Ink & Ashes

This is one of our very favorite games! Emmanuel was our GM and he was great. Super nice and friendly. There are a lot of puzzles in this one and we loved that. The story is intriguing and engaging. The puzzles have unique elements. It’s mostly linear so it keeps you on track. But it really uses the full space back and forth. Not scary at all but kinda eerie because it’s a murder mystery. Can’t wait for more rooms here!

We had an amazing time at this escape room. Great story and fun puzzles. Lots of cool effects too. Our game master David was great as well!

I hope that you’re ready to ink-vestigate! Because this escape room is such an underrated, hidden gem in SoCal that you’ll escape, wanting more! Even though this is the only room at Exodus in Tustin, Ink and Ashes has made a name for itself through its integration of puzzles, story driven narrative, and linear conquest. This is your classic Whodunnit game but with a mixture of high tech puzzles, added special effects, and suspense. I cannot say enough about the set design of this room. It’s truly un-fire-gettable! Ink and Ashes created such an immersive experience of mystery without the need of an intense scare factor to drive the story and the tasks that you needed to complete in order to solve the case. Once again, if you’re looking for a suspenseful (not scary), story driven mystery with a skill level of medium-hard, this is the room for you!

High Tech, Interesting story, Great GM

Very solid narrative driven room. Liked most of the puzzles, and had a good sense of flow in between them. Really only disliked 2 of the puzzles, you really have to use everything in the room as it has significance. Emmanuel was an awesome host!

Room was great. No puzzle was amazing but everything was done well and right. The story was phenomenal and every puzzle and effect showed the story’s progression and worked with the story. GM was great. The many puzzles were difficult but very solvable and nothing was broken.

The room flowed together beautifully with subtle hints on where to go next. If you ever feel like you've hit a wall, that's probably an indication you should go back and look closely at the walls themselves. Association is important - keep an eye out for themes and through lines with connected items and word association. Overall a phenomenal game. 10/10

I would consider this room to be more oriented towards enthusiasts than beginners, just because of the sheer number of puzzles. We had a group of 7, 6 enthusiasts and 1 beginner, which definitely helped with the time elapsed. We were able to work on multiple puzzles at once. I reserve the “heart” rating to escape rooms that have a strong storyline and this room definitely delivered. It felt like you were walking into the middle of a murder mystery investigation. If you like story-based rooms and rooms that lean more into puzzles, you have to play this room!

This room was amazing! It was creative, had engaging and difficult puzzles, and was a great mix of spooky and interesting. The staff were fantastic, they created a fun atmosphere, and were extremely helpful when we needed assistance.

Between 👍 and ❤️ but rounded up based on the strength & number of puzzles, overall production value, and tech that all worked. We played as a team of 3 experienced enthusiasts and got out with just 5:40 left, so you know it was a good room. We also did Clark’s Crazy Christmas last year in this same space, and agree that this is a new room worth doing even though the space feels familiar and a couple of puzzles were similar. Overall, the the storyline is completely different and the vast majority of puzzles were new.