The Chesapeake Bay ButcherColonial Escape RoomEscape roomIRLSpectacular!! Very scary and totally immersive. The visual environment they created makes you feel like you’re in a genuinely derelict murder house. We were all pretty tense and nervous and certainly fell victim to a few scares, but the gameplay difficulty is intermediate enough where we were able to keep moving at a steady pace without feeling out of depth. As long as you have a few escape rooms under your belt, I think most groups would be able to manage this game. The greatest challenges are pushing through your fear to maintain momentum, and struggling to see things in the dim lighting and dark rooms. You do get opportunities to earn more light by proceeding successfully. Overall, the visual theming is unforgettable and the live actor element will keep your group laughing about it for days afterward. One of my favorite rooms I’ve ever done! Very unique and impressive.
Scooby-Doo™ and the Spooky Castle AdventureEscapology - WilliamsburgEscape roomIRLScooby-Doo and the Spooky Castle Adventure is a fun, slightly challenging escape room that is good for a family or friend group. Fell pretty middle-of-the-road when stacked against the other rooms I’ve done in my life, although I’ve never done another Escapology experience. A couple necessary actions were not clicking for us and we did benefit from 3 clues, but we escaped with about 7 minutes remaining. There were a couple activities that never amounted to anything from my perspective, so I don’t know what those were about. We definitely wasted quite a bit of time on a certain puzzle that didn’t seem to do anything. Gamemaster pointed us in a different direction after we spent at least 8 minutes completing it for seemingly no reason. Decor was fine but ultimately uninspired. They were just kind of basic black rooms with props, not an immersive visual world. The escape room I did later this week at a different location was $10 cheaper and way more visually impressive. Escapology could work on their visual theming. My top likes about this room were the “Clue”-style mystery solving board which I hadn’t ever seen before, and the way it makes you feel like you’re in a Scooby story of your own. Fun experience for casual escapers.
The Lost Tomb - Hero VersionEscape Time AdventuresEscape roomIRLHad some good fun with this room. Felt fairly easy and straightforward upon completion, but still took me and my family just about the whole hour to complete. That’s just a given for us. Only asked for one clue throughout the experience when we were wasting too much time on a particular task that we honestly could have figured out if we had more than 16 minutes left freaking us out. Great set design, doable puzzles, and easy for a family to work together on. 4 people would probably be ideal
The DepthsThe Escape Game - Las Vegas Forum ShopsEscape roomIRLMy family and I failed so miserably at this one and I don’t even know why. It’s relatively straight forward. Our brains were just not clicking this time. But I can’t fault the room. The design was fantastic, the puzzles were totally fair, and I didn’t feel like it was impossible. We just messed up. Wasted a lot of time over and over again. Oh well.
Lucky Dice DinerExpedition EscapeEscape roomIRLMy whole group LOVED the Lucky Dice Diner! This was a top escape room for me. Lovely and unique theme, and the puzzles were very much on-theme as well. The gameplay flowed in a way that made sense, but it’s also designed in a way where players could split up and be accomplishing different puzzles at the same time to speed up the process. My group did this once, but mostly we stuck together and did one thing at a time. We came down to the wire but we were thrilled to complete it with a minute and a half to spare. Our gamemaster Jack was very helpful and sweet. He did pause our timer at one point to pop in and make sure we were understanding the right thing to do, which could be received differently by different groups but we didn’t mind. Definitely recommend this top escape room in the Philly area!
Voodoo SwampEscape Time AdventuresEscape roomIRLVoodoo Swamp is one of my favorite escapes I’ve done. The set design was incredibly detailed and very creepy. The plot was simple but it gave a little more context to the concept. The puzzles flowed very organically and the progression made sense. I did this room with my very inexperienced family members, and we managed to complete it! So it is definitely doable for a mixed-experience group. There a few tasks that require some physical endurance (aka, going back and forth multiple times) but no strength needed. We all had a blast and highly recommend!
The Haunted Hotel [ex Escape Artist: The Final Seance]The Great Escape Room - Queens Rego ParkEscape roomIRLDespite having a decent bit of escape room experience among 3/4 of us, we did not manage to complete this one. Our gamemaster said we still did great and that this is the establishment’s most difficult room with only a 60% escape rate. That being said, it was enjoyable, but I do feel that a couple puzzles were too obtuse for my liking. I know that could just be the loss talking! But there is one part in particular that we were fully stuck on until the timer ran out, despite KNOWING what to do, we couldn’t physically get it right. It was toward the end and I wonder if we could have finished if that one part wasn’t so frustrating. But so be it! Tough experience for your average player. A bit creepy but not much. Worth the attempt.
