The Gallery

This room was an interesting one to rate. As we played it and right after finishing it, I wanted to give it a Thumbs Down. However, after reflecting on the room and thinking through the puzzles, there were several very unique puzzles that really tripped us up and we struggled with. That was leading to our initial frustration. But, in hindsight, they were pretty cool unique puzzles. We just were not thinking like the game designer and had never played this types of "visual" puzzles. Our GM did a good job of giving us riddles to help nudge us rather than straight up telling us the answer. Our other "issue" with this room was that it was very difficult to hear the GM over the speaker. Nerd really needs to improve this. Also, having only 1 GM working at a time sometimes created lags in getting hints. Since they do not strictly stick to 60 minute timer this isn't an issue unless you are a stickler to getting out quickly. Those issue applies to all of their rooms.

We flew through this as experienced players, but its still a lot of fun. We enjoyed the puzzles and our time in the room.

There were two of us. Wasn't sure whether to choose thumbs down or thumbs up. It wasn't really bad, but definitely not among our more enjoyable experiences. First, we prefer experiences where the gamemaster is assigned to only one room instead of running the entire facility. We don't want to have to wait for them to finish with another room's group when we ask for a hint. Further, we would have preferred hints tailored to us and not reading from a longish script describing things we had already solved. Although we escaped, one of the puzzles was an entire guess on our part... even after getting a hint and explanation after the fact. Another discouraging item was that when things opened, we did not know. They made next to no sound and one barely opened so the visual was not there either. We had to figure out "did something open"? The creaks in the floor, noises in the hall and next room were louder than the openings. In the extreme case, we did not know we had finished until the game master came in, and we asked if we were done. When we mentioned the lack of sound, the response was "it used to be louder, but it scared people". Most of the puzzles themselves were interesting and enjoyable like in other rooms we have done.

Out of all of Nerd Escapes' games, this was probably my least favorite. It's more of a "meh" than dislike. As I've said in my other reviews of games from Nerd Escapes, their games are HARD. Sometimes to the point where it might affect the fun factor. That was probably most evident in this one. Things were, at times, only somewhat intuitive. The set was a little underwhelming. It's not a terrible room, just not great. If you are in the area, come for City of Darkness and Chernobyl. Only do this one if you are looking to be a completionist.

Good as an intro to escape room for families with children. Might be too simple and linear for larger groups. Game masters were very friendly and welcoming.

A good room for folks who are new to escape rooms. Low immersion.

Had open fun mechanics but we had way too many people for the room. Lots of doing nothing. Also one puzzle/mechanism triggered an alarm. Not hard just loud!

People need to make sure they go out of their way and do these rooms. They will always make sure you have the best experience possible. This room did give me some trouble. Mainly because I was overthinking the easiest puzzles. A lot of the puzzles would make you think a ton. Which I loved.