Crazy Train: The Ballad of Skeemin' PlotzDoldrick's Escape RoomEscape roomIRLA gorgeous room, incredibly immersive. Really feels like you’re in a legally-distinct-from-Dudley-do-Right cartoon. They do a lot with a small space so that it never feels limiting. I would love to come back here for more rooms.
Servants of SleightThe Escape Ventures - Clearwater [prev. The Exit Games]Escape roomIRLA terrifically elaborate and inventive game. Jamie was a great GM, very friendly and welcoming. 90 minutes and our group of two got out with 7 seconds left (and two hints, I think), so there is a LOT to do. Totally worth the trip to Clearwater.
Wizard’s AcademyHometown EscapesEscape roomIRLA fun and charming Harry Potter themed room. We spoke a bit with the owner who was very nice and clearly passionate about escape rooms. Some of the puzzles were quite complex and multi-layered. A couple minor things in the room weren’t reset but it didn’t detract from the experience in any way. I liked that the room was really spread out into different sections and wanted players to make connections with things they saw much earlier. I’d be happy to do more rooms here if I’m ever back in the area.
Train to NowhereWaxhaw EscapeEscape roomIRLPeople here were quite nice and the opening “rules of our escape room” video was extremely charming. The room was fun, though we seemed to get stuck a lot. Most of which was probably our fault as it came down to not noticing certain details. Though I think one prop may have been broken as we did the correct code several times with no result until the GM came on to confirm what code we used and tell us to try it again. Suddenly it worked! Overall we had a good time and would try more rooms here if we passed through again.
IllusionTimed OutEscape roomIRLI’ve always had a soft spot for stage magic so I really enjoyed the theming here. A lot of inventive elements, and very tactile. They really got a lot of puzzles into a single room, some of which were quite tough, but I appreciated that the GM gave us nudges in the right direction for hints rather than just telling us what to do. One critique is that there were remnants of a discontinued puzzle still in the room, which proved a bit distracting at times. Overall had a good time!
Master KeyThe Lost Room Escape AdventuresEscape roomIRLWe did all three rooms at this location over three days. It’s a great place and each room is masterfully designed. This one was our favorite. It’s non linear and so you’re never at a loss for things to do, with a great variety of puzzles, including some things I’d never seen before. Doable with two people but easier with more, probably. Warning: crawling required.
GrimmThe Lost Room Escape AdventuresEscape roomIRLThis room is scalable, which means there were fewer puzzles for two people than there would’ve been for three, four or more. Even with that, there was way more to do than we could personally achieve in 60 mins. We received very frequent (unasked for) hints, but in fairness there’s no way we’d have seen the ending if they’d waited for us to ask for help. This is still super well-designed room and a great overall location, just a warning that two is not enough unless you’re elite players.
The Break Room: KrampusThe Lost Room Escape AdventuresEscape roomIRLA really fun and thoughtful room. There was a ton of stuff to do, and we got several hints (mostly unasked for, but we probably wouldn’t have finished without them). Maybe better to have three or four people versus two. We were never bored or at a loss for what to work on next. A ton of original and clever puzzles. Great overall location. A real place for enthusiasts.
Old Sparky - CLOSED101 Escapes - Westlake VillageEscape roomIRLA sparsely decorated room with the one big gimmick (the electric chair one player starts strapped into). After the intro, becomes a fairly generic old-fashioned room, with most of the challenge coming from things being obscured or confusing. There was no sense of flow or momentum. Also, we found a pad of paper but they were surprised afterwards when we asked them if we were supposed to have had a pen to go with it, so a problem with the room reset it seems. A pen would’ve helped!
Darkcade101 Escape Rooms - Oaks Mall LocationEscape roomIRLFairly linear, lots of various locks and combination locks, but still a lot of fun. Flowed well, puzzles made sense, and some creative interactive elements with the arcade theme. Only needed one hint and it was something we probably should’ve noticed on our own. Would do more games with this company.
Lunar Station 7Urban Escape Games - AlpharettaEscape roomIRLA well-themed series of rooms with a good variety of puzzles. Would be difficult with less than four people as there are quite a lot of things to do, but I appreciated that some puzzles can be solved in any order so we could break up into teams and work independently. We did need a few hints, but all for things we’d overlooked, and I don’t think any of it was unfair. Overall we enjoyed it a lot and felt it flowed really well.
