Phantom Of The Big Top

Alot of broken puzzles and poorly designed gameplay. Overall experience felt cheap and ill prepared

We knew we were in for a rough time when, during the overview of rules, the GM gave us a rather growing list of items that were broken or finicky in the room. The room could have been really good if the puzzles weren’t so tired. The game flow reasonably made sense but somehow we accidentally figured out the few puzzles that I feel had a jump in logic for us to truly understand what the initiative was.

We liked the overall gameplay. There were a few fun elements.

Loosely "Circus"themed. Silent, no sound effects or music. Game master Jacob bordered on unprofessional starting during game over speaker that, "give that a minute, it might not work....If it doesn't, I'll have to run in there to fix it. " Additionally, when asking for hints, we had to wait a long time to get a response, and it brought the game to a stop, hence wasting our time.... but at the end he added a few minutes acknowledging this. It's very very worn, run down, and janky.

I think the room is definitely cool overall and was a fun experience. Some pieces weren’t working. Puzzles didn’t flow super well either. But I wouldn’t say it was an awful experience. I recommend it if you’re looking for something different to do in Solvang.

On the good side some unusual hand built props that you can’t see anywhere else. On the bad side some props were old and either completely broken or not working well. Game had consistent and fun theme but some of the puzzles were a bit obtuse without any logical way to find the solution. Part of a 4 location chain that is clearly more than the owners can keep up with. This could be a successful and consistently fun room for any level of escapers but instead it’s more of a classic old toy that needs repair and some TLC.

We booked all three rooms the same day, this was the one I was most excited about. It ended up being the worst escape room I've done so far. Granted, I've maybe only done 30 or 40 but this one was exceptionally bad. The game master showed up 15 minutes late to a game we showed up 15 minutely to and never even apologized. He made weird voices for each room but kept going in and out if them. The worst part was we walked in and he pointed out "this prop is broken, this prop is broken and this prop is broken-don't touch them". Also, we asked for a hint several times with no response so eventually after 5 minutes or so we all just sat down until he came on to ask how we were doing. I don't think the puzzles were very intuitive so at times it was hard to know how we would have come to a conclusion.

Fun for the family. We had lots of fun trying to solve the puzzle.

Overall, not a bad way to kill an hour, but for experienced escape room players, it had some disappointments.

I wouldn’t say it’s the worst game we’ve played but it was a frustrating game because it didn’t have the best user experience and could use more refinement. Since it’s the only escape rooms in Solvang, I would say you should play it but just don’t have high expectations. And also expect some puzzles not to work since a review from a year ago and half a year ago both say it had broken puzzles.