Viking Raid

I had a good time with Viking Raid, and I really liked the theme, set, and props … but compared with Encrypted’s other games, this one felt a little less polished. I volunteered to start the game chained to the wall, which sounded like it would be a fun twist. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much for the chained player to actually do. I mostly watched my team work, and by the time I solved the one thing available to me, they were already in the next room (and I realized what I’d done was essentially redundant anyway). It felt like a missed opportunity for a fun physical or teamwork challenge - so don’t get too excited about volunteering for the chains! The main room was a decent size and absolutely packed with puzzles. Almost everything is visible from the beginning, staged around the edges of the room, and you gradually find the pieces needed to interact with each setup. That creates a very nonlinear game - which can be fun, but here it occasionally became *too* nonlinear. Different teammates would be solving things across the room without everyone knowing what had been completed, so we’d sometimes pick up a clue later only to discover it belonged to something someone else had already solved. It didn’t help that a lot of the puzzles overlapped visually and conceptually. Circles, symbols, similar-looking pieces would show up again and again … so after a while, everything starts to look like it could belong to everything else. Also - one item actually *did* have to be used twice (a big escape-room no-no in my book). Once I’ve successfully used something, I want to be able to mentally cross it off and move on (especially in a room that already has this many similar-looking elements in play). Clearer separation between puzzles would have gone a long way. The pacing was kind of strange and had a bit of an hourglass effect: tons to work on at once, then suddenly everything funnels down to one obstacle before opening back up again. The biggest bottleneck was a physical & communication-based puzzle that took us forever. It was painstaking, and most of the team eventually had nothing to do but wait (although I will def admit, finally getting it was incredibly satisfying). One interesting feature is that there are no traditional locks in the room. Everything relies on magnetic and electronic triggers, and some of the reveals are super cool! Unfortunately, several of those mechanisms seemed worn down or unreliable. More than once we had the correct solution or objects in the correct positions, but nothing happened immediately. It sometimes felt like the game master had to manually trigger the mechanism once he confirmed we were right. Each delay was small but those wasted seconds add up and it made parts of the experience feel clunkier than they should have. It also reminded me why I still love a good old-fashioned physical lock! I think the best rooms use a mix of both. Overall, I enjoyed myself … but if you’re coming to Encrypted, I’d recommend choosing one of their other games before this one.

This room was very cool! We loved that there were no combination or key locks. Everything that unlocked to get you to the next step was magnetic/mechanical. The puzzles were cool and some were challenging in a unique way. We barely escaped 😅🫣 but such a cool experience!

Difficult room with some interesting puzzles. No locks but needs lots of outside the box thinking. We had fun!

Viking Raid was amazing! Immersive, well-designed, and packed with clever puzzles. Challenging but fun! Highly recommend for anyone who loves a great escape room adventure!

Difficult puzzles for me but I was with a crew of people that were able to solve things.

Another fun and successful night at Encrypted. The staff are great and the rooms are unique and challenging. Another great date night!

We’ve wanted to play here for a while - it greatly lived up to the hype! The game was outstanding. Besides a dreaded puzzle game, the room was full of fun challenges and amazing design choices to create such an immersive experience!

We really enjoyed this room. It’s easier than Biker’s Revenge, but still had some challenging puzzles and the flow was better. The set design and ambiance is fantastic. We appreciate the soundtracks of the games at Encrypted, too.

Great puzzles with this room! I would definitely do it again for sure