Room Escape Artist

Mind over matters

Location:  La Grange, IL

Date Played: October 25, 2024

Team size: up to 14; we recommend 3-4

Duration: 60 minutes

Price: $34 per player

Ticketing: Private

Emergency Exit Rating: [A+] No Lock

Physical Restraints: [A+] No Physical Restraints

REA Reaction

Split Personality was an old school, puzzle-focused, story-light escape room that also felt very old.

Exploring the idea of psychic surgery, we had to wake a coma patient by investigating the left and right hemispheres of her brain. This concept has long been fertile ground for an escape room story, and it’s a setup that I love… but there was no emotional content found in this brain… just puzzles. And those puzzles were heavily worn and awkwardly designed.

There is a solid game within Split Personality, but the puzzles, set, and story would require a refresh that adds logic to the gameplay and heart to the story.

If you’re looking for a lot of puzzles in a fairly straightforward escape room, Split Personality will scratch that itch. If you’re looking for more from your escape rooms, then Split Personality will not deliver in its current form.

Who is this for?

• Newbies
• Players who don’t need to be a part of every puzzle

Why play?

• A straightforward, puzzle-focused experience

Story

We were shrunk down and inserted into the mind of a coma patient with the objective of figuring out how to pull her out of her incapacitated state.

Setting

Divided between two rooms, a black and white room representing the left brain and a colorful room symbolizing the right brain, Split Personality had two very pronounced aesthetics. Both spaces felt sparse and had a lot of less relevant details. These spaces served primarily as containers to hold puzzle content, not as sets designed to create an adventure.

Gameplay

Just Escape Room’s Split Personality was a standard escape room with a low level of difficulty.

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

Analysis

➕/➖ Split Personality had an aesthetic and a story, however, both were deeply underused. Exploring the mind of a coma patient was an opportunity full of emotional potential that went completely unrealized.

➕ There was a lot to solve.

➖ Many of the puzzles were clunky, some because of wear and others because they were likely always clunky.

➖ A computation puzzle was just wrong and the way that the game wanted it solved was not clued properly.

➕ A few of the puzzles tied more deeply and clearly to the themes of the game, and meditating on these, they were highlights.

Tips For Visiting

• Just Escape Room is on the second floor of their building. Once inside, follow signs to their door.
• Street parking was available; leave time to park.
• There were food options within both walking distance and a short drive

Book your hour with Just Escape Room’s Split Personality, and tell them that the Room Escape Artist sent you.

Disclosure: Just Escape Room provided media discounted tickets for this game.