Once Upon a TimeRed Door Escape Room - San MateoEscape roomIRLa cute theme and our GM was cool, but the room quality isn’t that good. The GM said that despite it being rated 6/10 it was “deceptively tricky” and he was right, but in a bad way! Multiple puzzles require leaps of logic that aren’t clued, and there an emphasis on finding that at a certain point stops being fun (seriously, without a hint I’m not sure if we ever would have found one of them items). If you’re going to red door, I’d recommend skipping this one.
Fair GameRed Door Escape Room - San MateoEscape roomIRLcute room with fun carnival games and a couple of clever puzzles! puzzles are generally quite easy for experienced players but are still enjoyable. there’s one physical game that might cause people trouble but luckily we have some very coordinated people in our group 🥳
CONDEMNED2: The BoxNorCal Escape Co.Escape roomIRLWow! It’s been a while since I’ve done such a satisfying room! It was the perfect level of challenging while not being frustrating, with super well designed puzzles and a fantastic set. It’s a good amount of spooky! The split at the beginning is creative and fun and the extra challenge at the end (without going into spoilers) is super worth doing. We played with four seasoned escapees and I feel like it was the perfect number. This really might be one of the best designed rooms I’ve done in a while and one of my favorites. Worth the long travel up! Thanks to our GM for being so fantastic as well!
Fox Tail SaloonNorCal Escape Co.Escape roomIRLhad a great time at the fox tail saloon! this 45 minute room is a great example of how to do a “search heavy” room right. it was fun scrambling around looking for hidden things and noticing little details. the hint system was also really fun.
Escape TruckNorCal Escape Co.Escape roomIRLWhat an incredible use of the space! Despite it only being truck sized, the game packed a lot of puzzling fun in. The atmosphere was great, and puzzles were simple and clever and a delight to solve. The GM was also fantastic here. Highly recommend this one!
The Whispering Halls 2: The Stolen HourEnchambered Live Escape Room AdventureEscape roomIRLgood ambience! every time a door opened I was awed that there were more spaces to go into! puzzles were average, nothing standout. Note: morty has it rated as scary but it’s not really, just that the ambience and theme are kinda spooky, and there’s a few loud noises. as someone who is scared easily though this wasn’t so bad!
BittenEscape Rocklin [prev. Beat the Room]Escape roomIRLa lowkey room with some interesting and unique puzzles and a fun story!
Three KingdomsClockwise Escape Room - PleasantonEscape roomIRLi love rooms with medieval fantasy themes, especially ones where you get “roles”. but I thought puzzle-wise the room was pretty mid. the puzzles were generally easy but we got stuck for a while on the ones that just required you to find things in the room without any other indications. My biggest gripe with clockwise is that all their rooms are dark and we struggled in the low light :D The room also feels old somehow, maybe it’s the structure of the room itself or the how the puzzles are structured. overall fun though, still worth knocking out if ur in the area!
Revenge Of MedusaClockwise Escape Room - PleasantonEscape roomIRLfairly easy room, except we got stuck on one thing for a long time bc we mistook an ambient sound for a puzzle completion noise 🥲 again, reiterating my gripe with clockwise, it’s too dark and it’s hard to see even with the lamps :’) ya girl needs darkvision Good vibes and a fun theme overall!
Back to ChildhoodClockwise Escape Room - PleasantonEscape roomIRLOkok I’m a HUGE sucker for “childhood” themed rooms so I might be biased here. I loved the whimsy, I liked playing around with all the toys finding delightful hidden things. Puzzles were really solid and it was perfect for two people! Probably my favorite room at this location.
Saving FrankensteinClockwise Escape Room - PleasantonEscape roomIRLsolid room with solid gameplay! As our GM said, the vibe is “old Hollywood spoopy”. puzzles were simple and well designed! again.. dark as hell even with lamps :’D
Candy FactoryClockwise Escape Room - OaklandEscape roomIRLThe theme in this room was so fun, which I think amped up my enjoyment of it. The puzzles were fun and felt satisfactory to do. I felt a lot of joy when the thing happens (you’ll know what I’m talking about when you do it too). It was a nice sized room for 2! It reminded me a lot of TEG’s Playground. Some of the puzzles were arguably better in this room too. This was probably my favorite room at this location. The only thing I didn’t love about it was the scent based puzzle. I think some of the scents were pretty faded and hard to smell.
Hidden TempleClockwise Escape Room - OaklandEscape roomIRLFun room with lots to do and some creative mechanics!! I liked the set and the puzzles were simple but engaging. We did more of this room in the dark than necessary lol, because we closed something we thought wasn’t reset properly. Nothing like a good in-team nerf :D
Shipwreck IslandClockwise Escape Room - OaklandEscape roomIRLFun beginner friendly room! Great parallelizability! It felt like it ended earlier than expected, but for newer folks I imagine this would be a fantastic experience! I liked the crabs 🦀
Escape from Iron GateThe Escape Game - OnlineEscape roomTabletopit’s a cute and simple puzzle game, prolly more geared towards novices or kids!
Only Murders in the Building The Escape Game - NYC MidtownEscape roomIRLThis room is a reskin of The Heist and it kind of shows in that the theming isn’t super strong amongst the puzzles. Folks say you don’t need to watch the show, but honestly i think it added a lot, in that my favorite part of the room was seeing the little Easter eggs here and there. It was also hard for one of us who hadn’t seen the show to tell what was a clue and what was just an Easter egg. I had a good time, but definitely preferred the original better, and overall think it’s one of the weaker TEG rooms. But if you like the show, I think it’s worth doing! The staff was really sweet though, they heard we’d finished all the TEG rooms at the location and gave us collectible pins and let us sign their wall of fame!!
Legend of the YetiThe Escape Game - NYC Times SquareEscape roomIRLOverall a pretty fun room! Our booking ended up having another group which I think is probably the most people you’d want (ideally maybe 2-3 especially for sharing some of the tools in the room). The GM was cool and even gave us a collectible pin for being the fastest time they’d seen!
Ruins: Forbidden TreasureThe Escape Game - NYC Times SquareEscape roomIRLI really enjoyed this room! Definitely one of TEG’s most immersive and newest-feeling rooms. Fun puzzles, nice tactile puzzles, and exciting ending. You can tell they put a lot of work into it! Probably up there with Playground for being my favorite TEG game. Also the intro video was FANTASTIC, I love captain mac We did end up getting one hint which wasn’t rly puzzle related (we were missing an item because we were too scared to stick our hand in a certain hole). I just wanted to take the time to shout out the incredible staff there (Adama, Gmo and the others!) We did a late night slot, and they were rly wonderful. I think the location is pretty new so they kind of went above and beyond for us. The lady at the front desk privated our experience for us, our GM and the rest of the staff gave us a rly cute certificate with cute messages on it for having finished all the TEG rooms they had available! They also gave us their Escape from Iron Gate game (which was pretty fun)! I was blown away by how thoughtful and kind they were and it honestly made my day. (Also im aware these photos make my husbands head look giant in one and then make him look tiny in the other lol, gotta love 0.5 scale)
Moonshine MadnessPanIQ Room - NYC [prev. Clue Chase]Escape roomIRLthis room had some fun puzzles that used the set well! overall on the shorter side. I had an overall good time and thought one or two of the puzzles were actually quite unique. my main gripe is that they had some broken pieces that were kind of mentioned at the start of the game but the room set wasn’t updated at all and the GM wasn’t the friendliest about it. Also, they started us 9 minutes late (there was no one in the lobby when we arrived and no way to alert them).
The Morrison Game FactoryPostCuriousEscape roomTabletopI was incredibly invested in the story and you will be too 😊
