ProfessorEnigma

Reviews

Reviews

Wizard's Castle

Wizard's Castle

Gnome & Raven

  • Escape room
  • IRL
I was so excited to try this place since it had such great reviews on every room, and was severely disappointed. I can get over the fact that it was mostly lock and key puzzles, because most were fine, and there were a few fun digitally triggered events. I can forgive the fact that some puzzles were a little bit of guess work with no sign posting. I can overlook the fact that room is in severe need of sprucing up, fixing broken things, repainting, and some glue... But when a puzzle is 100% 'what's in my pocket', yeah, I'm done. That takes a room to the lowest level for me. I directly asked the game master after she told us what to do, "How were we supposed to know to do that...?" And she laughed and shrugged, and said there's nothing hinting at or suggesting to do this particular thing... that no one would think to do. Combine that with all the other minor nitpicks I previously mentioned, and this goes straight to the bottom of my list of rooms I've ever done. Extremely disappointed, will not be trying any of their other rooms while in town.
Clue

Clue

Breakout Games - Asheville

  • Escape room
  • IRL
The Clue-like deduction was novel, but extremely inconsistent in how they expect you to arrive to each conclusion, and super disappointing. It was the worst part of the room. Done well, it could have been a fantastic fun ending, instead it really threw a wet blanket onto an otherwise really well put together room. Didn't completely ruin it, but detracted for sure. Also, I'm fine with finding objects in rooms, but a flat white piece of paper tucked into something up against a white wall, then covered over with set-dressing isn't fun or clever, it's frustrating. Overall pretty fun and novel, and had a few really genuinely fun activities that made it a blast for our group.
Dark Lullaby

Dark Lullaby

Escape Artist Greenville - Hampton Station

  • Escape room
  • IRL
The best advice I can give is that you should absolutely do the Chimera Saga to experience these three rooms! This was part two, and normally 'spooky' rooms are not my vibe. But once again, this really surprised! It did the creepy theme without feeling cliche, or campy. It wasn't scary like a haunted house, but it did the dark theme and creepy eerie feel so perfectly! The activities were mostly good, a few weren't my favorite, but were well overshadowed by how perfectly everything flowed. It was such a cool experience! Probably my favorite of the saga.
Castle FlΓΌffendor

Castle FlΓΌffendor

Escape Artist Greenville - Hampton Station

  • Escape room
  • IRL
The best advice I can give is that you should absolutely do the Chimera Saga to experience these three rooms! This is the first part of the saga. On it's own, this room would have been fantastic! To be honest, I wasn't excited about the theme, but once we got going, I really got into it! The visual and prop design and just overall look and feel of the room was perfection. The "character" interactions were unbelievably fun. Activities and puzzles were fun and well thought out, a great mix of familiar ideas and very novel usages! Just overall fantastic!
Help Wanted

Help Wanted

Escape Artist Greenville - Hampton Station

  • Escape room
  • IRL
The best advice I can give is that you should absolutely do the Chimera Saga to experience these three rooms! The final part of the saga! If we were not doing the saga, and these rooms were unconnected, this one would be the least remarkable of the three, to be honest. It was still good. There were some fun interactive moments. All the puzzles and activities were high tech and had some really unique interactions. There was some really good stuff, I would have liked the room no matter what. But being the finale to the saga definitely added a whole dimension to this one that made it way better! It was so neat to get to play through a whole connected adventure, and this was a great way to wrap up the story!
Batman: The Dark Knight Challenge

Batman: The Dark Knight Challenge

Escapology - Columbia

  • Escape room
  • IRL
No way to sugar coat this one, this room was awful. I tend to stay away from Escapology in general, cause they're mass produced franchise stuff anyway, but this is the worst one I've done here. One of my worst of all time. Most of the activities were not puzzles. Which can be fun, not every activity in an escape room has to be a puzzle, but they should at least be fun, original, creative, or enjoyable in some way. These ones were just boring. There wasn't enough for multiple people to be doing most of the time. Nothing was clever or unique. The whole draw of this was the Batman theme. But every room was so dang loud we couldn't hear any of the "plot" elements that were conveyed through dialogue over the speakers. So that fell extremely flat. We got to the final room in under 20 minutes, then spent 15 minutes each on the two final puzzles, because they were so poorly designed. There is no feedback to the players, so there's some major guess work on when and how to input your solved answer. And **minor spoiler** the final puzzle has an element with colors, but the lights in the room are colored, so it's hard to see what color anything really is, or even figure out that color should be used here. Just awful. Stay away from this one at all cost.
Wrecked

