There’s gold in this tomb.
Location: Evesham Township, New Jersey
Date played: June 23, 2017
Team size: 2-10; we recommend 4-5
Duration: 60 minutes
Price: $28 per ticket
Story & setting
Trapped within an ancient Egyptian tomb, we had an hour to lift the curse we’d unleashed or lose ourselves in its ancient depths.
Escape Room Challenge’s Pharaoh’s Revenge was grim, gritty, and compelling. Designed for people 15 years and older, it wasn’t a horror game by any stretch of the imagination, but the set would likely spook a youngling with its believable take on a tomb.
Puzzles
Pharaoh’s Revenge’s puzzling revolved around the set and large set pieces. When this worked well, it was brilliant. When it didn’t, we needed hints to push us in the right direction.
Standouts
There were a few brilliant interactions in Pharaoh’s Revenge. They made for great puzzles and felt perfectly at home in an Egyptian tomb escape room.
The set looked pretty damn great. It had clean construction and appropriate scale. We were surprised when we walked in.
Pharaoh’s Revenge made us feel like we were on an adventure.
Shortcomings
There was a searching puzzle that I cannot imagine anyone ever solving without a hint or a lot of dumb luck. This interaction needed some iteration.
A significant late-game interaction was implemented with a material so cheap and ignorable that we didn’t even notice it. It ultimately felt out of place.
There was a massive tech-driven interaction that simply did not work well. Once we had a sense of what to do, our gamemaster needed to intercede a few times to coach us through the clunkiness.
Should I play Escape Room Challenge’s Pharaoh’s Revenge?
In Pharaoh’s Revenge, Escape Room Challenge has built a beautiful game that is 3 or 4 tweaks away from masterful.
When we visited, Pharaoh’s Revenge was a fun puzzle adventure with a couple of stalling points where it would take either incredible persistence or luck to complete the interactions without gamemaster intervention. I truly hope that Escape Room Challenge makes these changes because there is gold in this tomb.
Pharaoh’s Revenge is a fantastic escape room for experienced players. However, as you work through the second half, don’t be stubborn; take a hint or two.
Newbies will likely find Pharaoh’s Revenge an impressive but daunting room escape. It’s doable, but you’re going to have to work well as a team to make it through in one hour. My recommendation is to get a couple of room escapes under your belt so that you can truly appreciate the things that make Pharaoh’s Revenge special.
Book your hour with Escape Room Challenge’s Pharaoh’s Revenge, and tell them that the Room Escape Artist sent you.
Full disclosure: Escape Room Challenge provided media discounted tickets for this game.
