Escape Room Reviews: Da Vinci's Challenge

Company: Quest Room
Room: Da Vinci’s Challenge
Date Played: 7/30/17
Player Count: 3
Success:  Success!

Premise: Leonardo’s apprentices must prove themselves by solving elaborate puzzles!

Immersion: It’s always tough to make a centuries-old setting feel ‘real,’ but this room is very nicely designed and consistent with the idea of the times - no grocery store padlocks and electronic safes here!

Highlights: Where this room really shines is in the prop design and construction. There’s custom tech in the room, but even more impressive are the custom built low/non-technical items. 

Lowlights: One or two interactions were a little weak. Some sequence-breaking is possible, which is kind of a waste of time. 

And Finally: This is a room that starts with the team divided into two areas so even numbers of players might be better, and If you’re the sort of player that hopes to get to see everything you might be disappointed. I wish there was a kind of hobo code that escape rooms would use on their websites to indicate basic information to enthusiasts in the know. I would make the signs for divided team, dark room, magic objects, and low-to-medium difficulty. Out of 30 games played, I’m going to rank this #14

How to book this room yourself: Visit https://questroom.com/rooms/da-vincis-challenge/

Escape Room Reviews: Bugsy's Nightmare

Company: Xterious Escape (Las Vegas)
Room: Bugsy’s Nightmare
Date Played: 7/13/17
Player Count: 7, 2 of us and a group of 5 strangers
Success:  Success! (Although perhaps a bit overtime)

Premise: It’s Las Vegas, 1945. You must steal some macguffin documents from your boss the mobster before he comes back from his errands!

Immersion: The room was nicely built, if a touch plain. The puzzles were more of the game show variety. 

Highlights: A lot of the puzzle mechanisms were things I have not seen anywhere else. Some of the object interactions were pretty satisfying. A few of the people in the group that joined us called my dad “Pops” a lot. 

Lowlights: There was one puzzle that, even with a hint and then an explicit answer, I have no idea how we were supposed to solve. The customer service wasn’t great - it seemed like the few employees there were spread pretty thin (and that this is why my group and another were combined, even though the other group reserved a different room). On the plus side, their inattentiveness gave us a couple of extra minutes to finish things up...

And Finally: With the exception of that one puzzle, this room is pretty well-designed, and bigger than I expected. Our team consisted of a couple of experienced players and a couple of first-timers that . I think my usual group would have come out of this one satisfied and smiling. Out of 29 games, I rate this one #16.   

How to book this room yourself: Visit http://www.xteriousescape.com/game/3

Escape Room Reviews: The Budapest Express

Company: Escapology (Las Vegas)
Room: The Budapest Express
Date Played: 7/12/17
Player Count: 2, but 3 or 4 might be best
Success:  Failure!  We successfully cracked the case, but failed to pull the emergency brake before the train reached its destination.

Premise:
1) You’re on a train. 
2) There’s been a murder. 
3) There’s a famous detective on board.
4) But she’s asleep.
Therefore? 
:. It’s all up to you to catch the killer before the train reaches the station!

Immersion: Pretty great! The train cars look terrific. There's a gimmick of using a monitor as a window, which is fun. The puzzles, and the murder investigation, hold true to the actual state of the train cars as you find them, which is excellent.

Highlights: At the risk of repeating myself, what was really great about this room was the production design, and the fact that the facts of the case were actually represented in the room. When it comes time to collect the facts (as any detective story must), you can either work out the truth from the detective's notebook, or have simply observed the train around you, and both are equally valid.

Lowlights: I would like to file an OSHA complaint against the train company. Not only is there a huge lock on the EMERGENCY BRAKE, but it just so happens to have been set in a way that involves the intimate details of a murder of one of their passengers! This is either the world's biggest coincidence, or the train company's got some serious explaining to do!  Also, we had trouble with one puzzle because of our accent differs from the puzzle designer, and our GM / clue master had no idea what was going on in our room, which wasted a little time. 

