VHS

As we entered the room, we were told by the GM that a group of 3 had never completed this room. And neither did we! I’m in between a “like” and a “dislike” on this one, but I’m giving it the benefit of the doubt because I think it can be easily improved. This is a HARD room. It’s refreshing to do a room that’s really challenging, but it's equally frustrating too. First off, there’s nothing to write on, so you have to remember literally everything: long strings of numbers, long strings of directions, etc. And you have to remember this stuff while a guy in a mask is running around jump-scaring you. I would’ve killed for a Boogie Board, but we had nothing. Speaking of the guy in the mask…I’m pretty sure he was also GM-ing the room, so we didn’t really receive all of our hints promptly. On one puzzle he just sent the same hint multiple times. I would’ve preferred if the actor was incorporated in a way that bolstered the narrative...not just doing empty jump scares. Horror rooms are best when they’re using the actor to actually "act." Again, this was just a dude distracting us at the least convenient times. A key part of the experience is delivered via audio clues, which are difficult to discern because there are ambient sound effects and also video clips playing on the TV at the same time. Again, a little too much distraction and overstimulation. We repeatedly found ourselves huddled around the speaker box struggling to hear what we were supposed to do next. The set design is really cool and creepy, and I love their mechanic of finding multiple VHS tapes that reveal bits of the story. A few of the puzzles are unusual and pretty cool to figure out, so the puzzle design is fairly dialed in. But we were way too busy with those puzzles to enjoy the vibe.

Set was okay but this room scarier because of the live actor. Some of the puzzles weren’t the most intuitive and/or were difficult solves. A “memorize the pattern” type of puzzle was pretty difficult even though we eventually got it. Before we played, they did say that this room was for a minimum of 4 (apparently a group of 3 had never finished) and we played with 3 people which likely made the game much tougher than intended. We barely didn’t finish (with 5 extra minutes) although we knew what to do and had just ran out of time. What’s frustrating is that they don’t provide you with something to write with which artificially adds to the difficulty. We mentioned this to a game master after the game and they said that was on purpose, which I personally feel is annoying, but whatever. The scare actor also scared us in the middle of us solving puzzles and so I felt that I was constantly looking over my shoulder while trying to focus which, again, artificially increased the difficulty. I feel like good horror rooms are able to instill scares and tense moments without taking away from the puzzle solving experience. One such moment was during the pattern recognition puzzle which made us completely mess up and waste precious time. There was also a puzzle involving light switches with more switches than you needed which also confused us and caused us to waste time. This room isn’t bad, hence the like, but there are certain annoyances which really take away from the experience.

Rating: 2/5 - I like challenging games and scary games...just not at the same time Pros: ➕The set was appropriately creepy with multiple rooms to discover and explore. It looked pretty good. ➕Lots of tech with some padlocks mixed in. ➕The VHS collection concept was cool, I enjoyed the creepy videos and how everything tied together at the end. ➕Puzzles were challenging but made sense. It was non-linear so you can split up. ➕The GM was friendly and helpful when needed. Room for improvement: ➖Their hardest room should not also be their scariest room. I think the best horror rooms should have easier puzzles if you're being harrassed by an actor. If they have hard puzzles, they should give you some safe time so that you can concentrate. The actor here can scare you while you're doing hard puzzles. It was particularly annoying when we had a time limited puzzle and the actor scared us causing us to fail and start over again. ➖Use of the scare actor could've been better. Not much build up or suspense, no climax at the end. He just pops in randomly like it's a haunted house. He was also didn't really have a costume, just a basic store-bought mask. ➖Some of the audio puzzles were annoying, especially when there's other distracting audio playing constantly. You also have to listen to a bunch of static or extraneous info before you get to the info you actually need. Since there's nothing to take notes with, you have to replay the audio a lot. ➖Puzzles requiring memorization but nothing provided to write on. ➖With the points based system, it was clearly designed for majority of teams to fail due to the density and difficulty of puzzles. I'm just not a fan of this style 2026, it's unsatisfying. This game feels like it should be at least 75 min. I'd recommend 5-6 enthusiasts due to the non-linear puzzles and difficulty. There is some crawling but no chasing in this room. My ranking of the games I played here starting with my favorite: 1. The Descent 2. VHS

A very fun room overall with great set design/props and a great live actor giving jump scares. Our group of 5 was able to complete it with a few extra minutes. Lots to do! Very similar puzzle styles if you’ve done other rooms at this location (some listening puzzles, some puzzles you need to do 6 times in increasing difficulty, etc). Non-linear/chaotic experience for sure! For accessibility/comfort, keep in mind this is a fairly low-level light room with kind of a bombardment of audio at times. Also at least one member of your team will also need to crawl for a short period.

Was pretty good overall. It started off very scary but got less scary as the game went on which was a bit disappointing. Still enjoyed it

The different types of puzzles were nicely done and the live actor definitely spiced it up. Unfortunately one of the parts deals with a sensor that didn't work properly on the last part so we wasted too much time and I think we would have finished if not for that

Very fun, not too too scary! Love a campy-spooky escape room, lol. My group of 5 didn’t escape (completed 7/10). Definitely better with more people! Was really impressed with the production quality and will be back to finish the others at this location.

This room was okay for me. I love a good scary room and the potential was there for sure. I get the point system is supposed to bring players back for future tries but it just isn't my favourite way to play. The room design is great, some great elements and atmosphere for sure! Non linear room for the most part and puzzles that were sometimes simple and sometimes over complicated but a good mix for a group. We missed the last puzzle altogether due to darkness -we didn't even see it! lol. But we got close enough to the ending to not feel like we missed out on anything.

Some crawling and physical challenges. Completion of room is determined by point system. We scored all 10 but required 5 extra mins

VHS is a solid room 📼 👹 Surprisingly, I didn’t find it too scary! The actor interactions were minimal and they weren’t drawn out too long. I found Motel Betty @ Omescape Markham scarier than VHS. Ready Set Go does point based escape rooms, so the aim is to get a score of 10/10. Some points were quick(er) solves, while others required up to six rounds to complete 😅😅 There was a task that I absolutely LOATHE that made a reappearance in this room. I left that puzzle on read 💅🏽💅🏽 That was a point I was A-OK with forfeiting. VHS is a good option for those looking to do a scary escape room in the GTA.