Arcade

This room was a lot of fun but HARD. Definitely wouldn’t recommend this for beginners. But it had a great puzzle flow and all of the arcade decor was super cool.

The Arcade was my 89th room. I chose it over many other rooms in San Diego based on online recommendations. I can't say for sure what my rating would have been had I had a normal experience in the room--there were definitely some great things about the room--but given our specific experience I have to give it only two stars. Everything started off well enough. The room theme was fun, and we were enjoying the puzzles until we (minor spoiler alert) got into the second phase of the experience. We were a few minutes into the second phase when the gamemaster told us we weren't supposed to have gotten that far but that we could move forward anyway. Well, I didn't want to move forward. My purpose in doing these rooms is not to get to the end, but rather to get through everything. So I went back to the first phase to try to figure out what we had skipped. I was again working on the first part when the game master interrupted and said there was nothing to do in the first phase until we solved some more in the second phase. I was getting mixed signals, but since the communication with the gamemaster was mostly one way, I figured my best option was just to follow the gamemaster's recommendation. But by now I had wasted several minutes. We had also gotten knocked out of the puzzle-solving zone we were in. We kept thinking the whole time that we were missing something or that we had to take something from phase two back to phase one. Add to our frustration the fact that the air conditioner wasn't working--it was like that scene in Ghostbusters 2 where Egon is watching a couple in the waiting room thinking they are about to be called back to get marriage counseling, but Egon is just slowly increasing the temperature in the room to measure the effect of temperature on stress. I didn't know the AC was broken until after. I knew it was unbearably hot. One side of the room was so much hotter than the rest that I thought it was part of the puzzle--that we would find a secret room to a furnace or a cave with a fire-breathing dragon or something. Nope. The AC was just broken making it very hot and uncomfortable. What made it even worse was that we were there for corporate teambuilding during a business trip, and we were all wearing suits (with one of us in a dress). When we asked for our first hint, the gamemaster gave us a hint for something we had already solved--never a good sign. Then, I think because she felt bad that the room had malfunctioned, and she wanted to make sure we escaped, she kept giving us unsolicited hints. Except that some of them ended up being distracting because they didn't necessarily line up with what we were doing. Or they didn't make sense. Many were just fine. After we got out, she walked us through the parts we had skipped in the first room. That's when we found out that there was still quite a bit to do. She told us one of the puzzles had not been reset, which led to or being able to skip a decent chunk--including the coolest reveal of the game. She did let us go through everything we skipped as she told us what to do. The gamemaster was flustered and kept apologizing, so I mean no ill will to the company--ours just ended up being what was probably a fluke bad experience. I think if the AC had worked and the game had been reset correctly, it could have been a top-notch room. Even if they had made a mistake and didn't reset the room correctly, it would have been a much better experience if they had come into the room, reset it correctly, and then let us continue where we left off. True--the big reveal would not have been as surprising, but at least we would have experienced the whole room. It's to too bad you can't do the same room twice or I would love to try again. Hopefully this review will help Escape Era create a better experience for future visitors.

This was the most difficult room I have attempted (and failed). With five novice players of various ages, we were not even close to completing the tasks. The puzzles we did complete were fun and creative. It was a great room, but definitely made for expert players with many successful completions in their repertoire. Nothing scary.

My first ever escape room... and fail. There's no doubt this is an expert level escape room. It's the hardest room I've ever played. I played with 4 other novice players of various ages, and we were far from completing everything. Fun and interesting puzzles, but I would wait until you have quite a few escape room successes before attempting this one.

I wish I could rate the first half and second half of this room separately. I’ve never played a game that is such a let down. The beginning is simply fun. Love the theme and am a huge arcade nerd. However, I’ve always felt the budget ran out or something in the second half? It dissolves into being bland and confusing. Games should build in excitement, not fall apart into generic office theming. Can’t give this a thumbs down though because it does have some super fun parts!

Great room and use of props and technology, enjoyed it even though this is one of the only two escape rooms we haven’t escaped

My boyfriend and I both love video games so this was SUCH a fun game. It helps to have a bit of video game experience but it’s not needed to do the room.

Tech issues galore. Tear this room down and fix it.

Very cool and unique. I loved the retro vibes. We did this room with 4 people and I feel like if we had any less, we wouldn’t have escaped. The puzzles were challenging but very clever. Very much would recommend.