So upset that I made an account just to leave a review. 90 minutes gameplay time is not truthful by the way. I think this must be mentioned, because you have to earn that last 15 minutes. Normally you'll only get 75 minutes.. One of the worst overall experiences I have had, would not recommend unless you have plenty of spare cash laying on your bedroom floor. This game is designed with a difficulty that would require multiple attempts to clear. The first red flag is that there is an option in the beginning that is locked unless it was your repeat attempt. The difficulty will be explained in greater detail in the [Gameplay] section. However, to me it was an artificial difficulty, intentionally designed to be generally unclearable in the first attempt.

It’s less on a traditional escape experience, and more an interactive almost video game like experience with some core puzzle elements. Essentially each room is one core puzzle with mini games on the side. It’s a cool room design, high tech touch points throughout with a very unique play experience. My big critique of the room is that while it’s designed for 6+ players, it’s very hard to have more than 2/3 working on the core puzzle at a time. While others are off in their own world doing side quests. The experience feels disjointed. I appreciate the ambition of this, just doesn’t quite gel to me as an overall experience especially if you’re desiring a traditional escape experience.

I really wanted to thumbs up this game. In some aspects it is insanely impressive. set, and visual quality are at the top of their game and yet, it doesn’t save them from a poor pricing model, tone deaf themes, and lackluster gameplay/ending. While in the moment I thoroughly enjoyed most of the game. The ladder is not like most escape rooms. More of a live action video game. combining games and puzzles throughout. Games give you money that progress towards your end goal. And puzzles add an extra flair to the lore and experience of the room. (You want to finish puzzles. You’ll feel more fulfilled). My gripe is not with the difficulty but instead with how the game is designed to make use of the replayability feature. We dedicated almost all of our time to these puzzles and only finished 1 of them. At the end of the game, you are given a breakdown of how you did and where your ending fell in the grand scheme of things. We fell in the bottom half. Expectant of a first time group to this replayable experience. But to return I still have to pay over 300+ dollars to do so. The small discount they give you after to come back is nice but not nearly enough to incentivize me to play a replayable game. If the ladder wasn’t built upon replayablity I wouldn’t have such an issue with the pricing. A replayable game about corporate America asks its players to dump hundreds if not thousands of dollars into it should you want the whole experience. In my opinion that’s tone deaf of the designers to price the game in this way. (Totally get real estate isn’t cheap and escape rooms are leisure activities but I’d genuinely come back and play if I didn’t have to spend so much to come back each time.) Overall it’s an interesting concept. Just racked with issues though. Games were fun, our janitor great, effects cool, but I left feeling like I got 50% of the experience and if I just payed them more money, I’d get the extra 50%. So much for climbing the whole ladder.

i really wanted to like this room but it just didn’t bring me joy. i’ve done a lot of escape rooms and some immersive experiences and maybe because it cost $89 per person i had high expectations. maybe if my group focused on the puzzle aspect, we would have had a better experience? i don’t know and will probably not find out.

Wow just wow!! What a fun interesting story! So many endings to get and I can’t wait to go back and do it again and again to see all the stuff we missed!! Also, big groups are way better. There is a lot to do 🫡

A truly one of a kind experience. In that, I did find it frustrating at some points because you don’t get the same payoff that happens in usual escape rooms but I had so much fun. If I lived in LA I would be straight back in there trying to complete more levels. So clever and well designed.

This is after our first attempt: I’m still giving this a heart because the production value was incredible, the games were mostly fun (and you could ignore the ones you didn’t like), and there’s so much promise for the exciting new things we could do and learn in a following run. However, I will say that finishing the game and even being told that we did really well for our first game still felt closer to the feeling I get when I don’t escape a standard escape room. We were close to solving a few of the challenging puzzles but never got to complete one. This is, of course, by design. The goal is to make you want to return and solve all of the puzzles. I do think we’ll likely return especially since it’s been a day since doing the room and I still can’t stop thinking about it. So I’m giving this the heart assuming that’s how I’ll feel after a second attempt. But we’ll see if it stays interesting for 90 minutes when we’ve already done most of what this room has to offer.

I really wanted to love this room. Upon entering, I was told not to treat it like other escape rooms, which is always a good sign if you’re being asked to change your expectations right? But you know what, I gave them the benefit of the doubt and eliminated all expectations and approached it as a “hey I’m just going to have some fun with my friends” and even then… I found that this a terrible way to spend $100 and 90m of your time. Take your money, go to Dave & Busters, and you will have a very similar experience to that of the Ladder, which is really more of a collective of arcade games than it is an escape room. Technical issues: So okay, fine it’s not an escape room… it’s an immersive experience with some games in it… if you’re going to charge people $100 and expect them to come back again, make sure there are no technical issues. In each of the 5 sections of the experience, we had at least 1 technical issue with our GM having to come in and reset a module or just give us credit for the module because it stopped working. Charge me $100, there is a bunch of technical issues, then you want me to come back and go through the same thing again? Pretty ironic to have a game that makes fun of capitalism only to then treat this like a way to trick people to spend more and more money for an experience that doesn’t work. This is the opposite of the Nest and Lab Rats rooms (which btw both felt like very meaningful experiences, and the Nest is also not a traditional escape room!). Lack of clear narrative: Technical issues aside, the room felt like it was a very ambitious idea and the creators failed to actually follow through with their ambitious vision and execute all the finer details which is why the experience comes off as a chaotic arcade with a “story” in the background rather than a cohesive narrative. If I’m giving you $100, even if it’s not a traditional escape room, I think it is fair to expect a clear story and a seamless bug-free experience. Money-bait puzzles: From a puzzle perspective, most of the puzzles were so difficult for the time given that it felt pointless to even do them. I quote our GM here that the puzzles “are not designed to be solved in a single play through, the intention is it takes multiple plays to solve” which makes me ask the question, why the heck am I even bothering to do the puzzles then? Am I supposed to pay $200 to do the puzzles over two tries? $300 over three tries? How much money do I have to spend to actually to properly do this room? Again, the irony of making fun of capitalism. Either have the puzzles and make it possible to do on one go, or ditch the puzzles and call it what it is… a sequence of arcade games. Conclusion: Overall, I’ve done hundreds of escape rooms and this was by far one of my least favorite rooms I’ve ever done. My expectations were so high and even when I lowered them, it was hard to leave that room feel anything other than sheer disappointment and a waste of money.

This is definitely a unique experience and replay-able because of that. I’m glad i focused on the mini games so my next visit i can do other mini games or work on the puzzles. I think 6 people is an ideal number for this room.