Joker's Asylum

I have a huge soft spot for Omescape (it’s where I first fell in love with escape rooms), but jokers asylum is definitely dated and one of their worst rooms. The split at the beginning doesn’t leave much for one group to do, there’s a couple of misleading puzzles in terms of what elements are part of them, and one broken element that I didn’t end up needing (I was given a walkie talkie instead) but I wasn’t informed it was out of the game. Of course this room is closing down, so there’s not much else to say!

i’ve done a ton of complicated and hard escape rooms, and while this one is marketed as their “most difficult” room, it was just plain confusing and had little to no flow. It’s not enough to just put a bunch of random puzzles into a room and expect guests to make up a cohesive connection between them. The room attendants did not give clear clues and ended up confusing us more than anything. This room is very pretty and has a LOT of potential, but the current state of the gameplay is extremely lacking. Maybe in a year or so they can fine tune this room, but i would not recommend this room at this point in time.

My friends and I had fun solving this escape room. OMESCAPE always has fun escape room puzzles and it’s one of my favorite escape room companies in the Bay Area!

I think the room is fine and I enjoyed the puzzles. I’m reluctantly giving a negative rating due to 1. Technical difficulties and 2. Negative Energy from the gamemaster(s) When I did my first ever escape room, what made my experience extra special was how welcoming, warm, and helpful the GM was to me and my group, and it was actually at Omescape. And having been a gamemaster myself, I always prioritized that an escape room would be fun for my groups and I feel that it takes a lot to feel uninviting. Today, there was a big part of me that did not feel welcome from how the staff interacted with me and my group. The energy wasn’t great and maybe the GM had a bad day. I asked multiple times for the GM to nudge us if we were falling behind, but they didn’t do it until the last 5 minutes and it would feel like we were pulling teeth every time we were trying to ask for hints. Second, I could recall at least 2 technical difficulties that weren’t game breaking, but could have been easily solved if 1. The GM was present and helped us, or 2. the door/lock was tested/designed more intuitively. I think my group lost around 10-15 minutes and if it was resolved at the time, we wouldn’t have went over the time and failed. Third, there was no way to see how much time was left and the GM would never bump or tell us how much time we had left. It’s more of a nitpick since we could ask ourselves but it ties into the GM not being really present with our group. Overall, I probably wont go to the San Jose location anymore, but I definitely will go to Sunnyvale. You can take this review with a grain of salt since my group failed, but I would like to think I would have the same feelings regardless if we won or not. The game itself is alright.

this one was difficult with a large group, but i think we weren't communicating very well together. i would recommend a group of 4-7 for this one. wasn't scary or spooky at all and some of the puzzles were really cool!

Very fun room. It was supposedly the hardest room at this location, however it didn’t seem so bad. We were slightly late to our reservation and missed the backstory video. However even without it, the mood of the room was cool. Unlimited tips if needed but we only needed two due to one of our group mates forgetting a step where the worker had to step in. Overall a lot of fun.

This room had decent puzzles that weren't overly easy but not overly complicated either (I'm not sure I would consider it "expert" rating necessarily). The sets could use a little bit of touchup here and here, but otherwise it was a decent experience. Just make sure you have teammates who can communicate clearly! (Granted you need good communication in all escape rooms, but this one in particular requires it, or you'll probably stumble!)

Not as challenging as I expected based on some other reviews - all the puzzles felt very fair. Collaborating in two separate teams was pretty novel. The puzzles fit a pretty engaging narrative as well.

Solid room. Found it to have a good amount of puzzles for a group of about 4.

Definitely had its challenges but fun nonetheless