Escape room

Hidden Donkey

Irvine School of Wizardry and the Goblin's Secrets

WOW!!!! Once again Hidden Donkey’s Irvine School of Wizardry goes above and beyond to create a fun, immersive, and ENGAGING experience that truly raised my expectations as to what escape rooms can and should be. I HIGHLY recommend you play this room!
My family has been waiting for this room since we completed the “Dragon Wand” room last year, and we finally were able to snag a reservation! We were all so excited since their other room here is easily all four of us’s favorite room we’ve ever done (and I’ve done over 20!!)! 
Without spoiling anything, Hidden Donkey utilizes so many elements that make you feel both immersed in the wizard world but also truly challenge the way you have to look at puzzles and obstacles. 
Their set design, music design, puzzle design, and overall room design were top tier!!! They’re also still working on the room to add an element of re-playability so that is really exciting as well! (Don’t worry, it won’t take away from your experience!)
One of my biggest pet peeves in escape rooms is when I feel like I’m solving puzzles for no reason, or I have no clue where to go next/what to do. With this room, I constantly felt engaged with the task at hand and never felt lost or confused (minus one puzzle, but it was just my group not thinking straight for a few minutes, haha!)
I will say, I wouldn’t recommend doing this experience with more than 4 people. There is definitely adequate space, but the puzzles are linear so if your group is super hands-on and wants to be involved with solving every puzzle, I would wait and develop a smaller group for this room just because it is so cool and you wouldn’t want to miss any of the action!
Our game master, Said, was amazing! So kind, warm, friendly, and he made sure to answer any questions we had before and after our game! We’ve had a great experience both times we’ve visited and are excited to replay this room when they’re finished with it!

Irvine School Of Wizardry And The Dragon Wand

I HIGHLY recommend this room to EVERYONE, Harry Potter fans or not! SO good.

UNLOCKED: Escape Room

Against Us: Space Team

Wild Goose Escapes

Santa’s Naughty or Nice List

This room was absolutely ADORABLE and *SNOW* MUCH FUN! As a fan of the previous room that formerly inhabited this space (The House Next Door), I was very impressed with what was done with the space to revamp and make it feel totally different even though the setting was exactly the same!  After completing both rooms, I can safely say the puzzles were COMPLETELY different and it was so cool to see two completely different rooms thrive in the same space!  
Our GM was Keefer and like always, he was great!  This is the first room my family and I did where we didn't ask for any hints, but don't be fooled!!  This room is pretty tough!  
The puzzles were challenging and absolutely made you think outside the box (as always with WGE rooms), but they felt so rewarding to figure out!  There was a decent amount of puzzles and the room itself was incredibly well-paced!  The House Next Door was amazing, but I'm definitely in favor of the re-vamp!  Definitely got me into the holiday spirit :) Give this room a go before the holiday season ends!

The House Next Door

This room was INCREDIBLE! I will say it always, Wild Goose Escapes runs some of the BEST and most creatively themed rooms I have ever seen. All of theirs are solid and you cannot go wrong with any of their rooms! This one was particularly interesting as you felt like you were being sneaky trying not to get caught by the neighbor’s surveillance and such! Such a creative theme and all the puzzles were really interesting and unique!!! This room was definitely the more difficult of the two they have at this location but it wasn’t impossible! My family split into two groups and each did both of the rooms in an evening! Our group’s GM was Keefer and the other group was led by Camille! Both were fantastic!

Mission Escape Games

Escape Operation: End Of Days

This room was fantastic!!!! Virtually ALL of the puzzles use higher-tech, and it was such a cool experience. We saved the world!!!! So many unexpected mechanics (if you know you know!) A relatively easy room if you’re aware of what the higher-tech room flow looks like. Definitely my favorite game they have at Mission Escape but all of theirs are worth playing!
I would say definitely speak to them about accessibility options as some puzzles require hearing and mobility but there are workarounds!

Escapade Games

RockBand

This game has a lot of potential! There were elements that were really cool (interacting with the instruments in the room, etc.) and felt really on-theme for the RockBand theme, but I also felt like my group (having collectively done almost 100 escape rooms) definitely found ourselves overthinking things.  Also, a lot of the elements of the room are triggered by the GM on the other side of the cameras, so it’s definitely dependent on if you have an attentive enough GM! Our GM was Will, and he was great!  We also had a lock that the previous reset must have missed, and he was super apologetic and came in to fix it right away! Super helpful even though he was really busy last night!! Thank you Will!!
Logistics-wise, the mode of communication/receiving hints was through a walkie-talkie, and our GM guided us which was helpful because we were overthinking to the max!
Definitely a good room for beginners, but not a favorite for me!  We chose it because my brother is a drummer and we were celebrating his birthday, but I wouldn’t necessarily recommend this room granted the price and the small amount of puzzles!  I would recommend their other rooms over this one if you’re experienced, but if you’re looking for an entry-level room this one is super fun!

