Starship: Final Frontier

Literally the most emotionally effecting room we’ve ever done. One really tricky timing puzzle that we had the answers to, but couldn’t coordinate. But the whole thing was just so cool.

5th visit to 60 to Escape’s Gurnee location and another fantastic experience. Starship FF is Gurnee’s newest room and the amount of tech and set immersion definitely showed that a lot of preparation went into this room. Opening introduction audio was a little long, but it was an interesting story to set the stage for this very immersive experience. Room is both linear and non-linear at times, so having ~4 people play allows for very good flow. We split up at times, solved a bunch of puzzles in pairs, and did some puzzles as a full group. All puzzles were fair and fun, and you had satisfaction when you opened a new area to progress forward. Lots of new areas kept opening up throughout, which made this room very exciting. The entire game had clear objectives on what needed to be accomplished, so the flow was great. The puzzle near the end that several reviewers said wasted time for them, was actually not that difficult if you were very observant and took the “time”. The finale was a really fun moment which got your heart moving, and there was an unexpected moment after the finale as the game continued where 1 person needs to make a critical decision. Customer service was great as usual. Really fun and well done room, but we liked Hidden Temple and Duke’s Farm better at this location.

Honestly, even more than normal, 60 to escape out did themselves with set design. The atmosphere was fantastic and immersive. The gameplay was fun for the most part, with interesting puzzles. If I were nitpicking, there are a couple of puzzles that I think could have been modified a bit to make them flow smoother, but overall, it was a fun experience from a puzzle standpoint. This is definitely in my top 3 for this location, and that is saying something for a franchise that has a lot of solid games.

Fun game! Just like usual with 60 to escape, they really brought the set design! Definitely reminiscent of the set of Icarus at CU Adventures, but with several things that gave it its own 60 to escape flavor! Many of the puzzles felt just like the other games at Gurnee and Schaumburg, and we did get bottlenecked in a couple places, but the gameplay was solid and flowed pretty well. Overall, if you’re local, this one is worth hitting, and if you’re traveling for 60 to escape I’d consider putting this one on the list!

60 to Escape continues to level up in the immersion department. The intro to this room helped us understand the storyline but was too long, and no visuals made it a little boring. The set was strong and the highlight of this room, and the puzzles all made sense with the story and ranged in difficulty, with a good dose of communication puzzles, correlation/observation puzzles and logic puzzles. There was one minor time suck puzzle, one annoying puzzle towards the end and maybe a slight reliance on color puzzles, but they were solid overall, with one endgame thematic communication puzzle being a highlight. This room didn’t have the personality of other 60 to escape rooms, but I still think it is was quite a good room. The ending was memorable as well.

Rating: 3.5/5 - Awesome set, but lacks the typical 60 to Escape charm, they set the bar too high for themselves Pros: ➕Set looks fantastic, appropriately futuristic while going for the weathered look ➕Good use of LED lighting and audio ➕Multiple rooms to explore ➕Puzzles were mostly fun enough, though not particularly interesting or unique ➕Nearly all tech based interactions, only a single padlock ➕Ending sequence was unique and fun ➕Many tactile interactions, I like that they avoid the use of touchscreens even though there are some screens ➕Some non-linearity, so the team can split up at times ➕GM was friendly and helpful Room for improvement: ➖One puzzle requiring at least 2 people was frustrating because of the timing involved. It felt like a huge time suck. ➖This is their newest room, but the puzzle style starts to feel a bit repetitive after playing most of their other rooms. ➖It lacks the quirkiness, charm, and comedic moments of their prior rooms ➖No animatronics or impressive/unique tech like in some of their prior other rooms (they set the bar too high for themselves 😂) ➖Intro audio did not have any interesting visuals and felt way too long I'd recommend 3-4 enthusiasts, our team of 4 completed it with less than 10 min left with a couple of minor nudges for things we missed. One person will need to crawl. Update: My ranking of 60 to Escape rooms (all locations) so far starting with my favorite. 1. Lockbuster Video ❤️ 2. Cheesie's Pizza Party ❤️ 3. Invasion ❤️ 4. Pirates Curse ❤️ 5. Mystery Manor ❤️ 6. Hidden Temple ❤️ 7. Duke's Farm ❤️ 8. Blast From The Past 👍 9. Starship: Final Frontier 👍 10. Jurassic Outpost 👍 11. Arctic Expedition 👍 12. Museum Heist 👍 13. Magic Heist 👍 14. Containment 👍

I really love 60 to Escape as a company, so I was very excited to try out a new room by them. This is a good room. I liked the storyline that leads to an interesting conclusion, and all the technology worked very smoothly. The production and atmosphere felt a bit more bare bones than I am used to with this company, and there wasn't any wow factor. I think the one thing that just prevented it from being a super enjoyable experience was a single puzzle near the end that felt like it relied on a lot of instinct and trial and error instead of being like an actual puzzle. We spent over 10 minutes on it and found it frustrating. Outside of that though, it's a pretty good room, just not at the level of some of this company's absolute best.

Captain’s log: Stardate 91325. I’ve come across a stunning starship with a stupendous story. It was filled with good puzzles, none of which were too hard but they all had clever inputs. A technological marvel and lots of interesting locks in place. One of them in particular was fascinating, and I’ll have to report it to HQ because it really tested our survey team of 2. The design of the starship was incredible, and it made for an entertaining trip through the cosmos. It was worth it to make it to the final frontier, which had an intriguing finale of its own. This voyage was worth it. Live long and prosper. 🖖