The Manhattan Project

Experience. Overall, we had a lot of fun playing this room, in spite of some fairly significant shortcomings.. One team member even dubbed it his favorite room of those he’s played. The environment and opportunities for team members to manipulate many different unique set and prop pieces are the definite highlights. Story. This is not a story-driven game. The scenario presented by the game master prior to the game provides a justification for our presence in the environment. Once in the room, however, no further effort is made to support that scenario. Challenges. The room contains multiple padlocks and keypads, but there are also some really fun set pieces and props to interact with. The game is driven more by accomplishments than “a-ha” moments. Accessibility. The room itself is pretty accessible. It requires no climbing or crawling, it’s well lit, and there are no items that must be manipulated at floor level. There are sound effects, but they are not so loud that they interfere with team interaction. It is important to note, however, that in order to get to the part of the building that houses the escape rooms, players must ascend multiple sets of stairs. Production value. This is where this room really shines. The set and props are fantastic. The game contains a ton of stuff to look at and interact with, and all that stuff looks really cool. Immersion. While the set and props are truly impressive, more effort could have gone into making the space actually look and feel abandoned (as presented in the scenario). The time period of the environment is well established, but certain elements are not consistent with the presumed time in which the players are interacting with that environment. Novelty. Because the set and prop design are so impressive, the room has a unique feel to it. Activities are pretty classic escape room challenges, but they’re presented in a fun and occasionally surprising way. Gameplay. This is the one area where I was disappointed. Our game master was delightfully enthusiastic, friendly, and welcoming, but getting her attention once the game started was difficult. The delay in waiting for her response was long enough that we weren’t sure if she had heard us, and her responses were read from a pre-written clue, rather than answering the question we had asked. Signposting in the room is almost nonexistent. One challenge in particular requires players to make a connection between elements for which there is no indication that a relationship exists, and the “which padlock does this four-digit code open” game is not a puzzle - it’s just a tedious exercise. There’s also one padlock that is never used, which added significantly to the feeling of scrambling with no sense of purpose or progress. More frustratingly, when events were triggered, it was often not clear that anything had happened, leaving us unaware that we had progressed to the next step; a great deal of time was wasted assuming our solution or code was incorrect and searching for another solution when we’d actually already completed the task. Better environmental clues or (at the very least) more active game master attention could alleviate this frustration. Final grade. B-

Unbelievable escape rooms here! We’ve done at least 50+ rooms over the years and this place easily ranks in the top 5! The staff are so enthusiastic and kind, the building is the most unique place ever, and the rooms are intricate and clever and just plain awesome!

One of my favorite rooms at full moon!

The set design for the room was amazing. However, the clue system is seriously flawed, as the subtract 5:00 minutes from your overall time for every clue requested. I recommend a group of 3-4 for this room.

Pleasantly surprised by this experience! However, the hint penalty (start with 60 minutes and lose 5 minutes of gameplay per clue asked for) needs to be adjusted. We’ve played ~400 rooms and only encountered this a couple times previously. If you want the room to be perceived as more difficult for some reason, add more puzzles instead. Fun time other than this unnecessary frustration.