Lab RatHatch EscapesEscape roomIRLLab Rat is one of those escape rooms you've heard about so many times that eventually you have to try it, and hopefully the hype and high reviews have not set the bar too high for you. After playing it ourselves, I can see why it's so beloved. I can imagine that when it first opened, it would've been top notch. Its set design and immersion is solid; you really do feel like, well, a "lab rat." Now, it's been some years, and a lot of high-tech, modern escape rooms have since opened, but I can see why Lab Rat with its older tech still gets positive reviews nowadays. As aforementioned, its immersion. Then the puzzles are clever and unique. There were definitely a handful we'd still never seen before, and they were fun and satisfying. There's some unique and fun mechanisms at play, too. It's a well put together room and experience overall. About the only "negative" thing about Lab Rat might be its (weekend) price at $70/person. Weekdays are $40/person, which is better. You also can't play with just two people unless you pay for the price of 4 people (Saturday) or 3 people (any other day). HOWEVER, there are Groupons for the Hatch Escape rooms for Tues-Thurs for groups of 4 people. There's one for Lab Rat for $100. We got it for $80 with a sale discount on Groupon that day. So our usual group of 4 got to play for $80 total instead of the $280 we'd normally pay to play on a weekend. Something to keep in mind. Because although Lab Rat was great and still a strong recommend, it's probably not in my favorite favorites and therefore $70 is a quite steep for an escape room (with no live actors or extended gameplay time). [Lab Rat is 60 minutes of gameplay but it says 75 minutes of experience to include video clips, during which they thankfully pause your game clock]
Through The Sugar GlassQuest TavernEscape roomIRLThis was such a great room! Cute gingerbread house/candyland theming (with actual candy you can keep!) We did this with two ppl. We usually play rooms with a team of 4 so we were unsure of how we'd do. This room is hard-medium probably. The puzzles were varied and interesting and fun. Having done a decent amount of rooms by now, it's great to still see new types of puzzles for the first time. There is at least one section where having 3 players would make it physically easier, but this room is totally doable with two experienced players who can communicate well. We got out with about 10 minutes to spare. Nothing really stumped us but our experience definitely helped, especially considering the nonlinearity of the room. The room is a small one but the entire space is utilized super well and completely interested in the theme/storyline so it's a strong recommend for 2-3 players!
Special Ops: Mysterious MarketThe Escape Game - Rancho Cucamonga [prev. at San Bernardino]Escape roomIRL
InksidiousEscape Room 66 - Los AngelesEscape roomIRLI can see why people love this room for a Gen 1 room. It's a cute room with cute/clever puzzles. Even though you see a lot of locks, the puzzles to solve them are satisfying and fun. Recommend for a small group, maybe even just 2-3 if you're decently experienced players.
Here, Kitty KittyEscape Room LAEscape roomIRLIf you love fun, logical puzzles in a cute, cat-centric setting, this one is definitely for you. Even though it's a small room, it's completely packed with satisfying puzzles. We did this with two people and we are both experienced enough. But it was a struggle because there is A LOT to do. If you do this with 2, you have to make sure you're moving along on a solid pace and working separately as there is a decent enough amount of nonlinearity. If you get stuck for too long, you just might not have enough time to do everything. It's a small room with a lot, so the perfect group size is 4. 3 ppl if you're experienced. 2 is doable if you're really experienced, and maybe take a hint if you're getting stuck on something for more than a few minutes. The puzzles themselves aren't necessarily super difficult, so this is just a sheer amount of puzzles thing. We provided feedback to the GM about one puzzle pretty much requiring outside knowledge. It wasted a lot of our time because we didn't ask for a hint soon enough lol. If you don't know it, you'd be stumbling around trying to guess. You might eventually hack the answer if you have enough escape experience, but at the cost of time. There's a second puzzle that also sort of requires outside knowledge, but this one isn't as bad and most people would probably know enough, especially with a few in-room clues, to figure this one out. Overall, we loved this room and it was so fun. But just like every room at this location, it's on the hard-ish side more than not. Puzzles are logical throughout and there are always a good amount of puzzles. But that's a good thing.
Wrongfully ConvictedThe Escape RevolutionEscape roomIRLI was wondering about the contradiction of positive and negative reviews for this room. After doing this, I'm closer to the negative side and relate to most of the negative descriptions of this room. First off, time starts when the GM opens the door. You still have to put your stuff away into lockers and be given all the rules. And if you have questions, that's going to burn time too. So you're already definitely down at least a few minutes before you can even start. The split start was promising and cool. Things kinda fell apart after that. The "puzzles" didn't feel like puzzles but more like a scavenger hunt. They didn't really flow or make as much logical sense as you would like. We ended up having to ask for 5 hints because we knew we were falling behind and kept hitting walls, which hasn't happened to us before. We finished with 4 minutes left but it wasn't satisfying. This is all especially a disappointment because the prison break theme has a lot of potential. And the set design and props and tropes they included really helped the immersion. But the puzzles and flow just ruined it. Our GM was great though! Not a recommend from us though. We've had so many more fun and satisfying experiences already that this just didn't hit.
Wizard's Treasure60Out - HollywoodEscape roomIRLSuper cute room. It's easy but super fun and immersive. The GM recommended we just slowly enjoy all the puzzles together because any experienced group would not have issues finishing this one. This is a great recommendation for beginners looking for an immersive set. We spent our extra time just talking to the GM about escape rooms!
Big Brain Labs60Out - HollywoodEscape roomIRLThe newest room in Fall of 2025, so it's full of new tech and it's so clean and modern. Fun story, fun room, fun times. My only possible critique is that a lot of it felt linear in that our entire group felt like we were just moving from one puzzle station to the next. There was not much need to look for things or think super hard about puzzles because you just arrived and did them at a specific place in the lab. We were told later that we could've split up in at least one part of the room so I'm not sure about the linearity if that was the case for other parts of the room. But i will say that my entire group got to experience all the puzzles together by sticking together, and we still had a lot of time to spare so maybe it was better that way. We went with 4, but this wasn't that difficult so it's probably doable with 2 experienced players
Jumanji: Welcome To The Jungle60Out - MelroseEscape roomIRLJumanji was our first 60out escape room and it was great! We ended up finishing all the rooms at the Melrose location, and Jumanji was definitely the highlight there. It's really on theme, and knowing the general idea of the movie definitely makes it more enjoyable. Puzzles were fun and different.
Red GiantQuest Room - HollywoodEscape roomIRLThis was a very nice room! It's a darker room where you're given light sources to use (love-hate relationship). The theming was REALLY NICE. Puzzles were challenging and different. The only downside was that there was at least one puzzle that was a bit finnicky/buggy. We got the idea of what we had to do but the puzzle wasn't registering our solution correctly. Other negative was that it was kind of hard to hear the GM on the staticky speakers. We often had to ask him to repeat what he said, burning through more of our time. One puzzle was particularly difficult, but we brute forced the solution once we had a couple parts solved. The ending shocked me because you had to literally break a golden rule of escape rooms to end it. Without the buggy puzzle and subpar speaker system, this room would be pretty top tier.
Borderlands: Tannis's LabRed Door Escape Room - Las VegasEscape roomIRLThis room was okay. It's a small set, but it's probably really immersive and cool if you're into Borderlands. My group wasn't, so it was just another escape room for us. You don't need Borderlands knowledge to play this, but you would probably enjoy it much more if you did. Puzzles were okay, I don't remember necessarily loving them. Also because the set is so small, it felt like we kept looking over the same places and things over and over. Not a fave, but IF you're a Borderlands fan, it's a recommend.