PanIQ Escape Room

Wizard Trials

Room was fine, some puzzles felt very clunky in the sense that there was no good indication of where to go/what to do next. Our first puzzle wasnt reset from the last playthrough so we got our first puzzle piece and then did that puzzle and wasted like ten minutes on it not realizing we already got what we needed from that puzzle :,) Overall was fun and a cool theme, would absolutely recommend for someone with a lot of young kids who don’t mind using hints to get through because the theming is cool but it’s hard to know what comes next in the order of the puzzles.

Against Us was one of those rooms that I enjoyed with my friends solely due to the fact that we are big among us fans and used to play the game competitively. Unfortunately, the room itself is very clearly an overlay of their previous room and the puzzles aren’t super thematically sound. They are also very incredibly linear and don’t require a lot of brain power or teamwork to solve. I have not done their other rooms due to the fact I was not particularly impressed with this room, although I definitely will eventually just to see if my experience was a fluke or if all their rooms need an update. Definitely could use some polishing but if you like among us it could be a fun outing! I also liked that they took a polaroid of us. Fun memories regardless of the experience of the room itself!

The House of Clues

Escape From Alcatraz

The beginning of this room was a little slow, and there was one puzzle that was a little frustrating seeing as it requires you to use logic not included within the room, but I generally really enjoyed this room and thought it was a fun concept!  Set design could use a bit of a revamp but I thought it was great! 90% mechanical but I didn't mind! Certain puzzles were VERY creative (if you've done the room, you'll know what I'm talking about!)
I could've done for a little bit more direction but I think going into the room knowing it's kind of a free for all is helpful and conducive to a faster score. I have now done Grandma's Attic as well as this one and I can safely say both are great!  Both rooms have linear and non-linear elements.  I will come back to complete their other two rooms, as I live in Santa Barbara now and am missing the abundance of escape rooms I'm familiar with in Los Angeles!

Grandma's Attic

As an avid Morty user, I was nervous about spending my money on this room given the relatively low to mid reviews.  After completing this room myself, though, I will say I don't think the other reviews do it justice.  Yes, there are elements to the room I would have changed, such as certain technologies that may be in need of an upgrade or the laminated "no touch" stickers covering a majority of items in the room.  However, there were some incredibly unique elements to this room I genuinely appreciated as a fan of spooky things and escape rooms.
For one, the puzzles were very intriguing.  Some made you think INCREDIBLY out of the box, and some were just neat designs!  It is (to my knowledge) a fully mechanical room, so almost every puzzle is lock-based, but I don't particularly mind that! My friends and I didn't receive much direction upon first entering the room, though, so we did complete a couple puzzles out of order and find extra clues later when they were no longer needed.  My advice:  Everything you are given will have a purpose!!  There is no need for guessing; everything is incredibly straightforward!
Some puzzles almost felt TOO obvious, but to me that is why they were so genius!  Total out-of-the-box thinking, which is what you should be hoping for when booking an escape room!
There were a couple jump scares, so be forewarned, but they were SO cool!  I am very used to the shock value auditory air-horn jump scares, but one visual scare in particular got me SO good!  Very impressive as we were not expecting that!  Also the soundtrack was so spooky!  Definitely kept me immersed despite the room not being fully closed in at the top (the facility was tall; there was some drapings up above but no definitive ceiling directly above us, the facility shares one tall ceiling!)!
We escaped in 37 minutes with one hint (we fully disregarded a puzzle towards the end and our GM nudged us in the right direction), but apparently that is an anomalous time to hint ratio!  Generally, I would rank this room a medium difficulty as most things were self-explanatory, but I could see how people could get stuck on puzzles!
Our Game Master, Isaiah, was friendly and kind, and never took an eye off of us throughout the room despite having at least one other group to facilitate!
Overall, could it use a bit of an update? Probably.  But the experience we had was good and I will absolutely be coming back to complete their three other rooms!

DaCarpenter83

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