Ritual Escape

Very cool to see another haunted house bringing escape rooms to the Chicagoland area! The GM and owners were super cool, very attentive and helpful throughout the entire experience. The building is HUGE, and the escape room takes up only a fraction of the space. They have plans for at least two more escape rooms, so stay tuned. The goal of Ritual Escape is to find 5 artifacts in 5 separate areas of the haunt; each area is clearly marked with a number and can be completed in any order. As can be expected of a haunt, the set design is great and there are some WILD animatronics. I wouldn’t say the experience is “scary,” more like “really creepy and dark”…as can be expected of a haunted house with the actors removed. The “Church” portion of the experience was my favorite area because of its authentic decor and puzzles that fit the setting perfectly. The integration of puzzles into the overall experience is an area of opportunity. At times, it feels like a haunt with puzzles shoehorned in, instead of feeling like a unified experience with a story to tell. Instead of segmenting the haunt into 5 mini-escape rooms, how can these areas be unified to create a more immersive experience? Something to consider would be the introduction of more task-based puzzles. Like, “go find the Bible in the Hotel Room, bring it back to the Church, where you’re then given a key to the Catacombs”…something like that. There’s tremendous potential here, I’m really excited to see this company grow and develop.

Rating: 4/5 - Very unique format, great for haunt lovers Pros: ➕The set is huge and looks very cool, they basically added puzzles to their existing haunted house, you walk through around half of their haunt. ➕ The format/layout is unique, I've never played anything like this before. We did it linearly, didn't split up, and finished with plenty of time left. The nice thing about the format is that if you get stuck, you can move on to another room and come back later to finish. I really liked that they did their own thing for their first escape room instead of copying what other companies are doing. ➕Very creepy with some jump scares (no actors). ➕Puzzles were a mix of basic tech and padlocks ➕Use of special effects and large animatronics ➕Some of the puzzles were enjoyable, nothing was annoying or illogical ➕Lighting is dim but bright enough that flashlights weren't necessary, though you can use your phone light if needed. ➕Fun ending ➕GM and other people we talked to were friendly and helpful Room for improvement: ➖Some of the puzzles were a bit simplistic and relied more on searching. Many of the rooms were a bit light on puzzles, maybe only 1-2 in each room. ➖Wish there was a more cohesive narrative between the 5 rooms, the theming felt a bit random. But I get that this is a limitation due to them converting the existing haunt into an escape room. ➖Layout results in a lot of backtracking and walking back and forth We played as a team of 4, but I'd recommend 2-3 enthusiasts and solving it linearly. Room is more creepy than scary but there may be some jumps cares. No crawling or climbing.