The Forbidden TombRoyal Escape Rooms - PCBEscape roomIRLThere are more details in my review breakdown, but essentially this could be a decent room if it was better maintained and had more thoughtful signposting to lead players along. A lot of things that frustrated us were based on faded paint, unclear cause-and-effect, way too dim lighting, broken mechanics, broken props, unintelligible audio clues, uninterested GMs, etc. Overall one gets the sense this room has seen better days.
The Rabbit HoleIndizio - KölnEscape roomIRLA nicely set up room in a more traditional style. We were told by the GM that it was linear, and this was basically true, though sometimes we got a piece of a puzzle we didn’t actually use for a while. There were just two of us, which is often no problem, but the sheer volume of puzzles and locks was so high I think you’d be better off with four.
Die Kunst Des Stehlens [The Art of Stealing ]TeamEscape Köln (Rheinauhafen)Escape roomIRLA nice-looking room, decent theming. It’s always hard to judge a room without bias when you failed to escape. I do think there were issues with the translation to English that held us back, and some of the props were stuck and needed more force than we’re used to using. Without spoiling it, one of the large puzzles probably needed us to get pen and paper and draw out a logic-problem grid, but by that point we were too flustered to do so. If you’re German, you may have better luck with it than we did.
Bunker B-57: Expédition Plutonium ! [Bunker B-57: Plutonium Expedition!]The Little Red DoorEscape roomIRLAs a fan of the Fallout game series, I got a kick out of this legally-distinct-from-Fallout room. It had a really unique mechanic for making sure you have the full 60 minutes to escape, which I won’t spoil. There was a good puzzle variety with very few locks, lots of props, and even some video and audio clips. Also, very accessible to non-French speakers, with all relevant info in English as well. My wife and I finished with two minutes to spare and no hints needed.
Gold Rush - CLOSEDThe Escape Game - King of PrussiaEscape roomIRLThis was a fun room with a wide variety of puzzles and some interesting gimmicks I’d never seen before. Everything was built around the central theme really well. We only needed one hint, and in retrospect it was a fair puzzle we could’ve gotten on our own if we hadn’t been short on time.
Baker Street MysteryExpedition EscapeEscape roomIRLThis isn’t a bad game, but after Lucky Dice Diner at the same location was SO awesome, it was fairly disappointing. The theming is very basic, and most of the puzzles involve finding laminated pieces of paper. On top of that, we needed more hints than we usually do as some of the puzzles I did not find intuitive. This feels like a much older game than Lucky Dice, and like one you could play anywhere.
Lucky Dice DinerExpedition EscapeEscape roomIRLAs soon as we walked in, I was blown away by the set design. The puzzles were awesome and nicely varied, with a ton of original props to play with. The amount of things they pack in to such a small space is astonishing. Some of my favorite puzzles I’ve ever done were here, and all fit perfectly into the theme.
A Quest For Freedom - CLOSEDOlde City Escape GamesEscape roomIRLA bit different, since you are trying to find seven items instead of one item or a passcode to escape. But in practice this means it felt like we were regularly hitting dead ends and then having to reassess what to do next. Also, some of the clues we found we didn’t end up using, but we still finished the room, so in other words they were not all that intuitive. Still, an okay room.
The Red WirePanIQ Escape Room AtlantaEscape roomIRLOne of the basic rules of an escape room is you have a certain amount of time to solve all the puzzles and escape. Our group of four opened the box containing the last puzzle with 20 minutes left on the clock, but the conceit of the puzzle is you only have 3 minutes to solve it. We asked for a hint but were just told: all the information you need is there. So even though at the end we still had 17 minutes left in our time, we “failed” the game. It’s a shame because the room had some fun and clever gimmicks I’d really enjoyed up until that point, but the ending left a sour taste in our mouths, and all our group talked about on the way home was how cheated we felt.
![Die Kunst Des Stehlens [The Art of Stealing ]](https://images.morty.app/mortyapp/image/upload/c_limit,w_260/f_auto/v1/store/s/1e8a8021-1c8d-4b28-9b59-32083865366c.jpeg)
![Bunker B-57: Expédition Plutonium ! [Bunker B-57: Plutonium Expedition!]](https://images.morty.app/mortyapp/image/upload/c_limit,w_260/f_auto/v1/store/s/016afbd8-15a6-48e7-b837-3dbaf7c14479.jpg)
