Room Escape Artist

I must have blacked out; I don’t remember throwing a party.

Location: Washington, DC

Date played: May 28, 2016

Team size: 2-10; we recommend 4-6

Duration: 60 minutes

Price: $16-$28 per ticket (it’s complicated)

Story & setting

We were a team of drunk art restoration experts. Apparently, we threw a raging party in the museum that employed us and destroyed a priceless painting. We had an hour to restore the painting before our employer returned.

The game space looked a lot like the last game we played at Escape Artist DC, The Gallery Heist. This was a low-budget art gallery-esque location. Much of the art on the walls looked like it belonged, which was a big step up from our last visit to Escape Artist DC. That being said, the game was miles from immersive. The set wasn’t refined and its condition had deteriorated from wear and tear.

Puzzles

The puzzles were challenging because they didn’t offer feedback. It was difficult to determine when we had solved something and what to do with the solution. We needed more hints than I was comfortable asking for. We even needed hints on puzzles we knew how to solve because applying the solutions was frequently more baffling than deriving the solutions.

Standouts

The art was cool and every puzzle tied back to the art and story… even if the story didn’t always make a whole lot of sense.

Escape Artist DC lived up to their name by profoundly incorporating art in their game.

I truly admire Escape Artist DC’s generous pricing model. They openly acknowledge that they are shooting for a wallet-friendly price point. In that they deliver.

Shortcomings

The game offered little to no feedback. There were long spans where we had no idea if we had solved something, what to do next, or if we were even on the right track.

The speakers that our gamemaster used to deliver hints were crackly and difficult to hear. In this particular instance we had a deaf teammate with cochlear implants and she couldn’t hear the hints at all.

While Escape Artist DC has stepped up their art game, the overall aesthetic of the room left a lot of room for future growth.

Should I play Escape Artist DC’s Night at the Museum?

Escape Artist DC swung from producing some of the easiest games I’ve seen to one of the most unintuitively complicated games I’ve been locked in.

The puzzles all came together in the end. When our gamemaster explained the thinking behind it after the fact, the rationale was sound… but that didn’t make the experience as fun as I was hoping for.

Night at the Museum is a challenging experience, especially if you attempt it without hints. This is an advanced game for players who don’t care about immersion and are looking to see if they can conquer a room that doesn’t give anywhere near as much as it demands.

In terms of pricing, the escape room world is loaded with games of lesser value at much steeper prices. The games at Escape Artist DC have more than a few imperfections, but if you can bring a full team, they are one of the better deals you’ll find in the escape room world.

Book your hour with Escape Artist DC’s Night at the Museum, and tell them that the Room Escape Artist sent you.