Heresy: 1897

Excellent overall. I loved the theme and the atmosphere. Having an actor and branching story paths is a really novel idea. They also have side quests. I didn’t feel a tremendous sense of agency about my choices / it wasn’t clear what the results would be, very “choose your own adventure” vibes where you don’t know what will happen until you make the choice. I never got a chance to replay before they closed, but apparently there’s two fully distinct paths of puzzles depending on your story choices! 5/5

What an experience! The reviews don’t lie, Heresy 1897 is the definition of what an escape room should be! This room, along with their other room (these MUST both be played, they go together), took our top two spots on our favorite escape rooms (we have played hundreds). Immersion is top notch, from the moment you enter the bar to the second you leave the building. Clues were unique and puzzles well thought out. Truly an experience not to be missed. Not much else to say other than DO IT or you’ll regret it.

Everything good you’ve read or heard about the Doors of Divergence is true. This is a world-class interactive theater experience, but the escape room components are also 100% legit (there are plenty of puzzles and they’re well integrated with the story). Unfortunately we played it at the very end of the current run but hopefully they find a new venue soon because I really want to know how the story turns out.

Every aspect is 10/10. I’ve played multiple times to multiple puzzles and endings. I adore the performances most of all. Top notch and really let those of us that dig world building and lore have a chance to dig deeper.

Definitely one of the most unique escape rooms I’ve done! I’ve since described it as an Escape Room meets Sleep No More. If you detest experiences with live actors, I wouldn’t recommend this. But if you can open your mind to it, the result is really intriguing and fun, and perhaps the densest backstory and plot I’ve seen go into an escape room There are currently Two Parts at Doors of Divergence: Heresy 1897, and Madness 1917 This review is about Heresy: You’ll start off in a bar where you’re given a drink and conversation by some of the characters in “The Rift.” They help you get acclimated to the world and the live actor interaction. Between this pre-area and the beginning of the escape room itself, Heresy is A LOT of exposition. And then it becomes evident the way you answer and interact with the actor in the room upfront can completely overhaul the puzzles you end up doing. I love that! If it weren’t for the steep (but warranted) price tag here, I’d do it again just got replay value and to see what alternative answers would lead to The set and puzzles are both extremely high quality. Not a single lock and key in the entire room, which was impressive given it’s quite sprawling. Without spoiling anything, the choices you make in this Heresy, 1896 then do effect Madness, 1917 if you choose to do both. They also have a website you can link to upon completion where you can get more details about the plot and its many branching paths It’s hard to give a “time estimate” here. At one point we overheard we had “30 minutes remaining,” but had definitely been in the room much longer than half an hour. It seems clear that the timer pauses whenever you’re in the middle of a theatrical scene. Also “escaping” the room isn’t the last thing you do. There’s more plot to be had with more choices to be made before you are given one of several endings. Our whole experience took about 2 hours from the time we entered the bar. As I said, I can’t say I’ve ever done a room like this before! Go in with an open mind ready to absorb a lot of plot and backstory and live actor conversations, and you’ll have a great time. If you simply cannot with that, I’d skip haha

Wow! What a production! Having live actors really enhances this game. The puzzles are very challenging. The set design is fantastic. The game flow is good. Those are the pros. The cons are that, with two players the games are public. We were fortunate enough to play with someone who’s company we enjoyed. Also, the actor in the room was wearing a mask that covered her mouth and she used an accent, so it was very difficult to understand her. This led to miscommunication at times which was frustrating for everyone including her. That said, we really wished we could have done the second room and hope that we can play it if and when they get their new location.

Amazing escape experience! I really hope they can revive this business someday!

An incredibly ambitious immersive theater-meets escape room experience. Production design is top tier, maybe the best of any ER I’ve done. The story was fascinating , inventive and involved. Maybe TOO involved. One could argue there was perhaps too much exposition and it got in the way of the gameplay at times. But I’d rather an experience er on the side of too much story rather than not enough. The puzzles were great for the most part, but I do have one complaint. There were WAY too many puzzle “instructions.” In fact, almost every puzzle had a piece of parchment that explained how the puzzle work. At least they tried to make the instructions fit with the story, but for the most part it just got in the way and slowed things down. Certainly not the type of ER where you could just follow through it, doing puzzles in an intuitive sequence. That said, it’s a small complaint in an otherwise stunning experience, with no detail too small. Truly rich and imaginative.

This is a stunning game, artistic in every sense of the word. Beautiful, well designed, and challenging. Our actor was great and really brought the room to life. The use of sequencing and building mastery was subtle and brilliant. A must play before Madness and a must play in general. UPDATE: I recently replayed this game and Madness at the new location. While I do not remember many specifics, the opposing path seemed to match the quality of design of the one I was sent on, and the storyline was in fact far more interesting to me than what I remember from before (one prop in particular was absolutely awesome). Our oracle was absolutely incredible, and it really meant a lot, because unfortunately there were several near-game breaking failures that would suddenly appear and then vanish randomly. This ranged from things not opening to props glitching in certain states to a prominent interface completely crashing and then rebooting, which did impact the immersion a lot (I felt bad for our actress, because it was absolutely impossible to stay in character due to the sheer volume and intensity). In addition, we encountered some issues with the flow - a lot of it was user error, but I do think some improved connections between inputs / clues could be helpful, especially when they don't obviously correlate. Another thing would be improved markings for some props - the set was as incredible as it was before, but some decor seemed to be drawn with marker that was not standing the test of time. It made it hard to distinguish certain clues in the appropriate level of detail. Finally, there is the design of the building. Due to what I would assume was some sort of delay, the lobby and the concurrent game were filled, bunching people up in the lobby and delaying us significantly (thankfully we had nothing booked afterward but we had an exceptionally early flight the next day). As I understand it, fire codes mean the ceilings cannot go the full way up, which adds a lot of extraneous noise from other groups communicating loudly (as one does in an escape room. I know there isn't really a good solution to this, but it was a major point of friction that should definitely be known before hand. While there was a few issues with our second playthrough, I don't want to detract from what Doors has built here. When this experience runs right, it is a massive achievement in artistry in escape rooms. The puzzles remind me a lot of The Room games in their elegance and mysteriousness. Our Oracle played a unique character that wasn't just a gamemaster in a costume, but a fully fledged part of the world (and she played it exceptionally well). Doors of Divergence has a vision for their games that I truly have never experienced anywhere else, and I 100% recommend checking it out. Even if the game is rocky, I trust that the staff will be able to make the experience worthwhile.

This was a highly inventive and engrossing immersive room, which has multiple choices throughout that will change your ending - AND allow you to replay the room multiple times with different puzzles & endings throughout. The space was beautifully arranged and our Proctor (host) was terrific. Our only regret was going into a public room - we just wound up with unengaged players who kind of spoiled the atmosphere. Recommend passionate players intentionally book the whole space out. Bonus points for having a bar open on site before we started, my cider hit the spot!!