MagnificoEscaparium - LavalEscape roomIRLThere’s an apocryphal story about when The Beach Boys first heard Sgt Peppers. According to the story, after they first heard the Beatles album, they burned the tapes of the songs they just recorded. Nothing, so the story goes, could compete with what they just heard. I imagine quite a few escape room owners felt the same way after experiencing Magnifico. What could they ever do that would compare? Borrowing slightly from the plot (and sometimes songs) of The Greatest Showman, Magnifico’s Circus is spectacle, craft, and showmanship of the highest degree. It’s lavish. It’s surprising. It’s touching. It’s a weave of subtly and splendor that takes you on a narrative that plays out in the grandest of escape rooms. There aren’t many moments in life that take your breath away. This room is filled with numerous ones.
La Cathédrale Oubliée [The Forgotten Cathedral]Escaparium - LavalEscape roomIRLOne of the strongest openings to a game that I’ve experienced. Filled with so many jaw dropping and awe inspiring moments. It’s a room where each puzzle pushes the narrative forward, and there are times where you don’t want to solve the puzzle too quickly because you want to stay and enjoy the room.
Le Jour du Jugement [Judgement Day]EliviascapeEscape roomIRLOur team of three LOVED this game and how the set and puzzles often reinforced, in subtle and clever ways, what a character was thinking/feeling, or even the dynamics of the story. It’s a room that ratchets up the tension as the story progresses, and has a wonderfully anxiety and adrenaline inducing finale. From lighting to music to narrative to puzzles to cinematic immersion, this is one of the finest horror games I've played, and one of the highlights of our trip across the Quebec province.
Ghost PatrolTrivium GamesEscape roomIRLGhost Patrol doesn’t rely on spectacle to win you over—it earns your fun through coherence, care, and the steady accumulation of smart, often small choices. There aren’t any specific jaw-dropping moments. Instead, the game unfolds with a kind of restrained delight, aware that consistency and charm are sometimes more important. That’s not to say it’s never bombastic. The lighting and sound aren't afraid to be playful, even cartoony, sometimes erupting with a sudden glee or a cheerful burst when you solve something. But mostly it wins you over with things like the novelty of a specific decoder that you carry with you throughout the game. The game understands that delight doesn’t require everything to be over the top. Sometimes it can come from a smirk, a glimmer, a strange little noise from a glob of green goo.
漆黒の悟り [Shadow Zen]Studio Escape Daikoku-choEscape roomIRLThere’s a moment, about halfway through Shadow Zen, where I realized our team of four should have been solving slower. In the beginning, one of the owners told us to stay together, solve together, and experience it together. And we did. But we finished quickly enough that we could have spent more time in the incredible environment they created. Essentially, it’s a room designed to be experienced, not conquered. One of the things this room offers is an act of historical immersion. A faithful reproduction of the streets of Osaka from a hundred years ago. The textures, the colors, the subtle wear on the walls... it feel as much like historical fiction as an escape room. The puzzles? They’re there, and they’re solid, and sometimes intensely clever. One mechanic, in particular, added to our understanding of Japanese culture almost without our noticing it... until we stopped and realized what we’d just done. It was elegant. And then the room went somewhere we weren’t expecting. And we loved that, too. I don’t know if this room will be everyone’s favorite. If you’re here for puzzling challenges, you might leave wanting more. But if you’re here for immersion, for mood, for a thoughtful, culturally-rooted experience, this is a great option. You could do it with two people. But I’d recommend doing it with four. Not to be efficient, but to share it. Because this room, at its heart, wants to be a collective experience.
De Wraak Van Han [Han’s Revenge]De Gouden KooiEscape roomIRLit starts with an absurd premise (air conditioning of all things) and then mischievously expands outward. What starts as a local problem escalates into something ridiculously existential. It's a parable wrapped in absurdity coated with a healthy does of fun and intention. I appreciated that it not only had a wry sense of humor about its own premise, but also that it didn't hide behind irony. It's a game that let us laugh while still challenging us. The puzzles are logical, layered, and fun. The set undergoes transitions with plenty of “wow” moments. Ultimately, it's a game of both delight and design
The DomeMama BazookaEscape roomIRLlet me reach for a strange analogy... playing The Dome felt like reading Wuthering Height. Not because its Gothic or windswept or brooding. But because I understood almost immediately why its famous. I could see its precision, originality of voice. I appreciated it, but I didn't love it. I frequently found myself thinking “that's clever,” or “what a great way to do a split-room puzzle.” And “that one puzzle,” the one people were talking about last week on Discord? It's elegant and beautifully designed. But admiration isn't the same as affection. The premise itself is delightfully weird, and I really did love the way the game reorients itself after the first part. But I wanted more. I wanted it to lean harder into its strangeness, to push further and get weirder. When I wanted reality torn open at the perforation, I felt like it wanted to microdose. This was a divisive experience for our team. Half loved it outright. The other half left appreciative.
