Escobar: Part 1 (The Betrayal)

Some real physical crime experience. A few puzzles are unique and super well designed. It’s a big room with a lot of puzzles. We escaped as a group of 2 with less than 2min to spare, after using several hints

My girlfriend and I must’ve had an off day lol. Took us a minute to get going and we needed a nudge to get us on track which is why we ran out of time. The room itself was pretty cool, but we didn’t have our best day that day. So we went to do another room and totally killed that one 😁

This was an interesting room. I played a room with basically this theme in Budapest but haven’t played a “Pablo Escobar” room in the USA. The set design in the first half is very good. It gets a bit lazy IMO in the second half, although there is a reason. The room has some good puzzles, including a couple where you will do things that you’re probably not expecting to do in an escape room. The story is exactly what it says it is: it is the early 1990s and you are working for Pablo Escobar the drug lord. I enjoyed it but I am not bothered by the subject matter. So with that caveat, recommended.

I hate to give this a negative review as the room itself was fun, but it was immediately spoiled by our time already having started before we even entered the room. We arrived ten minutes -early- and used the bathroom, greeted with smiles and no implication that we would be on a time limit as soon as the clock turned over. It was only after I asked mid-rules explanation that we were informed 6 minutes had already gone by. We felt manipulated and robbed of time- the fact they didn’t even tell us beforehand made this room (and business) feel less like they cared for us and more that we were on the conveyor belt of their schedule. I’ve had so many incredible experiences with caring owners and passionate workers, but this just stung. We likely won’t be coming back here.

As a big fan of history, this escape room put together some of my favorite elements of Pablo Escobar's life and made puzzles out of it. The room follows the story of the drug lord and the cartel. We had a group of 4, two experienced people and two newbies. The newbies managed their own pretty well. There were some comments that folks shared already in their reviews and I agree with them. The room is not as linear and some of the puzzles did not have as much clarity. One of the first puzzles took us a good 10 minutes to figure out, and even then we asked for a hint. When we found out how this puzzle was supposed to work, the "answer" did not feel particularly challenging or insightful. The puzzles were at middle difficulty, but that's because the parameters around which to solve for them are not as clear. Overall, the ending redeemed this room for me but the price is still too high.

We had high hopes but went home frustrated First off, as many others have said, they start the 1 hour the second they open the door to the room. They then spend about five minutes talking before you can begin. Longer if they’re feeling chatty. Next, there are puzzles which seem intentionally poorly designed. The writing is sometimes difficult to read, there is a picture so bad as to be misleading, and there is way too much junk everywhere that just gets in your way. Finally, our GM gave us a spectacularly bad hint early on which sent us down the wrong path. We ended up not completing the room. (This is only the second time that’s happened to us and we’ve done around 50 rooms by now.) It seems with minor tweaks, the room could be top rate, but given the number of other reviewers who have made complaints exactly like mine, I don’t think this place had any desire to improve.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ me dum

I’m so surprised that something so rooted to a very specific person in history has inspired not just one, but two whole escape rooms. But Escobar shows that any passionate topic can become an escape room. This room follows the story of drug lord and cartel leader Pablo Escobar. I don’t know much about him, but I feel like I’ve learned quite a bit just from playing the room. Goes to show how educational escape rooms can be! I particularly liked the Colombian set design, and the tasks you get to do in the room feel raw and practical. I even got to do something cathartic that I never thought I’d do in a room. We even had to confirm with the GM if we could do it, which felt wild and a little confusing. My biggest peeve is how strict the room is about time. We were a few minutes late, and we basically had 10-15 minutes taken off our clock… Yea, we shouldn’t have been late, but wow. We ended up escaping, but we needed more hints than usual to make up for the time loss. It is a hard room, regardless, and there is a puzzle that requires you to literally wait a few minutes. I still loved the room despite our experiences, and I do like this one more than Escobar Part 2, which we did immediately after.

The room was very linear which isn’t my favorite as there were lots of moments where people couldn’t do much. The puzzles themselves were just okay. The set was really beautiful and atmosphere was great but there was no wow moments which I think is really important for a room to have. This may be somewhat unfair as we have done some great high tech rooms lately. However, we just did Stashhouse in Ktown recently which was a similar theme but much better done, even with that room having a similar level of tech (if not less than this room). There were a million red herrings that drove me crazy, one of my biggest pet peeves. Handwriting was unclear in multiple parts of the room. Ultimately, I don’t think this deserved a thumbs down, as we have done truly bad rooms that deserved a thumbs down, but I certainly am in no rush to recommend it to anyone. *There was a review by someone else that gave it a thumbs down and it says it contains spoilers, but it didn’t really, and I think he did a great job of hitting all the problems in this room. I’d recommend referencing that review as well when considering doing this room. **The aesthetic of the business itself was really fantastic. Between that and how awesome our game instructor was, I would consider trying a different room here in hopes it may be better.

The room was fun loved the set design and loved the physical aspect of the room!