Room Escape Artist

45 Lampkin Lane is one of the best games near Los Angeles. Here are our other recommendations for great escape rooms in the Los Angeles area.

Update 4/16/24: If you enjoyed this article, we hope you’ll check out our interview with 45 Lampkin Lane creators Al & Stacy Delcome on Season 7, Episode 6 of The Reality Escape Pod.

Rattle chains

Location:  Redlands, CA

Date Played: October 22, 2023

Team size: 3-6; we recommend 3-4

Duration: 80 minutes

Price: $50 per player

Ticketing: Private

Accessibility Consideration:  All players need to be able to move quickly and crouch down.

Emergency Exit Rating: [A] Push To Exit

Physical Restraints: [A+] No Physical Restraints

REA Reaction

If I were to draw a line from Confusion Escapes’ first game, The Last Job, to their second game, The Treehouse, and extend it out to where their third game would land… I would not have projected 45 Lampkin Lane.

This was an ambitious game. Confusion Escapes experimented with format and structures. With this game, they leveled up in set design and technical interactions. They also introduced performance, and asymmetric experience design.

Some of it worked exceptionally well, and some of it felt bumpy.

One side effect of trying new things and pushing boundaries is that 45 Lampkin Lane ended up requiring a lot of stage direction.

Additionally, due to asymmetric design, different players on the same team can have dramatically different experiences. Our advice to players is to accept that some of your experience is unpredictable, and enjoy this game for its uniqueness. Choose not to be bothered by design choices that are clunky, frustrating, or repetitive. You’ll certainly encounter these.

Instead choose to appreciate the wow moments, which are numerous, and surprising.

45 Lampkin Lane was a horror escape game. It was scary, especially early on, before we felt comfortable with the game mechanics. It’s not the most terrifying escape room in the region, but go into this game willing to take on whatever the game throws at you. You’ll have to be brave.

If you are in the greater Los Angeles region and you especially appreciate horror, or unusual game design, it’s worth the drive to visit 45 Lampkin Lane.

Who is this for?

• Puzzle lovers
• Horror fans
• Adrenaline junkies
• Best for players with at least some experience
• Players who don’t need to be a part of every puzzle

Why play?

• Novel approaches to player isolation
• Character-driven scares
• Exciting set-based interactions

Story

We’d booked an Airbnb that was rumored to belong to a powerful witch. Shortly after we checked in, we realized that we’d entered a cursed situation, and someone was about to be sacrificed, unless we could save them and escape… and something inside this house was going to make that difficult.

Setting

45 Lampkin Lane opened in a witchy living room with a spirit board and witchy sundries. From there it only got darker.

Gameplay

Confusion Escapes’ 45 Lampkin Lane was a horror escape room where teammates became separated. It was a high degree of difficulty, in part because of the effects of fear and isolation.

Core gameplay revolved around observing, communicating, solving puzzles, and playing dead.

Analysis

➖ The introduction was awkward. Was our host a gamemaster or a character? We weren’t quite sure. The story teed up an interaction that the host implemented… which didn’t land. We assumed the game started when the host left the room, but no, the host would be back to interrupt the experience to set up a game mechanic. To be fair, there was a nifty scene in between these host visits, but the gimmick wasn’t worth breaking the magic circle for.

➕ The beating heart of 45 Lampkin Lane was the actor playing the monster. The costume was scary, especially the way it dragged chains around, creating an organic monster soundscape.

➕/➖ The “play dead” mechanic worked well to keep both the players and the actor safe. The conceit was that the monster couldn’t see any players who were playing dead. With this prescribed action, we avoided triggering our fight or flight response. That said, this mechanic wasn’t interesting, and eventually got old as we became comfortable with it.

➕/➖ It’s clear that Confusion Escapes cares a lot about safety. From the pre-game briefing to the playing dead mechanic, they designed around safety. Still, we traversed was one segment in need of some specific padding to protect against the impending jump scare, and a likely players reactions.

➖/➕ 45 Lampkin Lane deeply explored split-team gameplay. The first implementation – largely communication based – was a bumpy ride. With one player separated from the rest, and an inadequate communication method (uncomfortably placed and without a speaker), it was more frustrating than fun. The gameplay bottlenecked severely. The second implementation played into the strengths of the horror genre, with each player in a self-contained solo (for a team of 3) or small-group space, on their own with the information they could find and the threat of a monster. Solo experiences add a lot of pressure, especially in horror games, and it worked well in this second implementation, even if some of the puzzling was repetitive.

➖ The early gameplay was bumpy. There were multiple inputs of the same digit structure and hardly any lock mapping. This, combined with the bottlenecked information distribution, made it feel like a grind.

➕ In the second half of the game, the puzzles flowed smoothly.

➕ 45 Lampkin Lane included stellar practical effects.

➕ There were two show-stopping set transitions. These were some of our favorite moments in the game.

👻 It’s hard to keep players on edge for a full 80 minutes. 45 Lampkin Lane was scariest early on, when the monster was unknown. With the monster coming and going, and the players progressing through the set, Confusion Escapes was able to build and release tension well. However, the more comfortable we became, the less impact scares had. By the end, the edge was worn off, and we only jumped at the occasional surprise of a jump scare. Your mileage will vary.

Tips For Visiting

• Parking: There is a parking lot.

Book your hour with Confusion Escapes’ 45 Lampkin Lane, and tell them that the Room Escape Artist sent you.