Room Escape Artist

In November of 2023, we hosted Escape Immerse Explore: Orlando. On this escape room tour, we brought 60 escape room enthusiasts to Orlando. 60% of attendees completed the post-event survey, giving us feedback on the event and the escape rooms.

This tour featured 9 escape rooms, plus an addition 2 games for those who booked into the tour extension to The Exit Games in Clearwater, FL. Many players added a few more games to their schedules. The survey asked them to stack rank every game they played, and here are the results:

Top 5 by Ranking

1. Servants of Sleight at The Exit Games FL
2. Crazy Train at Doldrick’s
3. Pins & Needles Tattoo Parlor at The Exit Games FL
4. Operation Arctic Storm at The Escape Ventures
5. Captain Spoopy Bones at Doldrick’s

With the individual stack rankings, we’re able to assign weights to calculate how each escape room ranked in aggregate.

Worth the Trip

Even though The Exit Games was a challenge to get to, it was worth the trip. Only half the tour attendees visited The Exit Games (either with a tour extension, or on their own). However, they ranked it highly enough for these two games to take spots 1 and 3 in the stack rankings.

Inverted Preferences

Those following the TERPECA rankings might notice this ranking isn’t consistent with TERPECA, where Pins & Needles Tattoo Parlor (#29) outranked Servants of Sleight (#41). Pins & Needles Tattoo Parlor is the newer game so, on the surface, the TERPECA ranking makes more sense.

However, of note, Pins & Needles Tattoo Parlor is a game with a dark theme and harsh language. It’s rated R. It’s horror-ish. On Escape Immerse Explore tours many of our guests are a bit more bold and play games that are out of their comfort zones, something that escape room enthusiasts traveling on their own always don’t do. Those self-selecting into this theme are probably more likely to rank it higher. It still ranked exceptionally high, especially given it wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but the more thematically-comfortable game, Servants of Sleight, took the top spot in the tour rankings.

The tour ranking results are a testament to the strength of both the games at The Exit Games in Clearwater.

Worth the Wait

The #2 spot went to Crazy Train at Doldrick’s. This game was overwhelmingly popular. Everyone on the tour played it. It finished the stack ranking with the most individual first place rankings, by a wide margin.

One player wrote in their survey, “Crazy Train is crazy good – so creative, different, fun, beautiful – pure delight.”

Consistency

Of all the companies on the tour, The Escape Ventures delivered the most experiences the most consistently. They are an up-and-coming company to keep an eye on.

Of their games, Operation Arctic Storm ranked highest (#4). It’s their newest game, with the most impressive set in their facility. Bros for Life and Neighborhood Watcher ranked #6 and #7, respectively. These more modest games delighted tour attendees for their unusual themes and character-driven gameplay.

7 Favorites

With each tour, we are reminded that “best” isn’t absolute. Favorites are a matter of taste… and also a matter of theme, team, gamemaster, maintenance, and other variables. Each of the following games was at least one person’s favorite of the trip:

• Crazy Train
• Pins & Needles Tattoo Parlor
• Operation Arctic Storm
• Servants of Sleight
• Captain Spoopy Bones
• Neighborhood Watcher
• Super Bomb Squad

Conspicuously Absent

One featured company was conspicuously absent from all of the lists above: The Bureau.

What went wrong? Maintenance. The games at The Bureau weren’t reliable. Major props were broken.

Of the 3 games we featured at the The Bureau, Puppet Heist: The Hand of Life ranked above the other two.

The Bureau had a lot of offer. They have a fun shtick, and a gorgeous, comfortable area to hang out in. They were a wonderful venue for our wrap up dinner. The staff were gracious hosts.

They have interesting games worth showcasing, but they didn’t deliver consistently enough to wow our tour.

The conclusion that we have drawn is that the best game at The Bureau is the one that works the best while you’re visiting. Your experience may vary.

The Important of Gamemasters

The gamemastering at The Escape Ventures was top tier.

This was a common theme in the survey answers, including the following:

“Escape Ventures was phenomenal in every way… their staff were great and went above and beyond to ensure we had a great time while at their company.”

“I ADORED Neighborhood Watcher, because of the actor, Cierra. She was incredible.”

“I want to give a shout out to both The Escape Ventures and The Exit Games FL for having some of the best interactive gamemasters that I’ve had the pleasure to experience.”

A Market on the Rise

Orlando is an up and coming escape room market.

It has its own humorous, theatrical flavor. The top of the market is really pushing creative boundaries. David and Peih-Gee explored this at length with Mike and Rick from Doldrick’s on Reality Escape Pod:

It also has a lot of really fun escape rooms for casual or newer escape room players and families.

Here is our recommendations guide for all your Orlando escape room trip planning.

Our Next Destination

Escape Immerse Explore New Mexico returns in June of 2024.

In New Mexico, you’ll experience the intersection of sets, interactions, and art. We’ll explore how the escape rooms in Albuquerque have been heavily influenced by the movie industry. And we’ll take a trip to the original Meow Wolf to experience wonder at The House of Eternal Return.

Here are the survey results from our first tour to New Mexico in 2022.

Tickets have been on sale for just 2 weeks… and there are only 7 tickets left!