Houdinis Magic Cell

I wanted to like this room. The magic theme was interesting and there’s some creativity in purely mechanical rooms (just locks and boxes basically). But it’s overall just lacking in so many ways compared to other experiences. Atmosphere will always be subpar here compared to other rooms because you’re in, essentially, a cubicle with no ceiling. You’ll hear noises from other groups (not uncommon in rooms but worse here), and GMs have to physically walk to you to give a hint instead of over a walkie or screen or in room audio. If you’ve done a ton of escape rooms the puzzles here will throw you off immensely. I can’t speak for every room but this room in particular was FULL of red herrings. Keys were found that did not work with anything, and hints that came with puzzles were often next to props that were intentionally meant to mislead you, or the hints themselves were meant for things you would find later. Arguably the worst part of the design for us was the “Master” level. Apparently, every room has a Master level that you can choose to do after completing the “base” level. The issue is that these master level puzzles are in the room with the other props. Our group in particular ended up simultaneously doing the base level puzzles and the master level ones simply because we opened a box with a random word written on it. There’s a lot of text so this was unlikely, but for us it affected our experience. We got halfway through each level instead of properly working on the base level. Not to mention you’re only given 50m instead of a full hour. Overall a flawed experience that may be worth it if you want something good seriously out of the norm for escape rooms/a challenge, and can pay half the price of other rooms.