Room Escape Artist

If you are looking for other overnight escape room type experiences, check out our Overnight Escape Room recommendation guide.

Update 4/9/24: If you enjoyed this article, we hope you’ll check out our interview with Wild Heart Ranch creators Blake Hodges-Koch & Thomas Meston on Season 7, Episode 5 of The Reality Escape Pod.

I believe.

Location:  Twentynine Palms, CA

Date Played: October 24-26, 2023

Team size: sleeps up to 8; we recommend 2-4 for the gameplay

Duration: about 2-4 hours of content, depending on your pace, which can be spread out throughout your stay

Price: expect at minimum $250 per night plus fees, but the price varies by booking date (minimum 2-night stay required)

Ticketing: Private

Accessibility Consideration: To fully participate in the experience, you need to be able to walk short distances. There are also single steps in the cabins.

Emergency Exit Rating: [A+] No Lock

Physical Restraints: [A+] No Physical Restraints

REA Reaction

It has been a long time since I felt like a child on an adventure, but for a short time at Wild Heart Ranch, I did.

Wild Heart Ranch is an Airbnb-meets-escape room in the middle of the California desert. While I was a bit skeptical going in, it did not take long for Wild Heart Ranch to make me a believer.

Upon our arrival via dirt sand roads, we found ourselves exploring a small compound with two cabins, a hot tub, a pool, and a few other smaller structures. It was beautifully desolate, and, at least to this Northeasterner, felt like another planet.

Inside the two cabins, we explored the beautifully realized world of Raymond Hart and his grandchildren. These spaces were quirky, welcoming, and felt real in a way that Airbnbs rarely do.

Each cabin had its own puzzle path: a sequence that took us between 45 and 75 minutes each. These paths took us through varied puzzles; some were escape room-like… and others were the kinds of actions that could only happen out in nature.

Wild Heart Ranch pulled off many magic tricks. They made us comfortable in a fictitious home in the desert, made us care for people who never existed, and gave us the gift of child-like adventure… all in an alien, unsupervised environment.

We milked the experience for everything it was worth, with full hearts and an understanding that the escape room Airbnb is not only possible, but another vibrant branch of the live gaming world that we love so much.

Whether we are talking to adults who seek something unusual or a family in search of an adventure, Wild Heart Ranch is an unforgettable destination. This was the adventure that I craved as a child and I’ll forever treasure our time together out in the desert.

Who is this for?

• Adventure seekers
• Story seekers
• Scenery snobs
• Outdoorsy folk
• Any experience level
• Couples… or families… or group of friends!
• People who want to live in an escape room

Why play?

• To live in an escape room
• For a Joshua Tree-themed story
• Wild Heart Ranch packs a surprising amount of escape room-y goodness into a space with no gamemaster

Story

Raymond Hart, the son of a gold miner, had an obsession with the mystical powers of the desert. We were exploring the property where he and his grandchildren had lived.

Setting

We drove out to a large property in the desert with 2 cabins, a hot tub, a pool, and a few other structures. There were 2 functional living spaces, each with accommodations for 4 people, a bathroom, kitchen, and living room. Each cabin had its own aesthetic. They both felt like spaces that the Hart family had lived in, but we never felt like we were intruding.

Gameplay

Wild Heart Ranch was first and foremost lodging in the desert. It’s currently bookable on Airbnb. It is possible to visit it without finding or solving a single puzzle – and it would be a lovely place to stay without any of the adventure.

However, the gameplay made Wild Heart Ranch special. There was an escape room hidden on the property, not in the form of a separate room, so to speak, but rather as a mystery to uncover and solve by traversing the different living spaces and the area around them. It would be hard to miss the trailheads.

There were 2 main mysteries to solve, plus 1 extra quest. Below, we reference to them as the “main cabin quest” the “second cabin quest” and the “extra quest.” There’s also a thematic party tabletop game.

Core gameplay revolved searching (minimally), observing, making connections, solving puzzles, and exploring the surroundings.

