Room Escape Artist

What do you know about time machines…and saloons…

Location: Spring, TX

Date Played: July 8, 2025

Team Size: 4-14; we recommend 6-9

Duration: 60 minutes

Price:  $31.99 per player

Ticketing: Private

Accessibility Consideration: None

Emergency Exit Rating: [A+] No Lock

Physical Restraints: [A+] No Physical Restraints

REA Reaction

Time Travel Trouble was a behemoth of old school escape room puzzling, mixing an extensive set of locks and simple triggers into an endearing and sprawling set. From its expansive first impression through each of its three mini-quests, this thing kept us busy and entertained.

This western town was downright adorable. It was an unusual delight to have the whole multi-roomed set immediately available to us, allowing an elaborate exploration phase. The set felt homemade and somewhat raggedy, but these qualities absolutely contributed to its charm. The fundamental gameplay elements were well-maintained and operated smoothly, delivering a solid experience.

Whereas Armadillo Escape Room Adventures’ rooms were all of the form “tons of locks in some kind of place,” this room stood out for using its sub-spaces to clearly partition clues, allowing players to likewise partition their efforts. In this way, it was almost like three escape rooms in one, with each space offering a significant amount of puzzling. This design necessitated a divide-and-conquer strategy, enabling lots of parallel puzzling with a fair distribution of meaty puzzles and fun props. However, it also inherently limited each player’s experience to one or two sub-spaces; it was hard to jump smoothly between spaces with so much active puzzling happening simultaneously. It would be very difficult to participate in the WHOLE experience unless you’re a super-speedy team who commits to sticking together.

If you’re a fan of old-school, puzzle-centric escape room design, Time Travel Trouble is the standout classic in Houston.

Who is this for?

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

Why play?

• For an extra dense puzzling experience in a charming open world
• To engage and entertain a large team

Story

Our time-traveling vacation to ancient times was disrupted by a malfunction with our brand new time machine, leaving us stranded in Old Town Spring, TX, in 1920. We only had 60 minutes to find replacement components before our battery would die, leaving us stranded in the past.

Setting

Old Town Spring consisted of a peaceful miner’s site, a bank, and a saloon, all partitioned into distinct spaces with abundant saloon doors. Despite the handmade aesthetic of the space, we felt like we had a whole town to explore, in large part because most of the space was accessible from the first moments of the game.

Gameplay

Armadillo Escape Room Adventures’ Time Travel Trouble was a standard escape room with a customizable level of difficulty. “Expert Mode” had a moderate-to-high level of difficulty stemming from the large volume of puzzles to complete.

Gameplay consisted of making observations and connections, interacting with simple but pleasant props, and a small amount of math.

Analysis

➕ There were SO MANY PUZZLES, and they stretched us. This was a puzzler’s room in the best of ways.

➕ Despite, and even because of, its homemade aesthetic, the set was quite endearing. I especially appreciated how everything came together in the end.

➕ The clues had a clear scope to their application based on their location within the game. This prevented the large set from overwhelming us.

➕/➖ The puzzles were usually tactile, though one space seemed to outshine the others with its props.

➖ One puzzle had too much leeway for error given the number of elements we had to place correctly. An intermediate feedback mechanism seemed warranted.

➖ We noticed a few opportunities to enhance the visibility of certain puzzle elements. We appreciated the need to initially hide the information, but we wished the information was easier to use once we discovered it.

➕ We appreciated a simplified take on combination locks.

➖ It was too hot. This room is on the top floor of an old barn in Houston, and the climate control just couldn’t handle the summer heat. Not only were we uncomfortable, but the set also suffered from a significant amount of condensation.

Tips For Visiting

• Armadillo Escape Room Adventures has two locations. This room is at the Spring branch.
• The company is in a big red barn located in (modern day) Old Town Spring, which is full of cute shops and confusing parking. There is a parking lot behind the barn that may have space. Otherwise, you must park on the street somewhere and walk.
• Armadillo Escape Room Adventures requests that you remain in your car or outside of the business until they call you to allow entry about 5 minutes before your start time. Have a plan for where you’ll hang out if the weather is bad.

Book your hour with Armadillo Escape Room Adventures’ Time Travel Trouble, and tell them that the Room Escape Artist sent you.

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