Asylum

I very rarely give a thumbs down, but unfortunately this was not a fun time. Maybe it would have been more fun with more than two people, but it ended up being very challenging to see and coordinate things with just two of us. A couple mechanisms were not working properly and the design decisions of the room led to one person being stuck and not able to help solve any puzzles for at least half of the time. We later discovered that we should have been able to do something at least 20 minutes earlier than we were able to but there was a tech issue. This may have been due to the game master being spread thinly since there were many groups there at once, but it seemed odd that no one told us... When I asked for a clue, it wasn't helpful. It was clearly a generic pre-programmed response that didn't specifically help. It wasn't clear if we'd advanced or unlocked a new door several times. Unfortunately, the design flaws, hard-to-see details, and improperly functioning machines made this one of the most disappointing rooms we've ever done.

Puzzle Quality: 15.5/20 Looks/Theme: 11.5/15 GameMaster Rating: 7/10 Operation Fluidity: 4/5 Combined Rating: 38/50 Overall Difficulty: 8.5/10 Price: $29/Person Quick Notes: - Multiple rooms, medium in size - A couple of small hiccups with RFID detection but the puzzles were otherwise unique and fun CATEGORIES EXPLAINED IN MORE DETAIL BELOW: Puzzle Quality - How intuitive, logical, and unique the puzzles were. How well do the puzzles fit the theme? Looks/Theme - How much effort, time, and money went into making an immersive and unique atmosphere. GameMaster Rating - How attentive and helpful was the game master? Were the hints given in a timely manner and were they quality hints that helped but did not give you the solution too directly? Operation Fluidity - Was the game reset properly? Was it clean inside the room? Were the code entry and solution methods working properly as intended? Overall Difficulty - This is fairly subjective but is mostly correlated to how many total puzzles and how time consuming they each are compared against the 60 minute time limit that almost all rooms have. Combined Rating - Simply a total tally out of 50 of the four main categories. (Puzzle Quality and Looks/Theme are weighted a little more because they are the most important parts of having a good experience). The higher the number, the better the room! Just remember that a 5/10 or 7.5/15 or a 25/50 combined rating is an AVERAGE rating (for some reason in most people’s heads, a 5/10 is a below average or bad rating). So if a room has a combined rating of above 25, then it is a quality room and a good experience that I would recommend! It has to be a really well done room to score above a 35.

One of the best rooms I've ever had the pleasure of doing. I cannot recommend this room enough! It is horror themed, so keep that in mind if you want to play.