CONDEMNED2: The BoxNorCal Escape Co.Escape roomIRLOne of my favorite rooms ever, and I don’t generally like scary rooms. The challenge level of the room was perfect for me and my friends. It felt hard, but in a good way; it also never felt like we were ever stuck on anything for too long. Part of that was good GMing. The GM was attentive, and knew exactly when and how much to nudge us (didn’t count towards our hints). The ending was cool with how it incorporated the earlier puzzles. 10/10
MagnificoEscaparium - LavalEscape roomIRLLives up to the hype. Easily the best escape room. Incredible production value. Amazing story, characters, puzzles, the whole works. See breakdown.
RobotopiaOmescape - SunnyvaleEscape roomIRLA great room with one of the most memorable experiences I had at an escape room.
UndercookedOmescape - SunnyvaleEscape roomIRLOne of the best rooms I’ve ever done, and the absolute best in terms of parallelization. Had a full group of six, and everyone was able to actively participate 100% of the time. Highly satisfying and no technical issues.
Chaos In The GalleriaOmescape - SunnyvaleEscape roomIRLOne of my favorite rooms ever. Had a full group of six, and we had a blast. Zero technical issues.
Special Ops: Mysterious MarketThe Escape Game - San JoseEscape roomIRLAgain, Escape Game sets the max group size at 8 people and disallows private bookings, and these aren’t big rooms with a ton of puzzles or parallelization. There’s a lot of stepping on each other’s toes and folks idling around unable to participate.
The DepthsThe Escape Game - San JoseEscape roomIRLI’ve escaped every room at this location, and I have some complaints that are common to every room: 1) technical issues in every single room, and 2) the rooms are on the small side and seemingly designed with around four people in mind, but Escape Game sets the max at 8 and disallows private bookings. The experience suffers as a result.
The HeistThe Escape Game - San JoseEscape roomIRLI lowkey thought this room was pretty hard, and I was surprised by how much they managed to pack into the space they had. We did end up bypassing a big chunk of the room due to a technical issue… but oh well. That’s kind of par for the course at Escape Game.
Timeliner: Train Through TimeThe Escape Game - San JoseEscape roomIRLThe room wasn’t reset properly, one of the locks was jammed, the touch screens were laggy, one of the maglocks didn’t release properly, and the puzzles were pretty basic… but ultimately I had fun. The theme was cool, and I enjoyed the immersiveness. That said, we did manage to get a private booking with 4 people for this room. If it had been with the usual 8 for Escape Game, I think it would have been a lesser experience.
Pirates Of The Bermuda TrianglePanIQ Room - NYC [prev. Clue Chase]Escape roomIRLA well-designed room. The puzzles were all fun and satisfying to solve - though most were on the easier side. The room wasn’t reset properly, but they were able to recognize and fix the issue within the first 5-10 minutes.
Houdini's WorkshopPanIQ Room - NYC [prev. Clue Chase]Escape roomIRLSurprisingly good for a room that used so many master locks. The only issue we had was with a couple unfun red herrings. For one, there are differently colored pins on one of the locks, but this isn’t a clue, despite there being several color-based puzzles in the room.
Ghost PatrolTrivium GamesEscape roomIRLAbsolutely amazing. At least in terms of production value and polish, one of the best rooms I’ve ever done. It felt like a Disneyland experience. Also, the room felt brand new despite being several years old, and the staff were very friendly.
The Father of Silicon ValleyBreakout Studios - San JoseEscape roomIRLThere’s a release mechanism that can kill you for no reason. The puzzles aren’t amazing. The hardest ones are tedious or badly designed pen and paper puzzles. There’s also some extraneous info in the room. Lastly, this is more a matter of personal opinion, but I didn’t really dig the theme.
Gold RushThe Escape Game - San JoseEscape roomIRLIt was short and enjoyable. There was one part of the room that’s clearly in bad repair though, and it resulted in us bypassing a puzzle. They gave us vouchers as compensation though.
Chapter 1: Occam's ApartmentOff The Couch GamesEscape roomIRLA really cool concept and a highly immersive, memorable experience. Some of the puzzles were just okay, and yet the room still might be one of my all time favorites.
Lollyland - CLOSEDPalace GamesEscape roomOther I had fun… but it also wasn’t really an escape room. It was more like mini golf with extra steps. I’d recommend for people who aren’t super into escape rooms and just wanna have some fun.
