The Anomaly

Play was new and flowed well, but fast. Lots of physical puzzles that we had to piece together. I didn’t love that our time was split into 3 increments of 20 minutes. I left feeling more tense and stressed vs energized. I was panicked the whole time.

There was nothing there for decoration. The “rooms” inside of our room were split apart with tarps. Only the things necessary to solve were there.

She was fine, just nothing extraordinary.

The way the game was scored was very different. We weren’t given a “time”, but instead a score based on how many of the puzzles we solved.

It was fine. I got the point of the story, but nothing stood out. The rooms were quite empty with no setting

Most of the puzzles are mechanical, but there is a master computer terminal where codes could be entered.

Definitely child friendly, just too difficult to be suitable for many children.

Set design was low budget but did not detract from the experience.

we did all of the puzzles and they def were pretty hard. we had one that had already done it before. down to the minute for most chunks

dimish lights, a few color puzzles/small text the voice was robotic/slight glitch sound but there were captions

its not suoer obvious but there are signs everywhere for it

It was challenging, the puzzles were all pretty unique, and the computer console concept for entering solutions was very well done!

Each mini room had a cool, unique vibe!

The staff member that checked us in and out was great!

Different type of experience where you have three sections of 20 minutes so if you don’t solve a section you get booted to the next one. Adds a little extra pressure and fun.

GM Tylan was the fab person they always are. Gave clues when they knew we needed it but didn’t overstep. Willing to chat and answer our questions afterward.

Great concept! I loved how it was time bound. It made for extra elements that you don’t get in other rooms.

Tylan was amazing! They help make them experience the best in the cities.

I can't say this flowed well. Even with hints, it was difficult to pinpoint exactly what most of the puzzles were asking of us.

Each section is just separated by tarps...compared to their other rooms, I did not feel like I was within a transformative space at all.

Staff is wonderful at Puzzleworks!

If you're too flustered to be able to concintrate, it's not fun anymore.

There was a computer to input keywords into, and for one section you needed to look stuff up to reference/deduce what you're looking for.

More than three, and there's gonna be people naturally just stepping to the side 'cause there's only so much space and puzzles to interact with.

This would not be fun for kids.

No, but one puzzle involving magnets felt like it wasn't working properly. Hard to tell it wasn't in the moment.

Pretty stationary.

Those with mobility aides would have accessibility in this room.

Clearly marked on side of building.

Street parking, or the lot on the hill next to the building.

I love the experimentation here, but I just don’t think the structure worked. 3 segmented sections, each with its own 20 minute timeline, means you are never revisiting old areas with new context and are forced to leave behind puzzles you were very close to solving. The points system is meant to tell you it is okay to not complete each section, but it’s hard to convince myself of that when the blood is pumping. To me, it felt like I was in high stress rush mode for the entirety of the room, and failing a section and continuing felt way worse than failing a normal room.

Compared to PuzzleWorks’s other rooms, this feels rather cheap. The center computer that is the Time Machine is decent, and individual props are okay, but the rooms are separated with tarps and only sparsely decorated on the walls.

Absolutely amazing! Envy was super nice and helpful.

It was a totally new way to structure an escape room. Apparently this was an adaptation of a previous “mobile escape room” experience they would print to corporate events, with different teams competing on the different rooms and rotating. This seems like an absolutely amazing idea in that context, but it really doesn’t work as a standalone room where you aren’t actively competing with others.

The initial premise seemed engaging, but there really isn’t much story within each individual scene nor an interconnected narrative between them.