The Cereal Killers

I want to start by saying that I played my very first escape room at this location, so coming back is quite nostalgic and reminscent of when I really started to enjoy these kinds of experiences. That being said, as I've gone back to do more of The Locked Room's new games, the more I realize that although they were one of the first to establish themselves in Calgary, they have not kept up with the progression of some of the other places in Calgary (with exception to the Southland location), both new and old. With respect to this specific room, I thought the theme was quite cute and extremely unique. It's nice when places try something that has never been done before that involves a unique story and puzzles that go along with it. I think it's nice when companies try to go outside of the box, away from cliche, overdone themes and really try to push themselves to make something new. Nonetheless, I would say this room, and as a whole the NE Locked Room location, has a lot of catchup to do in terms of quality, customer, service, and overall gameplay experience. Some puzzles were good, but their was no flow in the game, you never knew what to do next, and this caused it to be extremely difficult to build any momentum. The new hint system was also not the best as it was quite unclear on when to use them and didn't provide direct guidance to puzzles you were stuck on. I think their are a lot of places that have hint systems that they could model theirs after. I also believe that charging $40/person is quite ridiculous unless it is a top-tier facility that offers a really cool/special game experience, perhaps integrating a lot of tech. There are much better escape rooms in the city that offer a cheaper game experience with much more polished sets and features, and some that even go below $30 a person. These rooms are much more put together, clean, and seem frankly just more tested from a puzzling perspective. The staff here is nice, but wasn't super helpful with hints and instead of being offered an oppurtunity to finish the room when we didn't complete it, they suggested we come back and play again which would be another $40/person. I understand time constraints, but we were the last group of the day so we were surprised when we didn't get a chance to play it out and moreso that it was suggested we could pay again to see the ending. Overall, I liked the unique theme, but the overall experience was not great this time, especailly for the amount you pay.