Sherlock Holmes & Beautiful Mind

The room started off fine, but it starts to derail not too far in. I'm not sure why this is Sherlock-themed, because the storyline just gets weird and very un-Sherlock... That definitely took away from the experience for us. There are technical issues with this room as well. First, it requires linearity, which is fine, but there is one part that really shouldn't have to be waited on to do. We wasted time because we tried solving it too soon, which made us wonder if we had the solution wrong (but really there was no other solution lol). Another puzzle was very finnicky, so things have to be nearly perfectly done or else the sensors won't detect the puzzle as solved. Then there's a timed puzzle that really just needs some TLC because it was very frustrating to work with controls that clearly aren't responding well. Then things really fell completely apart story-wise, and outside knowledge/a huge jump in logic was required. I'm still baffled that this puzzle was ever created because it's so ridiculous that I questioned my own reasoning when I suggested the solution. We had only two of us, and we finished in 37 minutes. This is supposed to be the easiest room at the location, so we were looking to finish in under 25 minutes. But all the issues we mentioned above definitely slowed us down, and we weren't quite satisfied even after escaping. I wouldn't recommend this room, except to casual players/large groups of new players/families. Experienced players with high standards and expectations likely won't enjoy this room as much. Our game master Jamar was really cool, though, and I don't envy him because he was working solo and there were 5 active games while we were there. He did a solid job running everything for all the groups.

Writing this review with the caveat that the staff treated us with the utmost kindness and was juggling multiple groups at the same time. My group completed this room after Area 51, where we already encountered some issues with sensors not working, so we were a little jaded with how this experience would turn out. The room started off promising, with most of the puzzles going above and beyond your typical lock and key. However, about halfway through, the story got lost on me. There were a couple of times where the puzzles required outside knowledge and we experienced the same situation of sensors not working. Not sure if our group just had bad luck. We got out with plenty of time to spare but had to communicate with our game master most of the time due to the glitches.

First off - the staff here are AMAZING and super helpful. The rooms are also beautifully designed and theoretically very fun to play. I love rooms that don’t heavily rely on padlocks and this room was fully triggered by tech. And that was the issue. Multiple solves didn’t fire correctly, causing us to double-think what were otherwise very straightforward solves and waste a ton of time. Our game master was deeply apologetic and blamed the heavy rain we’re experiencing today in LA on the issues, so I imagine this would’ve been really fun on a clear and sunny day… we just had bad luck.

My favorite room so far! The mystery element kept us hooked until the very end.

The room itself is fine, pretty standard of an escape room and puzzles. The story wasn’t great though and felt very disconnected from Sherlock Holmes. It felt like this was another room that got poorly re-themed.

The game was kinda boring to do because nothing about it really screams much of a mystery in an escape room. Kinda disappointed

Not remotely Sherlock. The first room is pretty with some interesting tech, but the story is just... so messy and takes a bizarre turn that was extremely strange and disappointing.

This room was not my favorite. Getting started was a little confusing, but as soon as we did it didn't take much to figure out the room. We escaped, so we were happy about that.

This was one of the weirdest rooms I've ever done. The plot itself is really bizarre--we're going INSIDE Sherlock Holmes's mind??--but when you get inside there are a bunch of really weird and creepy visuals, and bizarre puzzles. That being said, it provided a challenge, and we had to use teamwork to make it all work out. Some of the puzzles were incredibly challenging. Others were a little finicky. Others were quite creepy.