Analysis

➕ The set was breathtaking. It was the desert. It was also the cabins that felt connected to the characters in the mysteries. While some Airbnbs feel sterile (because nobody lives there) and others feel like you’re invading private space (because someone does live there), Wild Heart Ranch felt lived in, in a good way. It felt like it had been home to these characters. It was a comfortable place to stay.

➕ The mysteries at Wild Heart Ranch had us finding thematic MacGuffins. These had meaning to the characters of the place and reason to be well hidden. Our role in their discovery made sense. Their presence at Wild Heart Ranch was justified.

➕ The gameplay trailheads were easy to find. The gentle on-ramping should intrigue even the most timid guests. While getting started could easily have been overwhelming since the set to included two cabins… and quite a bit of desert, this was never the case. It was easy to find the thread of gameplay and follow it. The gameplay was approachable, and less experienced shouldn’t be worried.

➕ One piece of art in the main cabin was a lightly disguised puzzle. It was beautiful, well-constructed, and fun to solve.

➕ The props inside both cabins were exciting to interact with and worked well.

➖ We wanted more from one prop that revealed an unexpected interior.

➕  The outdoor segment of one quest was a lot of fun. There was plenty of feedback, so we never strayed off course. This feedback also amped up the anticipation of each reveal.

➕ Wild Heart Ranch made each reveal surprise and delight. The audio and visual effects created memorable and magical moments.

➕ Each quest concluded with an enchanting, thematic finale in a quirky, magical place. The first time we gained entry into this gamespace, we were wowed by the set. It continued to hold its allure when we returned to the spot.

➖ Some wow moments were undermined by finicky tech. Inside the finale gamespace, the key piece of tech wasn’t entirely intuitive to use and kept needing to be reset. The culminating interaction of the second cabin’s quest – while super cool! – was also hampered by somewhat janky props and fussy tech.

➕/➖ We liked the concept of the extra quest, but the execution was bumpy. It wasn’t clear what this game expected us to do, and we were confused when it timed out. The player perspective quickly became annoying. There was opportunity to make this a more interesting game. As a child, if I’d discovered this first and solved it through to the end, the reveal would have been mind-boggling. Instead, we found ourselves plodding through it at the end of our adventure for some extra character depth.

➕ Both the main cabin quest and the second cabin quest had really strong endings in terms of story, character development, and fanfare.

➕ We loved how, once revealed, colors and lights remained throughout our stay. We spent our last evening in the hot tub, gazing at the night sky and the glow of our adventures at Wild Heart Ranch.

➕ One of the creators of Wild Heart Ranch, Blake Hodges, has also designed desert-themed party game called Invasion. You’ll find it available to play in each cabin (and available to purchase). It’s a fun addition to any stay. It’s on-theme and winks at the intrigue and oddity of Joshua Tree. We recommend it most for a larger group.

Tips For Visiting

• Getting There: You will have to drive on some dirt roads, it isn’t especially complicated, but be prepared.
• Parking: There’s lots of room to park.
• Food: Bring your own food or check out the many restaurants in town. Wild Heart Ranch provides plenty of recommendations.
• Booking: Wild Heart Ranch requires all stays to be at least 2 nights. Although the play time for the experience won’t take that long, this is the right amount of time to experience it leisurely, and enjoy moments at the best time of day. Wild Heart Ranch also requires that the person booking have at least three 5-stars reviews on Airbnb. If nobody in your party meets that requirement, message the host to discuss your options.
• We recommend starting the gameplay in the Main Cabin during the day. When it leads you outside, hold off until dusk. That’s the perfect time of day for this segment.
• There are natural break points in the gameplay, within each adventure, and between the different trails. You don’t need to solve everything at once.
• Of note, Wild Heart Ranch has been continually iterating on and evolving this experience. If you played before us, you might not have experienced everything we did. And we expect they’ll continue to tweaking the adventure for future players.

Book your stay at Wild Heart Ranch, and tell them that the Room Escape Artist sent you.

Disclosure: Wild Heart Ranch comped our stay.