The Haunted Doll ShopJust Escape RoomEscape roomIRLThis was a fun escape room with a cool atmosphere. It was entertaining, but there were a handful of puzzles that involved counting and ordering things. We would figure out the mechanic of the puzzle but spend a lot of time because we counted wrong or slightly messed up an order. I still enjoyed the room quite a bit, and it was our fault for messing up. It's got some fun elements
The Last Video Store in AmericaEscapade 360Escape roomIRLI loved this room. The GM is always very enthusiastic and loves to talk to us about escape rooms, both other ones as well as how he built his. This was such a cool room for me because I love movies and TV, and there are tons of references throughout. If you don't have a ton of movie knowledge, it might be slightly harder just because you'll maybe need to reference materials instead of just knowing some answers. It also allows for a lot of parallel puzzle solving instead of being very linear. There are some really cool puzzles that are unique and most importantly fun. The GM says he often doesn't have the best production values, but I find the quality of the puzzles and the thought that goes into making it an enjoyable experience the most important thing.
Starship: Final Frontier60 to Escape - GurneeEscape roomIRLI really love 60 to Escape as a company, so I was very excited to try out a new room by them. This is a good room. I liked the storyline that leads to an interesting conclusion, and all the technology worked very smoothly. The production and atmosphere felt a bit more bare bones than I am used to with this company, and there wasn't any wow factor. I think the one thing that just prevented it from being a super enjoyable experience was a single puzzle near the end that felt like it relied on a lot of instinct and trial and error instead of being like an actual puzzle. We spent over 10 minutes on it and found it frustrating. Outside of that though, it's a pretty good room, just not at the level of some of this company's absolute best.
cQ OrigenesclueQuestEscape roomIRLThis is a solid escape room. I think the theme is pretty cool with small items portrayed as life size props. The problem is that I didn't love the puzzles. There are a few time waster gameplay moments where you just need to repeat clumsy mechanisms multiple times. We also just didn't find a bunch of stuff as intuitive, and the GM was kind of walking us through most of the room. It wasn't super satisfying because of that.
Salvation ReactorRiddlebox Escape RoomsEscape roomIRLThis was a solid room, but some of the puzzles were annoying. I did not enjoy how you had to return to certain things throughout the room, and there were a few puzzles where we dropped something and had to scramble to find it. This made it feel like we lost the room not because of difficulty or a challenge but due to minor things. There were fun parts of the room though, especially the atmosphere.
Jurassic EscapeMind Trap Escape RoomsEscape roomIRLMind Trap always has extremely impressive production design, but the last two rooms I did here left my frustrated due to puzzle designs that were unintuitive and just not fun to do. I feel like their Jurassic room goes back to pairing their extremely strong sets with good puzzles. We only missed one thing, but even the stuff we solved on our own still felt clever. This room isn't as over the top as some of their others, but it has some really cool moments. Overall, I would put this into the same category as their Mafia and Vampire rooms.
Last CallGame Theory EscapesEscape roomIRLThis was a pretty engaging and fun room. The theme is very unique, giving it a lively vibe. There were a few puzzles here that I had not seen before, and even if some of the other puzzles weren't necessarily innovative, they were well integrated into the props in the room in a way that made them feel more interactive and rewarding. The production design here isn't necessarily going to match some of the more exteme rooms, but there is a strong foundation and great polish since everything just works smoothly. Definitely a fun room and worth your time.
Haunted ManorGame Theory EscapesEscape roomIRLI liked the other room at this place better, Last Call. This room's atmosphere is fairly different obviously, but the room feels a lot emptier, making it less engaging. There are some beautiful props, but the puzzles weren't necessarily as creative as their other room. It's still a fun room with polish and a strong foundation, but I just think the more common theme and less innovative puzzles make it not stand out as much.
The Campground13th Hour Escape Room - WhartonEscape roomIRLThe Wizard of Oz room at this location is really impressive, incredible production values and interesting gameplay. I was very excited about the 90 minute room at this location, but it was overall slightly disappointing. The production values are nowhere close to Wizard of Oz. They are still pretty good, but nothing I would write home about. Also some elements created a smell that caused our group to cough. The real disappointment was the gameplay though. We didn't even realize we accidentally solved a few puzzles, so we kept trying to utilize those clues. There were a lot of puzzles in this room, and we did feel overwhelmed with 3 people. Also, the GM does appear in the room and was resetting the room while we were still in it, causing us to rediscover things we had already solved. It's still a good room, but it feels overrated and a few steps down from The Wizard of Oz one
True Crime: Podcast KillerPanic Escape Room - PalatineEscape roomIRLThis was an okay room, middle of the line for Panic. It pulls the production design from a lot of their other rooms with nothing that really feels unique. Same with a lot of the puzzles which mostly feel conventional in standard rooms. I think the biggest negative was that two puzzles were not reset properly, allowing us to solve them way too early. Overall it's still a decent time, but nothing I would explicitly recommend.
