Houdini's Workshop

Logical puzzle and highly immersive atmosphere

I really wanted to like this room, but it didn't live up to the hype. Most of the puzzles in the room were fine, but there was a huge red herring in the room that will confuse and frustrate many players. There doesn't seem to be any reason why this was included, other than to waste players' time. There was also a moment where I had the answer to a puzzle, but could not unlock the lock because you are meant to open it by pushing the lock down rather than up. I wish this had been communicated in the room briefing as it was something that clearly stumped other players. I feel these issues could have been addressed quite easily via the GM, but I felt as though my GM was absent for significant portions of the game, giving me clues to puzzles that I had already solved when I got stuck. Gameplay issues aside, the concept/theme of the room is good, but the decorations and lighting are underwhelming and there was no sense of immersion.

I was hesitant to book this room because of some of the reviews, but I’m so glad I did. We had so much fun! There are a lot of master locks, but they thought of very unique ways to discover each code so it never felt boring or redundant. We absolutely loved our game master, Casey! He was full of energy and made our experience even more fun! We will definitely be back to try their other rooms.

I’ve only done a dozen or so escape rooms but Houdini places second to last. To begin, our host was a very, very nice man who came across way too strong. He essentially yelled the rules at us and made us all very uncomfortable. This was his way of being fun and energetic but it was just off putting. Then we get into the room and it’s a bunch of master locks. That’s fine for 2015 but there’s so many great rooms out there, paying $50 a head to do master locks is not great. In addition, this room is Houdini themed, in the sense that there’s four clues that are vaguely magic related. In my opinion, these are puzzles that have a magic paint scheme, rather than magic puzzles. Even then, there were a few puzzles I thought were fun and well designed, but even more that were busy work or frustratingly misleading. Now the good stuff: our host didn’t mean to be rude, he meant to be fun but there’s just a communication issue. The lobby is lovely and was an excellent place to wait for the game to start. If I was going to get yelled the rules, that couch was a great, comfortable spot to do it. You can book a private experience! $50 a head wouldn’t be bad, if the game was more interesting.

I really enjoyed this one! Very straightforward, everything made sense and still felt decently challenging. There were some very fun mechanisms too

This was a fun room! Great interaction with the game master. The puzzles are all unique with some fun flashy outcomes. We enjoyed as a team of 3!

Pretty cool room with some fun magic tricks. I appreciated that all the locks clearly had illustrations on them to indicate which puzzle solved them. There was one that I felt was pretty unintuitive, but the rest were great.

Great room, lots of fun, completed with about 5 min left with two people.

A pleasant room to solve: nothing is difficult, but it’s well clued and flows smoothly from start to finish. I played by myself and would not advise a group larger than 3-4 as there isn’t a lot that multiple people can work on. The finale pays off the intro nicely. Nothing spectacular, but not a bad way to spend an hour (well, 40 minutes). My game master was super friendly and clearly an escape room enthusiast herself, which is always great to see. Recommended, although I wouldn’t go out of my way just to play this one room.

Super fun room with a couple good twists. So many locks, but unlike other rooms with a lot of locks, you’re able to figure out what goes with which lock. Great theming and set. Gamemaster Gus was amazing and made the experience extra awesome!