Taken

Red Door's "Taken" gets a lot of the fundamentals right, even if it never quite reaches the heights of a truly memorable escape room experience. The theme—a standard hotel room—is executed faithfully. The set design is competent and believable, successfully creating the atmosphere of a slightly nondescript but authentic lodging space. It matches the theme well enough to immerse you in the scenario, even if it won't blow you away with elaborate theming. The strongest aspect of the game is undoubtedly the puzzle variety. The designers made a clear effort to avoid repetition, ensuring you're cycling through different types of challenges throughout the hour. This keeps the experience moving and prevents that feeling of being stuck in a rut. You'll likely encounter a decent mix of observation, deduction, and physical interaction. In terms of style, "Taken" leans heavily on the classic escape room formula with mostly mechanical locks. There's nothing wrong with that—a good old-fashioned padlock can be just as satisfying as a high-tech sensor when it's attached to a clever clue. It fits the unassuming hotel room aesthetic, even if tech enthusiasts might find it a bit dated. The flow of the game is... fine. It's doable. The path from start to finish is logical enough that you probably won't find yourself wandering in circles for too long. However, "doable" is the key word here. The puzzles, while varied, rarely feel innovative or particularly "wow." They get the job done, providing a steady stream of tasks to complete, but lack that creative spark that makes you want to tell your friends about a specific clever moment. It's a functional, linear progression that ticks the boxes of an escape room without adding any extra flair. Overall, "Taken" is a perfectly adequate way to spend an hour. It's a solid, middle-of-the-road game that succeeds in being a functional escape room. It's not bad by any means, but it's also not a must-play. If you're in the area and looking for something to do with a small group, it will scratch the itch. Just don't go in expecting to be blown away. It's a perfectly fine way to pass the time, and sometimes that's enough.

Such a fun set design and great story. Coordinated efforts necessary and small details abundant in this room. Need a larger group of adults to finish. Used rewards to go for free on my birthday well worth it!

was a good game from what i remember

Nice spin on the early part of the game, needing to work in combination with folks in the other room. Lots of locks, some neat puzzles, some straightforward.

Taken: A woman had been kidnapped and we had to locate and free her. Confinement: Trapped in a creepy room in a dreamlike state we had to find a way out. Prison Break: Captured by terrorists and thrown into a dark, dank cell we had to find our way out of the torture chamber. The Gift: Our friend left a gift he bought for his girlfriend in his uncle's antique shop. We had to break in and recover the gift to help our friend out. Once Upon a Time: Trapped in a fairy tale we had to follow the clues to break the spell and find our happily ever after. Pros: When we walked into Red Door Escape Room, we were only scheduled for one game. Five games later we can definitely say we had the full Red Door experience. We are suckers for a good promotion and couldn’t resist their loyalty program. So we decided to prove our loyalty all in a single weekend in our personal quest to earn elite level and the coveted red key. The location is ideal and the waiting room looked inviting and fun. Each game begins with a rule video and a storyline video. Wit the exception of Once Upon a Time (which we loved) we found the storylines to be a bit too realistic and less fun (we felt the human trafficking storyline was not appropriate). But the general themes were typical of most rooms. The gamemasters were exceptionally enthusiastic in both the introduction and the celebration at the end of each of our games. We really enjoyed our time with each employee. The set designs were all aligned to theme. The Gift had some unique and fun set elements. Once Upon a Time had that storybook feel. They were generally well-built adding to the game play experience. Cons: We found the game flow difficult in all of the rooms. The puzzles were sometimes illogical or counterintuitive frequently leading to our requests for assistance from the gamemaster. In one game alone, we managed to escape with five puzzles left unsolved. This was a reflection of the limits to the game design. We had to request frequent hints in order to escape on time. We prefer games that are designed to flow flawlessly with no hints from gamemasters and guide posts to keep the game flowing.

My first escape room, but the third Red Door location for me! (Concord being my first and San Mateo area for my second). Again, very nice production values, decently challenging, but we escaped, so that's good enough for me!

Flow had a good flow. Got so invested on the puzzles I lost sight of the actual objective🤣🤣🤣 Good puzzles and great company

Mid

I took some family here for their first escape room ever. This room starts with the teams split up and I thought the way that puzzles combined and information had to be shared was fun and clever. My advice to players is make sure you are opening doors and drawers. Every clue we needed was just our inability to actually open something obvious.