7 Deadly SinsEscapology - Orland ParkEscape roomIRLThis room felt like a huge downgrade compared to the Scooby Doo one at this location and felt much more like a standard corporate escape room. The atmosphere wasn't noteworthy, and it being dark without any flashlights being provided is an instant negative. We had to constantly use our phone's flashlights, and it was legitimately hard to see stuff. The biggest issue with this room are the puzzles though. While Scooby Doo felt intuitive, this one did not. It's challenge wasn't in figuring out how to obtain codes from the puzzles but how to transform them into the proper inputs for the locks. These often required multiple steps that could easily be interpreted in different ways, leading to us often having the right idea but doing it wrong. This was true of almost every puzzle in this room. I've done around 100 rooms and did not find these puzzles clear at all even when it was explained to me, so I think it's fair to say the puzzle design was poor
A Night in the MuseumPanic Escape Room - South ElginEscape roomIRLWe found this room a bit frustrating. One of the puzzles in particular took a lot of time because of poor visibility. However, it's a cool concept that is challenging with some other pretty cool puzzles, so overall we were positive
A Pirate's CurseEscapology - Downers GroveEscape roomIRLThere were one or two puzzles we found unintuitive, but otherwise the room flowed well. The theme is a bit common for escape rooms, but the set design is decent. For these franchise escape rooms, it is one of the better ones out there and one of the better ones I've done at Escapology.
Batman™: The Dark Knight ChallengeEscapology - Downers GroveEscape roomIRLThis is a pretty standard escape room. It starts out extremely easy, but thankfully the difficulty does increase as you go through the room. The production design and effects are good and better than average, but a few of the puzzles were finnicky where we did it correctly but nothing happened until we did the solution again. It also has one or two puzzles where we understood how to solve the puzzle but were missing clues on how many things were involved in the combination or exactly how to transform the combination which I personally find frustrating since it is so easy to interpret things differently. This company in particular has this issue with its puzzles across many of the rooms I've done. Overall decent but still has that corporate feel to it.
Behind The CurtainTwisted Limits Escape RoomsEscape roomIRLAnother fun room at Twisted Limits. All of their rooms feel distinct and unique. This one required a lot of physical movement and carrying things around. It did get slightly frustrating at times, but it still was a great room. I really liked how certain things were hidden. The GM here is an enthusiast who just purchased a few other locations, so I'm excited to see what he does next.
Blast From The Past60 to Escape - GurneeEscape roomIRLThis was an awesome room, a very unique aesthetic involving arcades that I've never seen before despite how many I've done. Very impressive to see the arcade games repurposed for puzzles, and I loved how unique those all felt. There are a few scavenger hunt portions that we got stuck at, but beyond that, the setting and atmosphere and puzzles were all excellent.
Bonus Fun Time Game Show ChallengeEscape FactorEscape roomIRLMy favorite room at this excellent location. Cool theme with interesting puzzles.
Carbon: 3708Mission Escape GamesEscape roomIRLThis escape room runs really smoothly and has a pretty good flow and rhythm to it. I personally am not as huge of a fan of the more cold and industrial setting and look, but the production values are pretty good. At one point, we solved a puzzle too early and it wouldn't trigger until we got further into the room which was frustrating since we thought we did it wrong. Outside of that, it's a pretty good standard escape room with some intuitive puzzles.
Cheesie's Pizza Party60 to Escape - SchaumburgEscape roomIRLReally awesome theme that was well integrated with all the puzzles and atmosphere. Our GM (Celine) was fantastic as well. I really like this place and have really enjoyed every game I've played so far. If I had one criticism, it's that the puzzles were a bit easy if you were observant, though there are plenty of clues that are well hidden.
Containment60 to Escape - GurneeEscape roomIRLThe oldest game at this place, and you can tell based on the number of physical locks. There are some jump scares, and the atmosphere is pretty well built. It's a pretty solid room, though I prefer others in this location.
