Room Escape Artist

Back in April, we brought 75 escape room players to the midwest to play escape rooms as part of Escape Immerse Explore Time & Space.

There was one overwhelming standout as the favorite game of the trip. It’s no surprise it won a Golden Lock Award shortly thereafter. After that, however, there was much less consensus.

After each of our escape room Tours, we send the players a survey that asks them to stack rank every game they played. Here are the results!

The Favorite Game

The Forest of Fables at CU Adventures was the favorite game, with 75% of survey respondents ranking it #1.

CU Adventures’ newest game was full of unexpected twists and turns. Plus it was just so adorable.

Second Place Tie

With the weighted ranking, three games came in next, all contending equally for that #2 spot:

• Game Night at CU Adventures
• Lockbuster Video at 60 to Escape
• Rise of the Icarus at CU Adventures

Game Night won a Golden Lock Award in 2022 and always wins the hearts of Dungeons & Dragons players. David recently recorded a Spoilers Club episode all about Game Night with creators Anne & Chris Lukeman, where they dig into the game’s journey from pop up to permanent (and long running!) installation, in addition to talking through the puzzles and interactions. This is episode is available to our Patreon backers.

Lockbuster Video wasn’t officially on the Tour because it would have felt crowded in teams of 4, but almost every player found a buddy or two to play it with and squeezed in a booking. They didn’t regret it.

Diverse Number Ones

While one game was voted #1 most often, each of these games placed as at least one player’s favorite game of the trip:

• Arctic Expedition at 60 to Escape
• Game Night at CU Adventures
• Jurassic Outpost at 60 to Escape
• Magic Heist at 60 to Escape
• Mystery Manor at 60 to Escape
• Rise of the Icarus at CU Adventures
• The Forest of Fables at CU Adventures

The Tour featured four games from 60 to Escape, and three of them turned out to be at least one player’s favorite. Interestingly, while Lockbuster Video ranked more highly than these others in aggregate (by ranking as #2 or #3 for many players) it wasn’t anyone’s #1 of the Tour. Mystery Manor was also not officially on the Tour, due to its small size, but lots of people played and loved it.

60 to Escape is an extremely consistent company, and any given player’s favorite tends to come down to thematic preference.

Search For A Superhero by The Mystery League was a tabletop puzzle experience that was also featured as part of the Tour. While not exactly an escape room, one player ranked it as their favorite game of the Tour. This encourages us to continue bringing escape room adjacent activities into these events!

Reactions from Tour Attendees

For this Tour, the attendee reactions really centered around one game, Forest of Fables.

“Forest of Fables carried a narrative to an extent I’ve never experienced before in an escape room. It continued to surprise both in story and structure throughout, gave the space for exemplary game guides to shine, and had a scaffolding that allowed players to follow the story even when we were chiefly engaged in puzzling.”

“The story, set, and character interaction in Forest of Fables were all excellently executed and made that game solidly my favorite in the trip.”

“LOVED: The Forest Fables! So delightful, fun & theatrical…perfect recipe for an A+ room!”

The other popular game to talk about was Game Night,… and that’s why we knew we had to make the Spoilers Club episode.

“Game Night rolled a 20 for gamer nostalgia.”

“Game Night: what a wonderful experience! What game enthusiast doesn’t want to spend some time playing in a full-sized RPG world??”

Shout outs for LabEscape

LabEscape wasn’t officially on the Tour, but it was a gem that Tour attendees unearthed in Champaign-Urbana. One person wrote in their survey that “LabEscape was amazingly geeky.”

It was these comments from the many people who visited that convinced us we had to see it for ourselves, even while running a Tour.

And that led to REPOD Season 9, Episode 10 Untangling Quantum Mechanics – Paul Kwiat of LabEscape, where David and Peih-Gee start by talking about a science-inspired escape room, and move straight into quantum mechanics, but in a way that everyone can understand.

Traveling Tour

CU Adventures and 60 to Escape aren’t exactly close together. This meant we had to get creative with our Tour design. We took a bus 2.5 hours each direction in the middle of the Tour… and it was worth it.

If you’re traveling to this region, check out our Chicago Escape Room Recommendation Guide, which tells you not just the best games to play in Chicago (many at 60 to Escape and a few other gems), but also the best games to play on your way to Milwaukee (seriously, it’s worth heading north for some really unusual games), and what to book in Champaign-Urbana. It’s a full region guide. We can’t wait to return.

Future Tours

Our next Tour is right around the corner. We’ll be taking 50 people to The Netherlands in October.

We’ll be announcing our spring tour later this fall. The best way to find out where we’ll be going is to support us on Patreon. There’s even a Patreon tier that gets early access to tickets. And these tours sell out!