The Steampunk Express

A good room for 3+ people. Good scenery, story, and sets. Props serviceable and functional, if sometimes a little worn. A good variety of puzzle types, and many of them to solve. Definitely a puzzle-heavy room. There were a few puzzles that felt like a slog, particularly a long sequence memory/"Simon" puzzle that fully reset and randomized after any error. It didn't add much to the story and was frustrating to get through. All the other puzzles were unique and all were doable. In response to some other review comments, I will confirm the a/c and fans were working on a warm August day and the room was comfortable throughout.

We’re giving a thumbs-up in the photo but I’m giving this room a thumbs-down in real life. At its core, it’s a cool idea and great layout: you’re inside a steampunk train, trying to get to the locomotive. Many of the puzzles are quite challenging too, I especially enjoyed one involving pistols. I have a list of grievances, however: -The AC was not working in this room, and it was 80-something degrees inside. I’m not here for that level of immersion, and when we told one of the GMs at the front desk, he reacted with disbelief. We were like, “yeah dude, it’s hot as hell in there!” We played Wilshire Hotel room immediately after and the temperature was perfect. -One of the puzzles was a sliding tile puzzle that took us forever to solve. Who actually enjoys these things? At that point I was having an existential crisis: “Why am I sweating it out in an 83-degree escape room over this nightmare task? This is not fun whatsoever.” -There’s an elaborate dexterity puzzle involving a small metal ball. My buddy lost patience with it, so I jumped in…I love dexterity puzzles. I was making good progress and then the ball disappeared down a hole. It didn’t trigger anything, and it didn’t reappear anywhere else. The GM had to come into the room to pick up the table and shake it, it got stuck somewhere. If you’re gonna make such an elaborate contraption, it should be a little more reliable. -Toward the end of the experience, there’s a crawlspace you need to enter. The rest of the room had a high level of set design, but this space was like, unpainted drywall with an off-the-shelf mechanic’s creeper inside. And the puzzle inside really didn’t fit thematically with that space, it could have just as easily been installed on a countertop elsewhere. It was like an odd, half-baked afterthought. Overall this is a challenging room, and great for puzzle-focused players. But also for a room that’s been around this long, these rough edges should have been smoothed out by now.

Rating: 2/5 - Lots of tech with an interesting set, but too many things I disliked. Pros: ➕Good looking set with an interesting steampunk theme, decorated floor to ceiling. ➕Everything is tech, no padlocks. Tech is integrated well with some tactile and physical manipulation. ➕Multiple rooms to explore. ➕Ambient audio helped add to the immersion. ➕Non-linear puzzles, the entire team can stay busy. ➕GM was helpful when needed. Cons: ➖One puzzle involved a cool mechanism, but it malfunctioned and required the GM to enter the room to help. ➖Multiple memory puzzles and they don't provide anything to write with. I have a terrible memory when it comes to patterns and numbers and need to take notes. ➖It had two of my least favorite puzzle types, jigsaw and sliding blocks. I dislike these because you have no "aha" moment, you just need to do them so they feel like time wasters. ➖There was a computer that functioned as a runbook. I personally dislike this style of play since you have to keep going back to the computer to reference info, especially with nothing to write with. The fake software/GUI on the computer was also simulating a modern Chrome browser which clashed with the steampunk aesthetic (though the computer itself was decorated like steampunk). ➖Visible wear and tear, especially on the wooden props. This is especially noticeable after playing at Crypto who refreshes the props regularly so all their rooms look brand new. ➖One part of the room was completely undecorated and plain with a large, store-bought prop, this took away from the immersion. ➖The room and lobby were uncomfortably warm when we played, I was starting to sweat just standing around. GM confirmed their A/C was working but it was still too warm, they even had fans running in the room and in the lobby but they were blowing hot air around. For some reason their Wilshire room was much cooler. We completed the room successfully as a team of 3 enthusiasts. I recommend 3-5 due to the non-linearity. One person may need to crawl. My ranking of the rooms I played here starting with my favorite: 1. Grand Wilshire Hotel 2. Steampunk Express

This room was DIFFICULT. But man was the set design pretty and genuinely one of the best rooms I've ever been to. There were a few puzzles that were a tad longer than necessary I felt like (a few too many memory games) - and I feel like it's definitely not doable with 2-3 people as it's very involved and there are a lot of puzzles but still one of the most memorable escape rooms I have ever done. The ending was very heat racing. I think our group of 6 used no hints and finished with 13 seconds left 😂

Said to be the hardest room in Toronto and it didn't disappoint! Excellent set, lots of great puzzles, and solid flow with some elements of linearity and multi-linearity. Unfortunately for us, we chose to play it when the air conditioning was down (we were given the chance to cancel but went ahead with it anyway), and it was just absolutely brutal. The four of us still finished with 10 minutes to spare but did need a clue and a manual bypass (the puzzle had a slight technical fault but it was mainly because we were drenched in sweat and too hot and frustrated to bother figuring it out ourselves). Even with these conditions we still enjoyed the room and would recommend it to any team that enjoys a challenge!

That room was amazing!! Excellent immersion/atmosphere. Challenging with tons of puzzles, lots of technology which all seemed to be working well. Different variety of puzzle types with varying degrees of multi-steps. Loved it!

We took two extra minutes but we got out! The room is high production value and has a variety of puzzles. We enjoyed it overall with our group of 8. The narrative was cohesive and generally the puzzles made sense with the story.

Just wanted to say this room is HARD like you’re gonna need more than four people. As soon as you open up the second room it’s like all hands on deck, 4 didn’t feel like enough. We had to ask for a bunch of hints even though we are extremely experienced but WOW was it satisfying to solve one without a hint cause yall holy moly was this room difficult. I generally don’t like mechanical rooms but at least appreciated the milieu as well as a fun thing you get to do at the end

Very fun mechanics and many interesting and different puzzles to solve. Uses the theme well.