yourself an apprentice or four.

Immersion: 60 Out is the king of magic objects, so this room seemed like a natural fit. The production design is pretty great, and the transitions between scenes were each delightful in their own way. Some of the objects were kind of broken though, and others showed a lot of wear and tear. 

Highlights: This company always gives you neat things to do in their rooms that I'm certainly not about to describe in detail here. There are a lot of incidental jokes in this room. 

Lowlights: This room might be a little bit too hand-holdy? I'm not sure that I would have liked anything better if it was set up to have you do all the same things except without the clues / instructions, but the in-room guides cover a lot of what you need to do. I'm not even sure if this is a 'lowlight,' although it does mean that you're sometimes robbed of the 'Aha!' moment. Pre-recorded wizards are a tough thing to make.

And Finally: I don't know what our actual time was, but this room seemed really fast to me. Maybe because we didn't spend as much time pondering as we did moving from task to task and then completing the tasks. I do appreciate how 60 Out seems to have an interest in showing you all of the neat stuff they took the time to build - as though it's more important to them that you have a complete experience than that they have impressively low win percentages. Out of 25 rooms, I'm going to rank this one #6. That makes it my favorite 60 Out room so far, although I would caution that it's more in the school of cool experience rooms than mind-bending puzzlers.

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

Escape Room Reviews: Stuck in Time

Company: Cryptic Escape Rooms
Room: Stuck in Time
Date Played: 4/30/17
Player Count: 6 (2 + 4 strangers)
Success:  Success!

Premise: Your Time Travel-o-Tron shorted out, and you’re stuck in the past. Instead of becoming a wealthy ruler of all you survey, you must solve puzzles to return to the future.

Immersion: There wasn't any to speak of. Nothing seemed like it was truly of the era it was set in. Each part of the game had unnecessary anachronisms (which I can ignore for the good of the game in room escapes set in the miscellaneous past, but they stand out all the more in the room that's about time travel). 

Highlights:

• There were a couple of cool ideas for puzzles that I haven't seen elsewhere.
• We got along well with our team of strangers.
• The location was pretty easy to find for an escape room business.

Lowlights:

• Some of the tech was broken or very finicky for a newish room. It felt like we were beta testing.
• Our tickets were more expensive than the tickets of the people who were in the room with us. (In private rooms, there is sometimes a premium for bringing a smaller group - Cryptic Escape charges this premium even though they do not have private booking.)
• This room contains red herrings.

And Finally:   Despite the premium pricing, this is not a premium room.  The street where this company is located has several other companies, and although I haven't been to any of them, I would recommend giving them a shot first.  Out of 23 games played, I'm slotting this into the list at number 20. 

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

Escape Room Reviews: Midnight on the Bayou

Special note: we were beta testers for this room, which was not yet open to the public at the time that we played. 
Company: Red Lantern Escape Rooms
Room: Midnight on the Bayou
Date Played: 4/11/17
Player Count: 4 (me and a family of 3)
Success:  Success!

Premise: "You haven’t set foot in Bayou High since graduation, but this carnival-themed reunion sounded fun. Though it is a little strange they’re holding the event on the old Boudreau property at the edge of the swamp, where decades ago several students died in a barn fire. And it is odd that all the carnival workers are mysteriously absent, with the exception of your reunion host who keeps nervously glancing at that creepy old chest…” -from their site

Immersion: This room is a) huge, just physically big, and b) totally plausible as the site of a high school reunion. Like, the decorations look a little home-made, but it's just right. The in-character host who stayed in the room with us did an excellent job (I understand there are multiple hosts, each playing their own different but reasonable character). There are also in-character pre-recorded prompts of a different nature, that seemed to play randomly when I was there.  Like hearing the miscellaneous things characters in video games have to say, it's fun to catch them all, but every now and then one is ill-timed or a repeat which takes a tiny bit of the luster off. 

Highlights: There are some very fun interactions in this game.  This room is very non-linear, and there are a series of completely separate threads to follow.  It is sometimes my strategy that when I notice the whole group is focussing on just one object or puzzle, I look for something else to do, and there was always more. I think a big group could split up and follow a few different puzzle threads without ever knowing what their other teammates were up to. (Although, I would prefer to see it all!) Even though I was there in the beta test phase, just about everything was in working order and ready for their big open. I don't usually pay much attention to our finish time, but we wrapped this one up at 59:59.

Lowlights: This was the first game I went to alone / without any of my usual teammates. It worked out that way because the testing was in the middle of a weekday on a day I just happened to be off, and I'm very happy I got to play it, but I think my enjoyment (and my final score) would have gone way up with my regular group. One or two of the story points didn't make the most sense to me, and one or two of the puzzle elements seemed a bit out of place, but nothing especially offputting or game-breaking, and some of those elements may have changed since the game officially opened.

And Finally:   This is a family owned and operated establishment, and it's really a whole family affair. I got to chat with them after the game and their origin story is neat. Certainly, I liked some parts of this game better than others, but it's very possible that the sections I liked better are mostly just the puzzles that I worked on. There's already a plan in place for how this room can be refreshed in the future, and I'm very much looking forward to returning if they go through with it, or open up a new room.  Out of 22 rooms played, I'm going to call this my #5 favorite.

How to book this room yourself: Visit https://www.redlanternescaperooms.com/games/

Escape Room Reviews: Testing Facility

Company: Escape Chronicles
Room: Testing Facility
Date Played: 4/9/17
Player Count: 2, but 3-4 would be ideal
Success:  Success!

Premise: You’re here to help the professor, and his helpful AI assistant. Except, there was one little tiny barely noticable glitch, and the AI is trying to kill you. So maybe fix that.

Immersion: Our setting is the company break room, which is a pretty easy look to set your sights on. Luckily, this room does a great job. There are several custom items that totally fit the room and are very fun interactions. The characters are pre-recorded, but in a really nice touch, it seems that the designers have recorded hints and reactions to common-but-wrong actions that the GM can trigger.  

Highlights: I can't explain why, but I really like it when there's a computer in an escape room. It's not super common. The aforementioned tech items were neat, but a lot of low tech puzzling is also present, as well as some easter egg kind of content. The whole thing seems to be designed with a little bit of Portal flavor, but never actually feels like it's ripping anything off. The end game is undoubtedly easier for more players but working around that little problem was fun.

Lowlights: This sounds a little bit silly when I abstract out all of the spoilers, but there was one part where I got the sense that the GM could see exactly what I was doing to solve something, and I felt surprisingly self-conscious. Like I didn't want to look like I was guessing or doing something dumb. I worry for the owners and future players about the durability of some of the props. We received one unsolicited hint that kind of wasted some of our time by directing our attention away from the puzzle we were working on.

And Finally: The Testing Facility had not been open long when we got to it, and I hope more people have discovered it since. Looking back over my diagram* I'm reminded that there was actually a lot of neat things going on in here. I might be in favor of a room providing a larger number of smaller tasks to create the feeling of forward progress. This room does that by breaking into non-linear chunks in between story beats, so your group can split up to take on various tasks that lead you all back together for the next burst of plot. Plus, it's great to have a functional plot in the game! It's taken me by surprise as I write this, but out of 21 games played, the Testing Facility comes in at #3!

How to book this room yourself: Visit https://www.escapechronicles.com/rooms/testing-facility/

*What, you don't have a drawing of the each room you've played in which you've labeled the points of interest and flow of events that you can refer to later on?