Dark LullabyEscape Artist Greenville - Hampton StationEscape roomIRLThis is Castle Fluffendor’s twisted twin, a place where whimsy has curdled and storybooks are torn. In Dark Lullaby you’re incepted into a dreamspace gone wrong, a nightmare stitched from buried truths and broken celebrations. (btw, what a beautifully done transition into the world of nightmares. It was simple, elegant, and perfectly within world.) There are lullabies, but they’re written not to soothe children, but to warn them. There’s a closet you may find yourself diving into… birthday banners which are falling… sweets that look as if they taste of dust… and sets that unravel and shake the deeper you go. Even hugging a stuffed animal doesn’t offer comfort. Along the way you meet a delightful in game character. She’s charming, sharp, and… well… a little cracked. She stands on the fence between storybook and nightmare (but definitely more comic than menacing). She’s there to help. She’s there to warn. She’s one of the game’s many joys. For those worried about the scare factor, there are minor jump scares and moments of tension, but nothing too bad. A member of our team who describes herself as haunted house avoidant listed it as her favorite of the three games in the Chimera Saga. What Fluffendor began, Dark Lullaby deepens. It’s the moment in the fairy tale where dreams get teeth. It’s what happens when the truth is left alone for too long in the dark.
The Man From BeyondStrange Bird ImmersiveEscape roomIRLSome escape rooms impress. Some challenge. And then there are the rare few that transcend... games that don’t just test your logic but grip your emotions, that don’t just immerse you but make you care. This was my 100th escape room, a milestone I wanted to mark with something exceptional, and what I found here was beyond. The atmosphere, immersion, and puzzles were intricate, seamless, and alive. The acting was at a level rarely seen in escape rooms... so committed it felt more like stepping into a film. But what I didn’t anticipate, what I couldn’t have anticipated, was the emotional gravity of it all. By the end, I’ll admit it, I was in tears. We flew to Houston just for this, endured numerous delays on our way, and yet, standing there in the final moments of the game, it was worth every second. There are great escape rooms, and then there are the ones that shift what is possible. This was the latter, and it was breathtaking.
Quest For The Temple of LightThe Keepers of BalanceEscape roomIRL—The Quest for the Temple of Light understands that immersion is not just visual, it’s tactile. The stones feel gritty beneath your feet. The artifacts are heavy in your hand. There’s a moment at a hearth where you make something, and when you retrieve it, it is warm. That kind of attention to detail bypasses intellect and hits somewhere pre-linguistic. —The transition into the temple is simply jaw-dropping. You feel it… you hear it… before you see it. And when the reveal happens, it’s like the world has turned a page and you’re somewhere else. Not metaphorically. Geographically. —And the first room … I’ve seen great sets. I’ve admired great sets. But very few of them can do what Temple of Light did… it made me forget. For a moment I wasn’t parsing design. I was navigating danger and experiencing adventure. There’s a mechanic you activate in the room that is part Mousetrap, part Indiana Jones, that takes you back to the magic of childhood. The room is staggering in scale and detail and confidence. It’s the kind of immersion worth chasing. —The opening transition and first room could stand toe-to-toe with any of the top Terpeca games. —Even the spaces you don’t spend much time in… a hallway you run down… are beautifully crafted. It tells you something about the people who created the game. No moment should be wasted, no stone left unenchanted. —there’s one moment where a character makes… how to put it? … a “transition” that didn’t completely work. It was more wink than wonder. It didn’t have the craft and care of the other parts of the game and the resulting object seemed out of place. —the concluding moments are smart and thematically coherent. It would be a standout in most games, but doesn’t hit the same jaw dropping highs as the rest of the experience. That’s not a failure, but a testament to how high they raised the bar. —the lobby deserves its own attention. There’s a layering of epistemologies… science, mysticism, anthropology, cartology, mythology … all jostling for attention on bookshelves and corkboards. It’s almost as if the walls are signaling that there’s a fragile equilibrium at stake… that there are competing truths… knowledge and mystery, darkness and light, chaos and intention. The game hasn’t started yet, but the world already has. It’s an impressive nod to the company name that signals you’re stepping into a quest not to escape, but to restore. To rebalance. —With its first game, The Keepers of Balance have laid down a claim to be spoken about with the very best escape room companies. They’ve built something that remembers what adventure used to mean … and dared to make it feel heavy in your hands.
![La Cathédrale Oubliée [The Forgotten Cathedral]](https://res.cloudinary.com/mortyapp/image/upload/c_limit,w_260/f_auto/v1/store/s/2c2890dd-87b6-4712-8136-8403e436ec72.jpg)
![Le Jour du Jugement [Judgement Day]](https://res.cloudinary.com/mortyapp/image/upload/c_limit,w_260/f_auto/v1/store/s/14e56440-d719-49bc-8107-d895a27a6b47.jpg)
![漆黒の悟り [Shadow Zen]](https://res.cloudinary.com/mortyapp/image/upload/c_limit,w_260/f_auto/v1/store/s/febd94e2-562b-4655-9ef6-efcfc36c582c.jpeg)
![De Wraak Van Han [Han’s Revenge]](https://res.cloudinary.com/mortyapp/image/upload/c_limit,w_260/f_auto/v1/store/s/1f17bc43-1374-4099-b326-445fc764f021.png)
