Room Escape Artist

The Morgue is one of the best games in the San Jose area. Here are our other recommendations for great escape rooms near San Jose.

In Giggles We Trust

Location:  Fremont, California

Date Played: October 4, 2024

Team size: 2-6; we recommend 4-5

Duration: 120 minutes

Price: from $70 per player for teams of 6 to $115.50 per person for teams of 2

Ticketing: Private

Accessibility Consideration:  At least one player needs to be able to climb and crawl.

Emergency Exit Rating: [A+] No Lock

Physical Restraints: [A+] No Physical Restraints

REA Reaction

We’d been hearing wonderful things about The Morgue for years, since it was briefly open at Evil Genius in Los Angeles. We were thrilled when it found a home at Off the Couch. We delighted in finally playing it in 2024. While Off the Couch’s versions of Occam’s Apartment and Norcross Art Gallery were fundamentally different from the original games created by Evil Genus in Los Angeles, The Morgue, which only operated for a few months at Evil Genius, was more or less identical to the original.

The charm of The Morgue was in its combination of puzzle-dense gameplay with dark humor, and general silliness. We’ve never played anything else quite like it.

There was a lot of gameplay crammed into its 120 minute runtime. We were solving constantly. Our favorite puzzles leaned into the madness of the game. There were some lengthly process puzzles, but also a lot of satisfying ahas.

The most memorable moments of The Morgue, however, were not the puzzles, but the “bonus” rounds where one or more players had to venture into an unknown challenge, away from the rest of the group. These were just plain ridiculous. They were also great opportunities to incorporate the character that Off the Couch has lovely cemented into their game world. Everyone was toying with us while we battled the puzzle gauntlet. It was great fun.

Overall, the experience was uneven, both in game flow and build quality. However, it was detailed, had a lot of love put into it, and was just odd enough to be endearing, which made The Morgue more than the sum of its parts.

As with the other games at Off the Couch, your appreciation of their unusual pricing model may vary (discussed in the previous reviews).

We appreciate how each game at Off the Couch is part of the same universe, but has a completely different tone, style, and aesthetic. It’s worth playing all three, in a row, ending with this one. However, if you only have time for one (as long as you’re ok with the theme), I’d choose The Morgue for its uniqueness. There is nothing quite like this game and if you’re willing to embrace it for the unhinged experience that it is, it will reward you for playing along.

Who is this for?

• Puzzle lovers
• Any experience level
• Players who don’t need to be a part of every puzzle
• Players who will brave the unknown

Why play?

• The dark, glib tone
• Fun and funny puzzles
• For the ridiculous in-game challenges

Story

This was the third chapter of what is intended to be a twelve chapter series. At the time of this review, there were two earlier chapters also available to play.

As we continued our hunt for this Evil Genius, we found ourselves at the Morgue, where he wanted to play a little game with us. We needed to win, or we would be joining everyone else in this abandoned Morgue.

Setting

The Morgue was perhaps once a sterile environment with its tiled walls, and central table. Along one wall we saw the classic rows of large refrigerator doors. Now, however, there was quite a bit more going on in the place, all in service of the game we would need to play. There were different cabinets, tables, and carts with props and decor. There was also a computer in the corner.

Gameplay

Off the Couch’s Chapter 3: The Morgue was a standard escape room with a moderate level of difficulty.

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

Gameplay also required at least one person to be brave enough to tackle an unknown challenge in an unknown space… more than once.

Analysis

➕ The Morgue was a puzzle-dense experience. It had clear structure and objectives that we could always refer back to. We appreciated this, given that everyone was all over the place solving puzzles.

➖ While the structure was clear, we wished the flow of the puzzles had more clarity. We often didn’t have a good grasp of whether we were solving an intermediary step that would unlock more puzzles, or one of the main game objectives.

➖ This non-linear game gave us access to a lot of puzzles and information at once. One of the major risks of this design decision is sequence breaks, which happened to us. This was compounded by one puzzle turning on before we’d been clued to it by another puzzle. We wasted time because we had access to puzzle components too early, before we’d unlocked other components. We also ended up solving puzzles that led to nowhere, later on, because we’d already solved the puzzle we were being clued to next, which was a let down.

➕ Some of the interactions in The Morgue made us just uncomfortable enough for a laugh.

➕/➖ Build quality was very uneven. Some props and puzzles were polished. Others felt more like arts and crafts.

➕ The Morgue added stakes and intensity with the “bonus” rounds. At various intervals, one or more players had to take on a mystery challenge in an unknown environment. These gave us hero moments. They also presented opportunities to strategize… who should stay or go?

➕ The video hints were fun, and fit right into the start-and-stop nature of the game design with the bonus rounds. Taking hints was a joy.

➖ The ending was anticlimactic. We had to make a choice that would profoundly affect other characters in the experience, and the world of the Off the Couch games. However, we didn’t have any emotional connection to this decision or the affected characters. We didn’t have any reason to make one choice over another. On paper, the choice was dire, in practice, it felt empty.

Tips For Visiting

• There is a parking lot.
• We recommend booking all three chapters in order. That said, you don’t have to play this way. Each experience stands on its own.
• The booking system is designed for you to return for multiple experiences: If your time runs out before you complete the experience, Off the Couch saves your progress and on your next visit you resume from where you left off.  In the event you beat the experience in less time, any remaining time will be awarded to your customer account as a credit which can be applied to your next game or any item at Off the Couch. 

Book your session with Off the Couch’s Chapter 3: The Morgue, and tell them that the Room Escape Artist sent you.

Disclosure: Off the Couch comped our tickets for this game.