Room Escape Artist

The Body Shop is one of the best games in Boston. Here are our other recommendations for great escape rooms in Boston.

Update 11/14/23: If you enjoyed this article, we hope you’ll check out our interview with Marie Huber and Nico César, owners of Red Fox Escapes, on The Reality Escape Pod.

Update Nov 10, 2022: If you want to hear more about The Body Shop back us on Patreon at the “Search Win!” level to get access to a Spoiler’s Club Episode about this game. Reality Escape Pod co-hosts David and Peih-Gee talk all about it with the creator, spoilers and all. We cover the strange origins of this game, the bonkers story, and the hilarious details that are hidden with in it.

Be prepared… for mayhem

Location:  Cambridge, MA

Date Played: July 10, 2022

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

Duration: 60 minutes

Price: from $40 per player for teams of 4 to $36 per player for teams of 6-10

Ticketing: Private

Emergency Exit Rating: [A+] No Lock

Physical Restraints: [A+] No Physical Restraints

REA Reaction

With Body Shop, Red Fox Escapes took a previously great game (Outside the Box’s The Body Shop), and enhanced it into a truly stellar experience.

The first act aesthetically remained largely the same, but Red Fox Escapes carefully nested it into their own building, minding details and making thoughtful adjustments. With the second act, the changes were more dramatic.

Red Fox changed the storyline and reworked the puzzle flow to support the new, more coherent narrative. We found the new flow – in both story and gameplay – to be a smooth ride. We especially enjoyed when this game leaned into Girl Scouting, but with a twist.

I spent many years as a Girl Scout, earning badges for my sashes, and it was fun to don one again and solve my way through this strange and humorous Girl Scouts parody.

While the game is lightly horror (and I wouldn’t bring any current Girl Scouts of badge-earning age), it was more funny than scary, and “light horror” is more of a nod to prop content and storyline – nothing terror-inducing.

In its new home at Red Fox Escapes, Body Shop is accessible for Boston locals and visitors. It’s a must-play addition to any Boston escape room list.

Who is this for?

• Adventure seekers
• Story seekers
• Puzzle lovers
• Scenery snobs
• Scouts or former Scouts
• Fans of light horror
• Any experience level

Why play?

• An unusual theme
• The hilarious rebranded girl scout badges
• A killer reveal

Story

We had been regular Girl Scouts earning our Automotive Engineering badges at the local auto body shop. We didn’t realize that a shadow Girl Scout troop was running their nefarious operations out of this very shop. Now, they wanted us to join their ranks, and they’d invited us there to prove we were worthy of inclusion in their secret society.

Setting

We entered an auto body shop. It captured the busy and gritty aesthetic, without being actually cluttered or dirty. We especially appreciated how Red Fox Escapes worked with the limitation of their space, incorporating the air duct as part of the set. It looked great.

Gameplay

Red Fox Escapes‘ The Body Shop was a standard escape room with a moderate level of difficulty.

Core gameplay revolved around observing, making connections, and solving puzzles.

Analysis

➕ The story of The Body Shop was delightfully weird. Red Fox Escapes had changed the story significantly after purchasing the game from Outside the Box (previous review). The adaptation worked well with the existing set pieces and unchanged puzzles. This new fiction was also easier to buy into.

➕ The set looked great, and hid its secrets exceptionally well.

➕ In The Body Shop, the gameplay flowed well and the puzzles fit together seamlessly. Red Fox Escapes created all the necessary signposting and lock-mapping. They even highlighted recommended starting places to make this puzzley escape game more accessible to inexperienced teams.

➖ One late-game puzzle had two modes: hard and easy. The availability of two modes confused us, as we tried to connect disparate cluing, finally solved hard mode, and then wondered about unused in-game elements.

➕/➖ We were shocked by one prop. We loved the interaction. Narratively, however, we had questions. It would be possible to modify this prop to better justify the interaction.

➕ Red Fox Escapes’ rebranded Girl Scout badges worked marvelously. We enjoyed the cleverness and humor in each one.

➕ We can’t help but love that this escape room played a practical joke on us (well, just one of us.)

Tips For Visiting

• Red Fox Escapes is easily accessible by T. Take the Red Line to Central.
• The Green Street garage and the surface lot at Norfolk St/Bishop Allen Drive offer paid parking within one block of Red Fox. There is also metered street parking.
• Of note, the later half of this game is horror-themed. This is for content only. It is relatively tame for horror. There are no actors or jump scares.

Book your hour with Red Fox Escapes’ The Body Shop, and tell them that the Room Escape Artist sent you.

Disclosure: Red Fox Escapes comped our tickets for this game.