Wizard Trials

The atmosphere and set design were very good, and there were some puzzles with really good tech. Overall, it was difficult to follow the logic of some of the puzzles, and some activities to solve the puzzles were unnecessarily hidden, which kind of made it a frustrating game.

I was hoping for a fun wizard-themed room and walked out feeling annoyed more than anything. Not the experience I wanted. The atmosphere was cool, I'll give them that. Walking in, you definitely feel like you're in some kind of wizard school or training hall. They captured that fantasy vibe pretty well. Old books, candles, magical props, all that stuff. If you're into Harry Potter or fantasy settings, the look of the room works. Probably the best part of the whole experience. Here's where things fall apart. The puzzles weren't hard, not really. But they were confusing. And that made them way harder than they should have been. There's a difference between a challenging puzzle that makes you think and a puzzle that just leaves you scratching your head going "what are we supposed to do here?" This room leaned way too hard into the second one. Nothing felt intuitive. We'd try something, think we figured it out, and then nothing. Or we'd be stuck forever on something that probably should have been simple. It's like the logic wasn't quite there. You're just guessing half the time. Here's the main issue though. At multiple points, we did puzzles that we were pretty sure were correct. Like, we checked, double-checked, triple-checked. And nothing happened. No triggers, no sounds, no lights, nothing. We wasted probably a good 10 minutes just sitting there trying to figure out if we were wrong or if something was broken. Still not sure if it was a tech issue or a GM issue. Maybe something didn't reset right from the previous group. Maybe the sensors were off. Whatever it was, it killed our momentum completely. By the time we finally got moving again, we had lost so much time that we were rushing. And we ended up getting to the last puzzle right as the clock ran out. Last puzzle. That close. And we would have made it if not for those 10 minutes of nothing happening. My partner and I walked out pretty frustrated. Bad to mid is the best way to put it. The atmosphere was cool but that only carries a room so far. When the puzzles are confusing and then the tech (or GM) fails on top of that, it's just not a good time. I wanted to like it. I really did. Wizards, magic, cool setting. But the execution wasn't there.

Loved the set design and linear quality

As a fairly inexperienced team of two (10ish games) we felt that this room was fairly challenging as it had some cool puzzle mechanics we hadn’t encountered previously. While this room as listed as a lower difficulty than the Asylum we felt that Wizard Trials was actually the more challenging of the two.

Good effects especially the first part of the room. Little weaker second half as we found it a little convoluted in that portion. Overall decent room

First things first, PanIQ does a great job of immersing you into the theme of the room. You really feel like a wizarding student, looking through the office of a wise old wizard. None of the puzzles are combination or key locks, and they all fit the theme of the room quite well. Some of the puzzles are even quite unique, showcasing things I've never seen before in over 50+ other escape rooms. That all being said, this room was quite easy to solve with absolutely no hints whatsoever in far too little time. Given how expensive this room is in comparison with other escape room places nearby, I felt that it was definitely not worth the price as marketed as a 60-minute escape room. There just is not enough content inside the room to fill out the 60 minute time frame, even with children in your party and taking things at a leisurely pace. PanIQ should seriously consider either marketing this as another 45-minute game and seriously lowering the price, or add a couple more puzzles to fill out the rest of the 60 minutes.

Well themed wizard room. Cool tech and mixture of puzzles. There was an issue with some of the tech and the location only had one GM for 3 games, but it is a new location.

Jessica and Katie were amazing game masters. We had a ton of fun! If you're in the area or passing through stop in.

We would recommend it to others. We had a good time, when we were there, there were some bugs with some of the tech but they had just recently opened so they were still working out all the bugs. Overall though a good experience and friendly game Master Adrian.