Room Escape Artist

Don’t forget to [static]

Location: Passaic, NJ

Date Played: August 28, 2025

Team Size: Up to 8; we recommend 3-4

Duration: 60 minutes

Price:  $40 per player

Ticketing: Private

Game Breakage: Yes. One puzzle needed gamemaster intervention.

Accessibility Consideration: There were uneven floor surfaces on the walk through the hallways to the entrance door.

Emergency Exit Rating: [A+] No Lock

Physical Restraints: [A+] No Physical Restraints

REA Reaction

Brighton Asylum is both an escape room company and a haunt company, and as you would expect the majority of their rooms lean into horror. Slaughter Landing was less scary and more eerie, and that eeriness was due primarily to good set design exemplified by the use of real wood and other materials as props and decoration. Slaughter Landing was set on a pier in a fishing village, and the design really sold that idea.

We enjoyed the entire run of puzzles throughout the game. There was a variety of different puzzle types throughout Slaughter Landing, and enough of them that everyone on our team of four usually had something to do. In particular, we enjoyed their subtle but very successful use of blacklight and an audio puzzle that was right at home on a spooky pier.

What Slaughter Landing would benefit the most from are quality of life and guest experience upgrades. Poor audio mixing in the very early part of the game obscured something important, and we spent a chunk of the game trying to piece together what we had heard. For a company that runs haunt experiences, there was surprisingly little atmosphere created in the introduction. I would have preferred that the gamemaster provided us with less game information, and instead used the time to build up suspense.

It was good to see the improvements Brighton Asylum has made to their builds over the years in both Slaughter Landing and their most recent game, Dead by Dawn (review to come). REA last visited in 2017, and there has been a definite upward evolution in their games that we hope to see continue.

Who is this for?

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

Why play?

• Good set design
• Eerie atmosphere

Story

We found ourselves on an abandoned pier being threatened by a killer fisherman. We were presented with a series of puzzles that would allow us to outsmart and defeat him. There was also a sea monster motif that did not dovetail well into the killer fisherman story.

Setting

Slaughter Landing took place on an old pier in a coastal town. Brighton Asylum used plenty of rough, aged wood and dim (but not unusable!) lighting to convey a sense of disuse and creepiness.

Gameplay

Brighton Asylum’s Slaughter Landing was a standard escape room with a moderate level of difficulty.

Gameplay relied on searching, making connections, and logical reasoning.

Analysis

➕ Great looking sets. Brighton Asylum is also a haunt company so they have experience building physical atmosphere.

➖ The sound mixing at the start of the game needed work. The audio introduction was difficult bordering on impossible to hear over the background music.

➕ A surprisingly effective use of black light had us go back more than once to appreciate how well it worked.

➕ Props looked good and felt good, and they felt at home on the pier.

➖ A few times throughout the game we did not know what in the room unlocked after we solved a puzzle. Better audio and/ or light cueing would be helpful.

➖ We experienced some game management issues, chiefly hinting of steps we had already taken and an instance of game breakage that could have been handled better.

Tips For Visiting

• Getting to the location can be confusing, so make sure to be familiar with the instructions in the FAQ. Brighton Asylum texted me 15 minutes before our start time with instructions and pictures, though I can not guarantee this is something that happens for every booking.
• There is a parking lot. Again, make sure to follow the instructions in the FAQ to locate it.
• There are plenty of places to eat nearby. The Allwood Diner will meet your classic New Jersey diner needs. Rutt’s Hut, a local icon known for deep fried hot dogs and more, is also a short drive away.

Book your hour with Brighton Asylum’s Slaughter Landing, and tell them that the Room Escape Artist sent you.