The Inventor's Enigma

This was probably the most forgettable game we played on our escape room trip to the Carolinas. That’s not to say this is a bad, mediocre, or even just good enough game. I really like this game. There are some great aspects of this game that I highly recommend playing for. The introduction is great, there’s a reveal in the late game I didn’t see coming at all and that very rarely happens after playing a lot, there’s a couple neat visual aspects, some of the more layered puzzles are really creative. Unfortunately what holds this room back is that the general vibe just doesn’t do much for me. It’s a neat sci-fi lab… and that’s it, there’s not enough depth in the theming for me to describe it any more than that. It feels like it’s not quite sure what it wanted to be. Some areas of the set feel almost unfinished with very little decoration in them. The same goes for some of the less layered puzzles (also the puzzle you have to do first is a weird one to immediately bottleneck the game behind, it feels almost counter-intuitive to solve this puzzle first). I definitely recommend playing this game… but only if you’re also planning to play all of the other games at Escape Artist’s two locations at some point, because I would not choose this one over any of the others. They all bring a lot to the table, and while this game has those great aspects you should see, it has the least compared to their other games. Escape Artist Greenville Ranking 0. Chimera Corp Saga 1. Dark Lullaby 2. Castle Fluffendor 3. Help Wanted (gap in quality) 4. Starlight Motel (big gap in quality) 5. Yuletide Magic 6. Classified (big gap in quality) 7. Dr. Fratelli’s Cabin 8. Inventor's Enigma

This was a cute game. The tech was impressive, as always with this company. We got stuck at one part, and then really flew through a lot of it!

Although Escape Artist Greenville’s rooms are largely great, this was my least favorite room at an otherwise phenomenal day of escapes. Some of the puzzles just didn’t click with us. There were also just times where we didn’t know what we were doing when interacting with a puzzle only to realize we needed to see a completely different part of the room or needed more items. Love the giant colorful invention and I’m jelly that our tour guide got transported to jelly!

Other highly rated rooms at Escape Artist (Starlight Motel, Castle Fluffendor) get all the attention, but for those who value puzzle quality over actors and extra immersion, the Inventor's enigma is every bit as good. Solid puzzles that slowly rise in difficulty and multiple rooms make this a really great experience.

Very fun room. We love Escape Artist and have enjoyed all of their rooms so far. Our GM Audrey did a great job being in character and helping with a few nudges. I felt all the puzzles were straight forward and fit the theme. Only one puzzle felt like it didn't fit the theme but we found out later it was a holdout from a previous room. After learning that, the puzzle in question makes complete sense. Couple of cool fun puzzles that we have seen before elsewhere but done in a creative way that fit the theme. Highly recommend Escape Artist.

I really really enjoyed this room slot. The set and prop design absolutely took my breath away. The puzzles themselves were also very creative and fun to solve.

This was our last room at this location. Out of all of them, this is our least favorite. Yuletide is our favorite. This room doesn’t flow great and we needed tons of hints. Also, there are tons of props that are useless. Basically the room is filled with distractions. But the game master was great and helped a lot! Would recommend, but not as a first room because this room doesn’t feel like the quality of the rest of Escape Artist’s rooms.

Solid like, great having a live actor to add some additional fun and immersion. The puzzles were more straight forward like the doctor room with a couple of more challenging tech focused ones, but I would say this is the 4th best out of the 5 with Yuletide Magic and Starlight Motel in the top 2.

Your standard escape room. Very cool puzzle at the end. Too short for experienced players. My personal ranking of the 5 games at the downtown location as of August '25: 1. Classified: Operation Nine Lives (just too silly not to be my #1 here. No flaws, but it's too easy with 4, I think.) 2. Starlight Motel (excellent flow and plotting, tight with good acting moments, puzzles were just OK - a superior game to Classified, but silliness wins :) ) 3. Yuletide Magic (fun, surprisingly good puzzles and Christmasy vibes) 4. Dr. Fratelli's Cabin (Very (too) easy! A great puzzle toward the end. Good beginner game... or solo game. We finished in 24 mins as 4 people. Skippable if you're low on time) 5. Inventor's Enigma (A unique puzzle at the end, but moat puzzles were a bit simple. Relatively easy overall, might be a good beginner room. Skippable if you're low on time)