Room Escape Artist

Path of the Gods is one of the best games in Denver. Here are our other recommendations for great escape rooms in Denver.

Ready, senet, go!

Location:  Arvada, CO

Date Played: September 25, 2021

Team Size: 2-6; we recommend 3-5

Duration: 60 minutes

Price: from $80 for teams of 2 to $165 for teams of 6

Ticketing: Private

Accessibility Consideration:  Crawling (for all players), low lighting

Emergency Exit Rating: [A+] No Lock

Physical Restraints: [A+] No Physical Restraints

REA Reaction

I often avoid ancient Egypt-themed escape rooms as many tend to feel quite similar to each other, but Path of the Gods differentiated itself from the pack. The puzzles in Path of the Gods included some substantial layered solves which meaningfully drew from ancient Egyptian culture and mythology as inspiration. Though the core premise — hieroglyphs that translated to English and the presence of puzzles in an ancient Egyptian tomb — was still quite fantastical, the puzzle and interaction mechanics themselves strongly reinforced the ancient Egypt theme in interesting ways.

When David and Lisa played Conundrum Escape Rooms’ Experiment C73 in 2019, they noted how it “took some design risks that paid off profoundly.” Upon playing Experiment C73 myself, I similarly marveled at its humor and bold experimentation. And with Path of the Gods, Conundrum Escape Rooms demonstrated a new facet of their scrappy ingenuity. Whereas Experiment C73 played mind games with its innovative game structure, Path of the Gods put some innovative twists on the classic escape room theme of an ancient Egyptian tomb.

Path of the Gods was fun, exciting, and novel to my team of experienced, slightly jaded escape room enthusiasts. If you are visiting Colorado, make sure to play both Path of the Gods and Experiment C73 at Conundrum Escape Rooms.

Who is this for?

• Puzzle lovers
• Scenery snobs
• Best for players with at least some experience

Story

Seeking fame and glory, we entered the tomb of Pharaoh Ta-Tum Rah. If we could avoid the curse of the gods, we could be the first ones to unlock the pharaoh’s secrets.

Setting

Path of the Gods took place in a fairly standard Egyptian tomb. Hieroglyphs and other ancient symbols covered many surfaces, along with colorful paintings related to various ancient Egyptian gods and cultural elements.

Gameplay

Conundrum Escape Rooms’ Path of the Gods was a standard escape room of moderate difficulty.

Core gameplay revolved around puzzling, searching, and making connections.

Analysis

➕ Path of the Gods presented an interesting take on a common escape room theme. While this was still very much an Egyptian tomb room, it didn’t just feel like every other Egyptian tomb room out there (which too often is the case with this particular theme.) The puzzles pulled from Egyptian mythology and culture, and they made sense within the space and story.

➕ Multiple puzzles cleverly took advantage of the physical space in different ways.

➕ The physical barrier between two areas of the set, which also served as the meta element for most of the game, was visually engaging and far more interesting than just putting multiple locks on a single door. I hadn’t seen this particular gating technique used in any other escape rooms.

❓For much of the room, many puzzles were available in parallel. Only once we self-organized and decided to solve puzzles together more sequentially did we stop stepping on each other’s toes. The information overload that led us to this point could be overwhelming to some newer teams, to whom I’d recommend just sticking together until you really get your bearings.

➕/➖ As with many tomb rooms, Path of the Gods‘ ambiance was largely defined by low flickering light, but wall-mounted torches and handheld flashlights provided enough light to see everything sufficiently well. The flashlights were neat but also a bit unwieldy.

➕/➖ Path of the Gods differentiated well between symbol sets. The symbols used for puzzle solutions weren’t also included in other translatable text. That said, this other hieroglyphic text throughout the room provided narrative flavor and occasional hints for some puzzles — which was prior to the game explicitly stated to be optional — would have been an overwhelming translation task for anyone actually seeking targeted help on a particular puzzle.

➕ The room contained a few jumbo props that were satisfying to interact with.

➖ The entrance to the tomb didn’t match the pizzazz of the rest of the set. Carpeted floors and boarded-up doors that weren’t part of the game weakened our initial immersion, though we couldn’t quite tell if those elements were left in ironically.

➕ Path of the Gods finished strong with a jaw-dropping reveal. We wondered where this production value was at the very start of the room.

Tips For Visiting

• There is a parking lot.
• This game is at the Arvada location.
• Conundrum can make accommodations for any player who cannot crawl to still access all game spaces.

Book your hour with Conundrum Escape Rooms’ Path of the Gods, and tell them that the Room Escape Artist sent you.