Welcome to the MachineCaptivating WorldsEscape roomIRLI feel like there’s not much to be said that hasn’t been already. This Deep Underground and Faustus all are amazing. This room was super fun. Very fun room reveal as well.
The Big 4 HeistBig 4 EscapeEscape roomIRLNot as bad as zombie fog park but it was disappointing. We really don’t like when rooms have actual jigsaw puzzles in them that are just built in time wasters. And I mean like And the theme didn’t seem have anything to do with the room.
Zombie Fog ParkBig 4 EscapeEscape roomIRLHas to be top 3 worst escape rooms we’ve ever done. It pains me to say this because the staff were unbelievably nice. This has one of my least favorite puzzles I’ve seen in an escape room to date. It was an actual jigsaw puzzle that the GM said some people take the whole hour to do. We almost left in the middle of the room and wished we would have. We did this one over a year ago and we still talk about it the PTSD it gave us. Also the theme is completely irrelevant with no attempt at immersion. It felt like they bought some props from a Halloween store and put them in a room.
The Lost TempleEnigma Escape RoomEscape roomIRLI’ll backup what others have said, I’ve done pretty much all the rooms in the Lancaster area so far and although this room is definitely beginner friendly the set design is probably the best in the area. Good flow, just an all around good time, Lisa our GM was awesome, 10/10.
Kidnapping 2: Afraid of the DarkBreakout Games - LexingtonEscape roomIRLOverall rating - 2/5 If you're escape room enthusiasts which if you're on Morty you probably are, skip these rooms. If you're new to escape rooms, Breakout is passable but I still think you should look elsewhere. There are much better rooms in the Lexington and Frankfort area. We've done a little over 50 escape rooms and 3 rooms at breakout. We tried kidnapping 2 this week and decided that would be the last room we do with Breakout. I tried three rooms with this company because I wanted to give them a fair shot, and we tried kidnapping 2 because it was their most recent room and was a dark room, and we thought maybe we just had bad luck with some older rooms. These rooms are just too expensive for what they are. Most of the rooms here are not multi-room. Not every escape room has to be multi-room but if you're going to have a one room escape, it better be good. These rooms are basically all lock and key with very little tech or mag locks. You walk in and you see everything that you need to do. This makes for a really boring and underwhelming escape experience. There are very few surprises or reveals, which is the thing that I am most excited to show people when I go with friends who have never done a room. The best part about an escape room is when that secret door you didn't even know was a door pops open! This is the feeling that hooked me to escape rooms a few years ago. You will not get that experience here. This is a chain, and a big one, and I think they go for quantity over quality. The rooms are just uninspired. The puzzles are often hand drawn, sometimes barely legible. Puzzles in two out of the three rooms we did were not working. Staff had to intervene both times. At one point in kidnapping 2 you have to put batteries in a flashlight. The batteries were not labeled correctly so we blew 2-3min on the clock trying to get it to work until the GM informed us they were not labeled correctly. In kidnapping one a staff member had to come into fix the one "reveal" in the whole room. For $40 a person, I would say this is not acceptable. It completely ruins any immersion. I just wish I would have spent that money elsewhere. Additionally the rooms are very close to each other. You can hear other people working in other rooms nearby which really takes you out of the whole experience. You can just tell when you do a room that was well thought out, and had some passion behind it. These rooms just have no passion, no heart. They are half baked and uninspired. If they were $25 I think they'd be passable. But for the money, look elsewhere.
Serial KillerGreat Scott EscapesEscape roomIRL5/5 I really loved this room. Our GM was fantastic, I think the clues and puzzles are unique. We did it with two and it was very doable. It’s non linear. The reveal towards the end is really fun and for a room in kind of the middle of nowhere western PA it really surprised us. No complaints really I thought it was fair and well paced throughout.
Ruins: Forbidden TreasureThe Escape Game - Berry HillEscape roomIRLOverall rating - 9.4/10 Puzzles - 9 Gameplay - 10 Atmosphere - 10 Experience - 7 For a breakdown of my weighted rating system you can refer to my bio. What a fun room! It was difficult with two of us but definitely doable. We mostly got stuck on the last room which overwhelmed us a bit but we still made it out. The set design was so so fun from beginning to end. I don't have any complaints on any of the puzzles, some were tough but all were fair. Though the space feels large, I don't actually think this room would be fun with more than 4 people, I think you'd have a few people standing around it's pretty linear and I think 2-4 is a good number. The experience gets a 5 for every escape game room because escape game does not provide private bookings and this has lowered the experience every time we've booked with them but they were accommodating when we asked if we could book another room.
TUTXscape! MorgantownEscape roomIRLOverall rating - 9.4/10 Puzzles - 9 Gameplay - 10 Atmosphere - 9 Experience - 10 For a breakdown of my weighted rating system you can refer to my bio I think this room is designed very well. It's perfect for splitting up it flows really well with 4 people. I loved it and the aesthetics are awesome.
The Last VampireEncrypted Escape - West ReadingEscape roomIRLOverall rating - 9.1/10 Puzzles - 9 Gameplay - 9 Atmosphere - 9 Experience - 10 For a breakdown of my weighted rating system you can refer to my bio I'll be honest, I'm reviewing this a while after doing the room so my memory is not perfect. But I know we had a great time in this room. I can confidently say it's good because there really isn't a bad room at encrypted. Even their first room is great. The puzzles and theme were fun.
