Prison Island [Interactive Arcade]

Rating: 3.5/5 - Fun challenge arcade with tons of rooms, but not my favorite, go as a team of 3. Had a good time, the place is huge with nearly 50 rooms and decent sets and tech, but not quite as intense or high tech as Activate. We booked 1.5 hours and only played around 30-35 rooms, some rooms are mental challenges, while some are physical or skill based. I would've enjoyed this more if I haven't already been to better challenge arcades elsewhere, this was my 7th. One thing I particularly liked was the stat sheet at the end which tells you rooms played, times, and score. Room for improvement, these are things I've seen other companies do better: ➖Little to no explanation on how to play, this trial and error style is intentional and will result in instantly failing rooms. There are only very vague hints and they claim employees can help explain if you can't figure it out but there was no one around to ask. ➖Quantity over quality, not a ton of variety of unique game types. A few were fun but a lot of the games just involve different ways of pushing buttons. ➖Many games aren't very replayable (unlike Activate) ➖Theming is a bit repetitive since everything another prison cell. ➖Not as modern feeling as Time Mission or Activate. The many of the games here feel dated in comparison. ➖Many games are designed exactly for 3 people, if you have 4 then 1 person will have nothing to do. And playing with 2 means you're below many of the rooms' minimums. ➖Most rooms do not have a separate exit door, so its awkward when a team is trying to come in when you're trying to leave. Prison Island and BRKTHROUGH (there's one in Cincinnati) are a part of the same franchise from Europe. The games are very similar with the same core gameplay and tech. Some are identical but others are reskinned and with different layouts and theming. I prefer BRKTHROUGH (BT) over Prison Island (PI) since it feels newer and more optimized/polished despite them opening up in the same year. BT had more staff to help, multiple maps so you don't get lost (PI's hallways feel like a maze), an RFID wristband instead of an annoying lanyard with multiple things hanging from it, hot food and drink/alcohol, and a brighter modern feel (similar to Activate). PI is annoying for teams of 2 since many of their games have a 3 player minimum while everything at BT is playable by 2. However, I did like PI's theming and set builds more than BT, plus they have a few more rooms available (47 vs 42).