The Courtyard

The beginning of the room was a little frustrating for me. I felt like we chewed up a lot of time there. I remember doing a lot of fast walking between puzzles as a team of two. Overall, just eh.

This is probably the best horror series in LA. It’s worth going through every room.

Solid room, and a great live actor, but frustration with the overall experience. Did this as a team of two. Some tech issues (a mechanism didn’t properly work, costing us time). Frustratingly. the game master had totally disappeared at the one moment we needed a hint, near the end of the game. Several minutes later they responded to us, gave a hint for the previous puzzle, and then disappeared again for several more minutes. After the tech screwup, the MIA gamemaster, wrong hint etc, we needed about thirty more seconds (literally) to finish the game, but they ended it on the dot, with no reference to the mistakes—which felt a little shady to me, to be honest. The Basement feels a bit too close to a corporate, efficiency-oriented escape room business for my tastes—the ones that seek to maximize customers by pumping you in and out, depersonalizing the approach, etc. Also possibly a bit overwhelmed/understaffed. So it goes. But I’m sure other people have had better experiences here obviously.

The Basement is always incredible and this room is actually jaw dropping with its scale and production value. Fun puzzles with good difficulty but solvable and very on theme the whole time

I rate this room a 4/5 (ck out my bio for rating system). The room got points for set and theme design which was totally immersive and realistic! The live actor was quite believable and added to the room in a positive way. I feel bad I didn't keep my pinky promise I made with her! 🤦‍♀️ There were some surprise elements and novel puzzles and I experienced more enjoyment than frustration while doing it. The reason it didn't get a perfect 5 was because there was some frustration - something was put in a wrong way but there was no indication it was wrong because it fit - and the dreadful 'hint system' if you'd even call it that. First they tell you there's no hints, then a lady starts shouting thru the wall trying to give you a hint. It just didn't match the quality of the room set. If you're not going to give hints, commit to that, don't do it the ghetto way. Even though I liked the escape experience overall, I didn't like their other room, The Elevator Shaft, and because of the hint system, or lack thereof, I won't be experiencing the rest of the rooms at this location.

This game isn't too difficult. Ideal for 4-5people with a decent amount of puzzles. If you have been doing games for a while this room should be a breeze. Medium-Hard difficulty

most difficult of the 4 chapters, will require crawling for 1.

My biggest issue with this room is the use of an in-room actor. Most people love it but for me she ruined the room - more explanation given in the live actors section. I’m still giving this room a thumbs up because the set design was incredible and the puzzles themselves were a lot of fun. HOWEVER, this could have been one of my favorite rooms had we not had a 5th person in the room acting like an impudent child asking what we were doing every 5 seconds. Her motive was unclear: she would say helpful sounding things and when we were figuring things out for ourselves, she’d insert herself like the friend in the friend group no one wants to talk to. Basement has not steered my wrong in terms of story and room mechanics thus far so this could have been a fluke game, but be weary, if you don’t like to be constantly talked through your room and guided to your next step, this may not be the room for you.

I love this whole series of The Basement from end to end and the finish was just great. The set design was fantastic and the puzzles were super fun to work through. We did get a little stuck a couple times but Partly that’s just because the room is relatively big and there were only three of us and at least one is doesn’t usually do escape rooms. Even with all that, we managed to squeak out with very little time to spare. I would def recommend doing this whole series from the beginning. It was so fun!