Catching CaponeXscape! MorgantownEscape roomIRLOverall rating - 9.1/10 Puzzles - 9 Gameplay - 9 Atmosphere - 9 Experience - 10 For a breakdown of my weighted rating system you can refer to my bio. I need to preface this review by saying this was the game that started it all for me so I'm probably pretty biased. That being said, I have done 50+ rooms now and I am still fairly confident this room holds up. I think I was pretty lucky to get this as my first room, I don't know if I would have fallen in love with escape rooms if I had started with a bad room. There are some very fun reveals and I think the puzzles are unique and fair. XScape does some nice custom sound/lighting work and the staff are always fantastic. Highly recommend.
PlaygroundThe Escape Game - CincinnatiEscape roomIRLOverall rating - 9.1/10 Puzzles - 8 Gameplay - 10 Atmosphere - 10 Experience - 7 For a breakdown of my weighted rating system you can refer to my bio. Super fun room! We almost wrote it off because of the theme but the reviews were so positive we gave it a shot. You hear playground and you think that it's probably more family/kid themed but there's definitely some challenging puzzles. The reason I rate it a 4/5 instead of a 5/5 is there were two puzzles I didn't find very enjoyable. One being the classic, "we took something and chopped it up into a bunch of pieces and now you have to put it back together". That's a D tier puzzle for me and always feels like a boring time killer. But the puzzles are all very interactive and this would be very fun with a 4 people. You can book this room with a large group but we did it with 2 and it was doable. Close but doable! Definitely would be fun with a bigger group though.
The DepthsThe Escape Game - Berry HillEscape roomIRLOverall rating - 9.4/10 Puzzles - 10 Gameplay - 10 Atmosphere - 9 Experience - 7 For a breakdown of my weighted rating system you can refer to my bio. I think this is a great room for two players, flows nicely, I think all the puzzles are very fair and make sense, we really enjoyed it. It had a nice flow with 2 people and the set design was really fun. I felt like all the puzzles had the perfect mount of thinking to "clicking" ratio. The puzzles were also very interactive, a lot of touching and turning stuff. Also I don't know if something changed with the room or they just forgot to turn the lights off but this was definitely not a dark room.
Biker's Revenge - CLOSEDEncrypted Escape - West ReadingEscape roomIRLOverall rating - 8.8/10 Puzzles - 8.5 Gameplay - 8.5 Atmosphere - 9 Experience - 10 For a breakdown of my weighted rating system you can refer to my bio. I'm such a fan of all the rooms here. I think this is their first room which sometimes means it's the "worst" room but not in this case! They started out strong here at encrypted. Very little lock and key, mostly mag locks, and some really creative puzzles and the flow is good!
The Scary OneCountdown GamesEscape roomIRLOverall rating - 9.7/10 Puzzles - 9 Gameplay - 10 Atmosphere - 10 Experience - 10 For a breakdown of my weighted rating system you can refer to my bio. This is my favorite room here. It's hard but in a really fair way. We were very close to finishing, we were on the final puzzle when we failed. We had three experienced players I think one more would have been perfect. It's one of those rooms that makes you look back and go "gah if we had just gotten that one puzzle sooner." Only one puzzle felt like a stretch, 95% of it was fair and fun.
The HideoutEscape. on QueenEscape roomIRLOverall rating - 7.2/10 Puzzles - 7 Gameplay - 7 Atmosphere - 7 Experience - 9 For a breakdown of my weighted rating system you can refer to my bio. The game masters here have always been great. These rooms do not have any tech really, they are physical puzzles. But the sets aren't bad and the puzzles make sense for the most part. I think for the area these are good rooms. This one is probably my second favorite after 1777.
The Curse of the Captain's Treasure - CLOSEDCapital Escape & Axe ThrowingEscape roomIRLI love all the rooms at this location, such an underrated spot. The ship is on hydraulics, we didn't expect that for this small shop and the owners are so nice. This is a real passion project. This room is their easiest if you're experienced but it's still great.
Frankenstein: The Awakening60 Minute Escape GameEscape roomIRLOverall rating - 9.0/10 Puzzles - 9 Gameplay - 8.5 Atmosphere - 9 Experience - 10 For a breakdown of my weighted rating system you can refer to my bio. Very fun room with great set design. The only thing I'd mention is this room is not handicap accessible. I would not consider it a spoiler because it says it on the website but there is crawling and tight spaces. We thought the puzzles and flow of the room was great, though some of the puzzles it was difficult to tell when you had completed them and something had opened.
The Crazy KeeperEscape Hatteras - FriscoEscape roomIRLThis room was super creative with the use of physical mechanics. I mean the owner researched how a lighthouse works and built a little working lighthouse for the room. Pretty awesome!
Murder Of 89Captured LV Escape Room - AllentownEscape roomIRLOverall rating - 8.5/10 Puzzles - 7 Gameplay - 10 Atmosphere - 8 Experience - 10 For a breakdown of my weighted rating system you can refer to my bio. As others have said, this is one room. I don't consider that a spoiler personally I think it's important to know to set expectations. That being said it was a very enjoyable room. We did it with two and we felt relaxes the whole way through. The puzzles are straight forward but fun. There's not a ton of tech in the room but I think it's perfect for two people.
DraculaHarrisburg Escape Rooms at ABC East LanesEscape roomIRLThey claim this is their hardest room, and I'm sure that's true, but it wasn't hard in a fun way. There were red herrings in this game that were complete puzzles. Meaning you could fully interact with an object that had lights, sounds, markings. I already despise red herrings but it was just cruel. We got out but I didn't enjoy a single puzzle. Also the music was so loud you could barely communicate in the room.
