Pandorum

New owners so I don't want to be too harsh on what they purchased... But this is the most obtuse and dull take on outerspace ever. How do make space boring? More of a slog than "difficult" - and sadly, just not fun. The first puzzle was akin to doing an accounting audit but you don't get paid - you pay them (want to read an excel sheet for 20 minutes for 5 separate locks - book this now!) The most uninteresting start to a game - there was a cool puzzle midway through with some unique elements, but after the absolutely tedious first room, we were all over it by then. There were also errors... Matching colors in one puzzle was important, but for one of the colors they were different tones. We had to get a clue and we were told to match the two "orange" items. But there was only one orange - the other item was yellow... We didn't get out, but we asked for the last puzzle to be explained to us, and the GM said "I honestly forget how to do that because no one gets that far." One final important point - you are not allowed to enter the codes or try the switches on your own - you have to tell the GM what you think it is, and then she "approves" before you input it. Completely breaks the mood and theme. This happens throughout the entire game. Very bad design. Needs reworking, this one...

I was really excited to try “Pandorum,” as it is billed as “the hardest room” in Orlando. However, we were left disappointed by our experience and felt like the space did not live up to all of the hype. As we arrived in the lobby, the staff tried to convince us “not” to try the room because it was “really hard.” We’re always up for a good challenge, so we insisted we wanted to try. Despite our plea and our booking for Pandorum, we were repeatedly asked to try another room, “Cryptid Crisis.” After a few more minutes of us insisting, we were led to the room. Before the game started, the GM confessed that they didn’t want us to play this room because it was hard for them to reset and hard for the GM to manage the gameplay. We were told many times that if we entered in codes wrong we would be penalized many minutes. There seemed to be significant puzzle and mechanical challenges in this space. We were told repeatedly that we could not “try” to solve puzzles a certain way. And many times, the tone used by the GM was not very kind. As it stands, I’m not sure the space is in a condition to be played. The only difficult thing about this room was navigating the “dos” and “don’ts”of solving their puzzles.

Does “hardest” mean puzzles designed to waste the most time?

Despite the negative reviews, we did not mind this room! We barely escaped however with only two people and only used two clues!

The room itself wasn’t as terrible as the reviews. However, reading others experiences before tackling this room was helpful. We didn’t get any clues that were overwhelmingly helpful, but knowing that there are tons of locks, lots of switches, helped us prepare a bit for what was ahead. This game wasn’t nearly as hard as it seems to be, it’s the amount of puzzles that need complete. Needless to say, we had 4 seconds left when we finished so it was close. Someone else said it, but paper and pencil would’ve helped.

It’s not hard, just tedious. Super dark, a million locks, and hard to see places. It’s not a good room, not a good design, and it didn’t feel fun. Just irritating. Whole time I thought to myself oh great another lock

Providing teams with pencil and paper or a marker and dry erase board would make a TREMENDOUS difference in this room. We missed escaping by probably 2 - 3 minutes, and had we had something to write on we would have escaped. Overall this room is definitely hard, but it isn't impossible. What makes it exponentially more difficult is not being able to write down things. When you're trying to remember a series of 9 things, you lose time going over it again and again. Our game master was very helpful and walked us through how the game would have ended. We hate not completing rooms, and - yes, I'm beating a dead horse - had we had pencil and paper we absolutely would have escaped. The room was actually not as "bad" as we expected given the reviews.

10/10 difficult is a good way to describe it

This game was a lot of fun. The puzzles were fairly easy if you frequent escape rooms. While the puzzles are easy, they are very time consuming. We had to wait before inputting certain codes in (we were instructed to ask if the codes were correct before doing them) we wasting 30 seconds each time just trying to get the game masters attention.

Seriously…I could make a better escape room with the cardboard boxes that starving African kids get with the left over t-shirts from the losing Super Bowl team every year. Absolute train wreck. Top 3 worst games I have ever played.