Dragon's CurseEscape Time AdventuresEscape roomIRLOverall, this was a fun escape room that is easy for newcomers but not SO easy that it feels like a waste. I have escape room experience but my 3 family members had never done one before, and we successfully “escaped” with 10 minutes to spare. HOWEVER, this room seems to be lacking in some quality control. A box opened up too early when I lightly played with it and the staff had to put us on pause while they tried to fix it, but they could not. We had to skip a whole puzzle because of this. Also, the GM had to get on the intercom two other times to tell us how to manually release a hatch that didn’t open automatically, and to warn us about being careful with a piece that falls too easily from its placeholder. I didn’t like that they had to interrupt the fantasy so many times! But still, a fun story with an easy-to-follow procedural of puzzles and clues. I still recommend it! It’s just not perfect.
The Heist Part 1The Puzzle ParlourEscape roomIRLGreat, manageable, challenging, well-designed escape room! I did this with a group of coworkers and we had a GREAT time, I have to tell you. I felt like it really lends itself to team work and if you communicate you can be successful. I got to control the cell phone to communicate with the game master who gave us hints and warnings of the time limit. Super cool added element.
Mountain Top MurdersThe Great Escape Room - Queens Rego ParkEscape roomIRLInstantly my second favorite escape room I’ve yet experienced! Oh my gosh it was so well done. The decor was perfect, the storyline gets increasingly spooky, and the puzzles were quite challenging but never unpleasantly frustrating. I could completely see the logical progression from puzzle to puzzle even if we needed a hint to get there sometimes. I never thought “well that was impossible without a hint!” No, it all made sense. Great, great vibes from Mountain Top Murders and I def want to go here again.
The Body ShopRed Fox EscapesEscape roomIRLI’ve only done a handful of games, but this was easily the best I’ve done and my favorite. The flow of puzzles made so much sense and did not feel unfair or impossible at all. I feel like it is the most brilliantly and meticulously designed escape room I’ve yet encountered. Plus the amazing set, thrilling twist, and touch of humor made it a total blast of an experience
VampireThe Puzzle ParlourEscape roomIRLThought this was a beautifully decorated room and was moderately challenging without being impossible for two people. You can definitely advance through without feeling too insanely frustrated. The atmosphere is the big winner here as you truly feel like you’re in a gothic vampire story.
The SurgeryThe Puzzle ParlourEscape roomIRLI believe this was my first escape room I ever did! Still very memorable and fun. Quite the scary premise and you really do want to ESCAPE. I did this room as a duo with my friend and we barely managed to escape. I think having more than two people would have been beneficial because there were a couple tough logic jumps to make and we did need some hints. But nothing egregious, just a medium challenge.
Escape The Hydeout: The Mystery Of Henry JekyllMission Escape GamesEscape roomIRLI just opened my Morty app after a long while, and I could NOT remember this room for the life of me. I’ve done fewer than 10 escape rooms and I still struggled like crazy to remember this one, although I do have a vague recollection of it now. I did it with a BIG group of mostly all people I did not know for a reality TV fan event. I don’t think I contributed much. But I do remember the set being well-presented and that we successfully escaped by the skin of our teeth, so it wasn’t ridiculously hard but not to easy either. Overall, perhaps the most forgettable escape room I’ve experienced but a decent time nonetheless.
The HomeEscape The Room - ManhattanEscape roomIRLThis remains the most convoluted escape room I’ve done, where it truly felt like you couldn’t advance through the puzzles without a lot of help. I left still not understanding the logic between how you’d get one from one thing to another. Some big reaches required. I don’t think that’s the sign of a good room. You should feel like it all made sense after even if you were stuck. You just KNOW the feeling of a good escape room, and this is not one.
![The Haunted Hotel [ex Escape Artist: The Final Seance]](https://images.morty.app/mortyapp/image/upload/c_limit,w_260/f_auto/v1/store/s/603fba64-ef38-4938-b558-c0755ac7b4e3.jpg)
