The Founder's Secret

INCREDIBLE ROOM!! Also the staff are so sweet.

My expectations of this room were pretty high, since it was a Terpeca finalist, but I don’t feel like it’s head-and-shoulders above the quality of the other rooms at the Lodge (all of which are excellent, btw). For starters, the objective is unclear. There are discrepancies in our timeline? Save the timeline? The plot is a little abstract for my taste, and when we did resolve these temporal issues, the ending was anticlimactic. I don't think we ever really understood what the namesake "secret" actually was. Similar to the Lodge's other escape rooms, this one is also inextricably linked to the unique structure of the building, a former funeral home. That's where this room really shines, and If it were housed anywhere else, it wouldn't be nearly as successful. Go play this room and all the other rooms at the Lodge, but understand that the major strength of this company lies in the gestalt of these interactions with the unique building, and not in any one room on its own.

Really fantastic location! Outstanding atmosphere and loved that we had to solve puzzles as a warm up to even find our room. Very creative. Puzzles literally changed the environment for everyone in the building! Loved it.

The part with the laser takes a while (don’t assume it isn’t working)

It was enjoyable with a great concept. The biggest problem with our experience we faced was that we happened to go while trivia was going on, which was very distracting since the puzzle interacts with the trivia space. I do wish we would have had a warning popup when we booked and we may have chosen a different room during it. Overall, though, the staff is great, helped with clues at an appropriate level, and the space itself is a great, immersive experience.

amazing room!! very cool puzzles and lots of different types of puzzles :D very interactive and jaw dropping moments!

Let me get the easy stuff out of the way first. The Founder’s Secret is an excellent escape room; likely the best in the Twin Cities. If you value great sets, a very cool environment, an unending series of unique interactions, and well-designed puzzles, this is the game for you. It is not necessarily committed to telling a traditional beginning-to-end story, but if you pay attention, there is a lot of environmental storytelling and lore that will help you solve the room. Run, don’t walk, etc. However, no single entry in Morty can capture what (IMO) makes the Lodge at Lazarus Crowe so uniquely special, so I’m going to use this review as my soapbox, because I think this may be the most structurally innovative escape room location in the US right now, and if you don’t pay attention you might miss it. The Lodge of Lazarus Crowe makes extremely creative use of their (very unique) space, with each of their experiences weaving in and out of the corridors of the collection of this secret society. The more traditional "investigations" proceed from the corridors into more traditional escape rooms, while their "field work" and "stay and play" experiences stay in that liminal space. By doing this, the Lodge creates a world that is full of intrigue - why is that person staring at that painting? how do *I* get to interact with that cool prop? - where it's never clear what is just decor and what is actually part of a puzzle (minor spoiler: it's all part of *some* puzzle). To me, the true magic of the Lodge is not just from playing any one game, or even all of the more traditional rooms, but from the incremental surprise and delight of learning how the different elements layer together to form a more complete whole. Some of that comes from playing the investigations, but at least as much comes from the non-traditional experiences. I found The Alchemy Lab, A Brief Case, A Fatal Claw, and Initiation to all be consistently well-written and -edited with fun and satisfying solve paths. And that is my main advice: don’t assume that the field work and stay and play experiences are “less-than” their more standard escape rooms. Even if you just space out your rooms and plan to spend a few hours of downtime at the Lodge, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.

What a great room and the puzzles were wonderful and unique.

This room is a must-do in the Twin Cities area—and preferably the first room you do at The Lodge at Lazarus Crowe story-wise bc it’s a good intro to the founding. The entire experience was great from start to finish, but how you gain access into the room is a truly unique and fun part of the experience. We loved the variety of puzzles in this room and just overall how much of the space we got to interact with. We also enjoyed the need for teamwork! We did this room as 2 enthusiasts and got done in a little under 60 mins for this 75-min experience. Pro Tip: If there’s down time between escape rooms, you can hang out in their bar/cafe and grab drinks (they have good mocktail and non-alcoholic drink options!) and play board games you can check out for free.

The location and the entire experience getting into the room itself was fantastic and immersive. We barely made it in time but mostly due to an error which left us spinning in circles for 30 minutes.