Room Escape Artist

Location: Montclair, New Jersey

Date played: January 19, 2015

Team size: 2-8; we recommend 4-6

Price: $30 per ticket

Plot

This game isn’t really themed. By virtue of its location in what was a previously a doctors office, and a few of the puzzles, it has a medical-ish feel.

Global Company

Adventures Rooms is global company with US locations in Middletown, Connecticut and Montclair, New Jersey. Founded in Switzerland, they have a number of locations throughout Europe, that have a deliberate corporate team building feel and follow their “maze” style of room escapes.

Their flagship game is called “the Swiss Original,” and it appears at all of their locations with minor variations.

“Maze”

Adventures Rooms calls their games “mazes.”

They are essentially a series of isolated rooms that you have to escape in succession.

When you hear “maze,” you should think daisy-chained rooms, not a corn maze.

Awesome moments, no magic

Every room in the Swiss Original contains a number of fairly typical room escape puzzles, however each room peaks with an incredible and exciting moment.

I don’t want to spoil anything, but we handled one or two pieces of equipment that I never expected to see in a room escape. This is what makes the experience. It’s not that any particular puzzle is incredible, but handling some of the equipment is just too damn cool.

Ultimately, this is a very Swiss game. Everything is well designed and works perfectly, but there’s not much soul.

Clear & fair

This game is well-crafted.

The rules are clear and easy to follow, and while it can get challenging, it’s always fair (which is not always the case in a room escape).

Adjustable difficulty

Because subsequent rooms in the maze are locked until you get to them, the game masters can adjust the difficulty on you, and customize the experience based on how well you’re doing.

We ripped through the first room, and they really turned up the degree of difficulty on us for later rooms.

We still finished with about 15 minutes left; the team really came together on this one.

Hackable

One thing that I truly loved about this game (and the company) is that they don’t care how you solve each room.

There are multiple paths out, and they don’t have a problem with you cleverly circumventing some of their puzzles.

I love approaching a problem knowing that I can find more than one way through it, and that no one is going to slap my wrist if I have solved 3 of 4 numbers in a lock and brute-force the last wheel.

Wonderful staff

The staff not only let you hack their puzzles, they enjoy letting you go to town on their game. They are gregarious, excitable, and truly passionate about giving the players a great time.

Bottom-line

You’ll have a great time in this game, and walk away remembering some exceptionally cool moments (two in particular), but keep in mind that there’s no magic here. You’re looking at a very finely tuned standard room escape.

This is New Jeresy’s first room escape company. They are centrally located, and this game is fun.

I think it’s on the easier side, but this is an exceptional first room escape, and a fun experience for veterans.

Book your hour with Adventures Rooms, and tell them that the Room Escape Artist sent you.