Madness: 1917

Following the completion of Heresy and a short break, we were brought back into the story world by our entertaining bartender and continued our version of the narrative. It’s hard to say exactly what an effect our decisions from the previous experience had on this one, as we only played through them once so but I did enjoy the beginning of this one much more. There was more of a story and build to a climax as well in this experience vs Heresy. Some of the acting scenes in the middle of the experience seemed a little long and were less interesting than the puzzles we were working on, but some of this could have been the opening-weekend awkwardness with the actors still getting used to their roles. They weren’t quite as grounded enough in their roles yet to draw the player in to their story. There was a great climatic scene where a critical decision had to be made quickly, but first an activity had to be completed and that added some excitement. The ending we got was okay, but felt a little unsupported by what had come before it. Much of this might be ironed out as the performers gain more experience, but this is where it was at the time of my play-through. Overall, definitely better than your average escape room experience and a unique experience overall.

A replayable, choose your own adventure escape room with live actors. This concept is great, but unfortunately Madness didn’t quite live up to my expectations after Heresy. It’s still quite a fun time, but I preferred the theming and atmosphere of Heresy. 4/5

Insane experience. Doors of Divergence just takes it to a whole new level of immersion. It is hard to describe. You’re basically inside a movie. The actors are top notch and really put their hearts into it. The story, from start to finish, including the bar, is just impeccable. The combination of this room and Heresy 1897 dethroned The Exit Games two games as our groups favorite escape rooms ever played (we have played over 100 together, collectively hundreds). Also, the clues were great. I don’t remember a single number lock. No time drains etc. Very unique clues and excellent use of environment/room props. You can spend anywhere from 1.5-2 hours in each room experience, and we really loved every second of it. Again, we have played top TERPECA and Morty rated games all over the US, and Doors of Divergence was just special. They pushed the limits on what an escape room is. Unfortunately they are temporarily closing, but we will be eagerly awaiting their opening so we can close out the story with chapter 3.

Definitely one of the most unique escape rooms I’ve done! I’ve since described it as an Escape Room meets Sleep No More. If you detest experiences with live actors, I wouldn’t recommend this. But if you can open your mind to it, the result is really intriguing and fun, and perhaps the densest backstory and plot I’ve seen go into an escape room There are currently Two Parts at Doors of Divergence: Heresy 1897, and Madness 1917 This review is about Madness: I loved Heresy overall, but I actually think Madness was a step up even further in puzzle design! However, they were puzzles that led to significant frustration though given one of the big ones we spent so much energy on only to discover via the game master that we did it right, but it didn’t trigger properly. No exactly an issue unique to this room and I’ll still take it over lock and key haha It’s really cool how different the structure of this room is to Heresy. Whereas in Heresy you went back and forth through multiple rooms frequently, Madness traps you in one spot with your party divided in two. As you complete puzzles and advance the plot, the actors reveal elements to you that allow you to conquer the puzzles you couldn’t prior After the massive amount of exposition leading into Heresy, I was surprised how quickly we ended up actually doing puzzles in Madness by comparison. Also evidently, the whole set up of Madness changes based on your Heresy ending. All in all, I thought the synthesis of plot and puzzles was more effective than Heresy, but I can’t divorce the experience of Heresy from Madness either Although not Haunted House scary, I would not recommend the faint of heart. The story goes to pretty dark places and is more claustrophobic perhaps than other rooms out there I do hope Doors of Divergence finds its new location soon! And that their rumored third room opens along with it

Absolutely amazing. Wish it wasn’t closing so I could do it again.

This broke me. It’s beyond. I’ve played twice with different puzzles and storylines. There is nothing like this out there.

Absolutely brilliant sequel to Heresy, just as strong as the first.

Definitely book heresy first. This is just as good. Set design, attention to detail, acting. All of it. I’m completely blown away

Just as incredible as the first chapter! The spookiness is raised up a little in this one but it’s still not too bad if you’re worried like I was. It was awesome to see how our actions in Heresy played out in this game. It’s a split game, but a first for me in that we were split for the entire game, although could still hear and talk to each other. Like the first game, the basic escape room rules are delivered in a way that I’ve never seen done before that fits perfectly with the story. There are opportunities for one on one moments with the actors and I will surely not forget mine any time soon!