And Finally:  I think a piece of the puzzle of what I would consider the ideal room escape puzzle flow is to build towards a climactic final puzzle, which should probably be followed up by a gimme on your way out. This room follows up their Big Puzzle with... a bigger puzzle! I'm not going to make a value judgement on that, but it was too much for our duo, which was consisted of me and my dad, who'd gamely let himself be dragged along to see what this room escape business was all about. We could've used another one or two experienced puzzlers, but on the other hand, with only two of us he had to get in there and open some locks. Out of 28 games, I'm ranking this one #14. 

How to book this room yourself: Visit https://www.escapology.com/en/las-vegas-nv/escape-games/

Escape Room Reviews: Escape From Corporation X

Company: Amazing Escape Room
Room: Escape from Corporation X
Date Played: 7/4/17
Player Count: 2. 4 would've been better.
Success:  Failure!

Premise: From their website, "You thought volunteering to be part of an experimental program with the mysterious X Corporation would be a fun idea."

Immersion: None to speak of, really.  This is a puzzle room, first and foremost. Expect puzzle stations and clues glued to walls. The room isn't decorated to simulate or resemble anything in particular.

Highlights: The puzzles we found intuitive were more fun than the puzzles where we got stuck. The customer service was really quite good (especially compared to our previous visit) – after we ran out of time, the employee who came to get us not only walked us through what we had left to do, but let us actually do the remaining steps. I don't know if I've seen that before. (Maybe because, ahem, we usually escape...)

Lowlights: One classic failed Spot Hidden. One somewhat deceptive fake-out lock. Not winning.

And Finally:  Our previous experience with Amazing Escape was the Mystery of the Red Dragon, one of the lock-ingest lock-fests that ever locked a lock. So after a run of rooms built on high technology, we selected Amazing specifically because we wanted to put some keys in some locks. And that's simply not what Escape from Corporation X is about. We were a little disappointed in this room, because b) we lost, and a) it wasn't what we expected, but neither of those are necessarily their fault. What is their fault is that the production design is a little bit bland, and no one puzzle really stood out as a set piece. In the time since we've played it's already become difficult to refer back to this one as a distinct and memorable game. Please remember that my completely unreasonable numbered list of escape experiences is subjective when I tell you that out of 27 rooms, I'm ranking this one at number 21. 

How to book this room yourself: Visit https://amazingescaperoom.com/la-northridge/escape-corporation-x/

Escape Room Reviews: The Hangover

Special note: I played this one for free, as part of a friend's bringer job interview process.
Company: 60 Out
Room: The Hangover
Date Played: 6/14/17
Player Count: 5, me and 4 mostly-strangers, including some first-timers.
Success:  Success!

Premise: You're in the mob, see? And the big boss is on his way back from the big house, see? And you better figure out where the money ended up after last night's little "party," or you're going to be the next one to sleep with the fishes.

Immersion: As is often the case at 60 Out, the set looks great. Good production design, and very few if any regular locks - the emphasis is on "magical objects," or things that can sense when they're in the correct position. Unfortunately, as is also often the case at 60 Out, a few things were broken or kind of worn out.

Highlights: This game starts strong with a non-linear section that let our group wander away from one another and explore. I like the puzzle structure of solving these puzzles so you can solve that puzzle, as opposed to 'and then, and then, and then.' Makes you feel like you're doing something with intention. The finale is kind of exciting. 

Lowlights: The pace really dropped for us at the midpoint, with a couple of moments that required our GM to chime in to let us know something was correct but finicky. 

And Finally:  The situation which led me to play this room was kind of an odd one - apparently part of the job application process to become a GM is bringing some folks in to play a game? I'm super curious about what they're looking for. The game went smoothly for our group of mostly-newbies, and I thought it was kind of amusing that my experience with previous games led me astray as often as it gave me a boost. As well done as the room is, I don't think it's as innovative or through-and-through great as some of the others 60 Out has on offer, so out of 26 games played, I'm going to call this #14. 

How to book this room yourself: Visit https://www.60out.com/rooms/hangover-game