phinyx

Reviews

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Morty score50
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phinyx

    Amy Strauss

    40 Thieves

    40 Thieves

    MindTrap Escape Room - Temecula

    • Escape room
    • IRL
    This room is great in all aspects! Highly recommend, especially you have a big, diverse group that likes nonlinear rooms.
    Winnie The Pooh

    Winnie The Pooh

    MindTrap Escape Room - Murrieta

    • Escape room
    • IRL
    This is a great game for fans of Winnie the Pooh, fans of cute and creative storytelling with puzzles, and beginning or young players.
    Conspiracy Of Tia Canyons Corp

    Conspiracy Of Tia Canyons Corp

    MindTrap Escape Room - Temecula

    • Escape room
    • IRL
    There was one fun/creative find, and one interesting puzzle type that I haven’t seen before and liked a lot. Flow was good in theory; a bit clunky to do with our large group (9 people). I did like the nonlinear aspect, but there was some funneling at the beginning that held us up for quite a bit and we didn’t realize it was a funnel - so we were working on several puzzles that we didn’t have all the pieces for yet without realizing we needed to solve the one puzzle first to GET the pieces for all the other ones — once we solved the funnel, THAT’S when it got more nonlinear. (In hindsight, there were hints at the funnel puzzle being important to do first, but we overlooked those.) Fun was mid. Overuse of alphanumerics made it feel “hard” due to being overwhelming/confusing/convoluted rather than puzzles being interesting/challenging. Puzzles had multiple steps but few required any cleverness to figure out. The fun generally came from discovering how the puzzle pieces fit together, not from aha moments when figuring out puzzles. I think some puzzles could have been refined to reduce ambiguity in how to solve them. (I prefer a puzzle whose solution feels obvious once you realize what it is rather than a puzzle where you have three different ideas for how to solve it that all seem equally valid.) Atmosphere: Set was immersive with mix of tech and physical props. Hint system was creative and well integrated. Not many special effects, but those used were solid. GM was super friendly, communicative, and eagerly answered all questions. Felt like hints were too detailed too quickly — basically telling us how to solve the whole puzzle when we were only missing one piece. Felt like maybe the hints are pre-written rather than custom, which is fine, but then having different levels of hints would be preferred (eg first hint just directs to a puzzle to focus on, vs second hint directs to a piece to consider, vs third hint can give away the solution).