A different experience for a seasoned escape gamer.
Location: Montclair, NJ
Date played: April 25, 2015
Team size: 2-8; we recommend 4-6
Price: $30 per ticket
Plot
“Enter a dream space for a mind-boggling experience!”
Light theming
This is the second Adventure Rooms game we’ve played, and it’s fairly similar to the Swiss Original. The theming is very light. This is billed as a “mind-boggling dream space,” and I think that’s an overstatement.
This room is pretty random. However I don’t think that design by non-sequitur = dream.
That being said, Adventure Rooms continues to prove that an escape game doesn’t need strong theming to be a fun experience.
Awesome furniture
Most of the furniture in Penrose Dream is custom built and it’s awesome.
The furniture is the best part of this room; I would love to see more escape games incorporate custom built furniture. This opened up so many different and unexpected dynamics.
Anti-climactic
This game was a combination of two different rooms that are across the hall from one another. While that’s not really normal for an escape game, it didn’t harm the experience.
However, it’s disappointing that the second room was far less exciting and far less fun than the first room.
The first room was pretty damn cool, so we entered the second one wanting something more interesting than what we found.
Different puzzles
Overall, Adventure Rooms continues to provide experiences that are filled with unusual puzzles. We had never seen most of the puzzles in this game before and that’s becoming a big deal.
No run-through
This game had a ton of puzzles in it and we had a very talented team. As a result, many puzzles were solved without me having any knowledge of how they resolved.
I would have appreciated a full run-through from the staff after we escaped.
Should I play Adventure Room’s Penrose Dream?
I think that this is a more advanced room, for a more seasoned escape gamer. That’s not to say that it’s brutally hard; it isn’t.
This game presents a strong challenge and defies a lot of the recurring escape game cliches. That’s what makes it interesting, and worth playing.
If you’ve only escaped a room or two, you’ll still be able to appreciate it. However if you’ve played a few more, I think you’ll be able to look at Penrose Dream and see through some of its imperfections to recognize that this game is doing some weird stuff in a good way. Maybe the “dream space” description isn’t too far off point.
Book your hour with Adventure Rooms New Jersey – Penrose Dream, and tell them that the Room Escape Artist sent you.
A disclaimer
The more fanatical room escaper may recognize the gentleman on the right in the above photo as Derek Tam, one of the owners and designers of Mission Escape Games in New York City.
This was our first time playing a game with him. Still, we will continue to aggressively review his games. One of the things that we like about Derek and his team is that they take our reviews like champs. We’re not hiding this so don’t come at us with #RoomEscapeGate silliness.