Wrecked

Masterpiece Escapes

  • Escape room
  • IRL
We had such a great time! FWIW, I hate room minimums of 3. I get wanting to make money on rooms, but just make it cost a bit more for 2 tickets than for 3. I was very close to not booking just because of this. My wife and I like to play rooms 2 player, and paying for a third ticket we don't need is incredibly galling. That nit-pick aside, the room itself was super fun! We were so curious how the decor was going to evoke a junkyard, but man, it did not disappoint! It was thematic and really well decorated! Quite a few lock and keys used, but a good number of creative electronic elements mixed in to make up for that somewhat. Mostly good puzzles, a few that were a little tedious, but the final room was great! Super cool theme, fun puzzle tie ins, just really well done! First room I've ever done where we had a reset error that interrupted our game, though, lol. I know it can be pretty easy to miss resetting an element, but it took us down a wrong track for a while until our GM realized we weren't supposed to have one item yet, but he got us back on track.
What Happened to Detective Magnum?

What Happened to Detective Magnum?

Escape Plan Columbia

  • Escape room
  • IRL
The room was overall pretty good. The best part of all was scratching the nostalgia itch. We had party members in their 40s and some in their 50s, and so quite of lot of the elements included in solving were fun childhood memories. The actual puzzles themselves were a bit simplistic. A mix of a bit of low tech and a bit of high tech. The only downside is that the room really needs some TLC. It looks worn out and used, and doesn't feel like it's upkept very well. Also our GM did a very poor job on the intro, so there was zero buy in on what should have been a very fun plot to the room's theme.
Paranormal Investigator

Paranormal Investigator

Lock, Clock, and Peril Escape Rooms

  • Escape room
  • IRL
Fantastic! Had a hard time choosing which room to do first, but I'm very glad we chose this one. A fun and unique theme, and very well executed! We were super impressed with how well decorated all of the set was, really great attention to detail! All of the puzzles fit the theme really well. Even though there was some lock and key type puzzles, the activities leading to and resulting from them were unique and original and extremely fun! And it wasn't all physical, there were lots of really great original electronics that made for some really great and super exciting reveals! We had a great time, and we will definitely be back to do more! Highly recommend!
The Starlight Motel

The Starlight Motel

Escape Artist Greenville - Downtown

  • Escape room
  • IRL
We specifically chose Escape Artist because of the unique experience they provide. The extra element of a live actor in the room the entire time was very interesting to us, never done one before with this element, so I was unsure how it would be implemented or how I would like it. It made the experience! It was so novel, and fun, and added such great dynamics to the room! The room itself is good. Mix of lock and key and some fun and well executed electronic puzzles as well. Without the live actor, it would be pretty middle of the road. But adding in that actor element was AWESOME! I don't want to spoil anything, so I can't explain how they add to the room, but trust me, it's incredible. Had our hearts racing by the end. Very highly recommend!
Elixir Inc

Elixir Inc

Hidden Gems Escape Room

  • Escape room
  • IRL
We had such a great time with this one! Full disclosure we had a rocky start due to a 'puzzle' element I was very much less than thrilled with...(we spoke to the owners after playing, and they agree and are considering changing it now), but once we got past that, everything else was TOP NOTCH! Using real lab equipment as decor would be neat....but actually getting to use it to solve puzzles was next level. Something I've truly never seen anywhere else, and likely won't again! When it takes have a degree as a chemical something-or-other to design this room, you know it won't get repeated! Some standard lock and key puzzles, but more than made up for by the fun lab puzzles and the electronic stuff. Great experience!
Storyteller's Secret

Storyteller's Secret

Boxaroo

  • Escape room
  • IRL
This was hands down, THE best escape room we have ever done. I cannot say enough good things about it. Not only was the set design and production qualify far above anything I've seen, but the puzzles were exactly the right difficulty. Challenging, without being frustrating. Each activity was perfectly themed to the room concept. The logical flow of one puzzle to the next was flawless. We were engaged and busy and having a ton of fun every second we were there. Nothing felt out of place, or tedious. The level of tech utilization was not only awe-inspiring, but it was perfect to create an adventure experience that felt so seemlessly fun.
Dream Escape

Dream Escape

Break Escape Nottingham - Upper Parliament Street [prev. Cryptology]

  • Escape room
  • IRL

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