Room Escape Artist

Unfortunately, this company has recently closed their physical venue. However, they may still be running private games virtually via Discord.

A Peak Experience

Location: San Diego, California

Date Played: January 17, 2026

Team Size: 5 players; you must play with 5 players

Duration: 4 hours

Price:  $40 per player at the studio for a gamemaster to run the game

Ticketing: Private

Accessibility Consideration: Sitting down and getting up from chairs frequently

Emergency Exit Rating: [A+] No Lock

Content Warnings: Mild Body Horror

REA Reaction

On the Mountains of Madness, the only thing more treacherous than the cliffs are your friends and fellow climbers. Who’s there with a helping hand, and who is lying in wait, ready to send you into a deep crevasse?

Jubensha can often feel like a steep climb uphill, with our vision obscured. It’s often difficult to find the right path, but when I can summit the top, it’s supremely satisfying. In mountain climbing lingo, a technical climb requires precise techniques, movement, and specialized gear, rather than raw physical power. Some jubensha can be played a bit more intuitively, but our playthrough of Mountains of Madness felt a bit more technical.

While the storyline for this game was less fraught with taboo subjects, it also felt less emotionally resonant. This is because the narrative focus was on piecing together the timelines and hints to each character’s motivations (as related to solving the current mystery) and current actions, rather than uncovering scandalous secrets from the past. This game was probably more in the “puzzle-solving” style of jubensha, where we needed to pay attention to small details to sort out the timelines and mystery behind each character.

In many ways, Mountains of Madness was a classic jubensha playstyle, mechanically speaking. The game started with reading about our characters and their backstories, and then opened with a short, scripted mini-play with everyone introducing themselves in character. I enjoyed the mini-play style of introductions because I find it easier to get into a role when you’re given a sense of how your character speaks and how they would interact in the group. Gameplay was mostly standard. We took turns uncovering mountains of evidence and information, then having group discussions. 

As we reached the summit of the game, the air started getting a bit thin. I enjoyed trying to unravel the story, however, in our playthrough, it just so happened that the “perpetrator” also managed to acquire all the evidence against them (and hid it from the group.) This made it quite difficult for the good guys to make headway solving the mystery. 

Despite my absolutely-not-bitter-at-all complaints about the crucial evidence not feeling fairly distributed, Mountains of Madness did a good job balancing the suspense of who was guilty. It did this through a combination of characters’ motivations and game mechanics. 

If you’ve already played a few jubensha, and you’re looking for more of a deductive challenge and less scandalous soap opera elements, Mountains of Madness might be the peak you’re looking to climb.

Who is this for?

• Story seekers, especially those who want to reason out a complex narrative
• Players seeking a more puzzle solving style of jubensha
• Best for players with keen attention to detail
• Players with at least some jubensha experience
• Lovecraft fans

Why play?

• For a more tricky, complex jubensha puzzle to unravel
• For a more family friendly* jubensha (besides the murdering part)

*While there’s less taboo subjects in this game, it still contains some light aspects of Lovecraftian horror

Story

A new mountain peak had recently been discovered that dwarfed even Mount Everest. However, the first expedition sent had gone radio silent. We set off with a group of fellow adventurers to uncover the mysteries behind the Mountains of Madness.

Setting

Our game at Script Lab was played in brightly lit, simply furnished conference rooms. We were seated around a very large table in big comfy chairs with small side tables provided to hold snacks, drinks and personal belongings. Throughout the game, we spread into adjoining rooms, the lobby, or the hallway to have private interactions before returning to the main room for group discussions.

There was a gamemaster who narrated and ran the game. Plaid Flannel shirts were provided as a costume.

Gameplay

Mountains of Madness was a standard jubensha with a moderate to high level of difficulty. 

Core gameplay revolved around investigating each other and “searching the mountain” by uncovering a card with pieces of evidence. Players could choose to keep the information private or share with the group. Then characters would select someone for private conversation while the rest of the group had a roundtable discussion.

This repeated for each elevation level of the mountain. The game ended with a final round of open discussion and voting.

Analysis

Given the same physical location, some of our points from the Analysis section of the Dust, Blood, & Calavera are relevant here as well. See that review for more detail.

➕ The location itself was bright, clean, and comfortable. It was in a business center with lots of restaurants nearby, and very accessible.

➖ We found it difficult to move around the game room. Also, the game room could use more production value to truly feel immersive.

For this game in particular, here is our Analysis.

➖While we were provided costuming in the form of flannel shirts, they were the exact same for every character, just different colors. This made it difficult to remember who was playing which character. Each character also felt like they had a less distinct personality because of this. Different accessories for each character would greatly help with both the role playing and keeping track of which player is which character.

❓The storyline contained less sordid and scandalous soap opera elements than most jubensha.

➕ Mountains of Madness rewarded keen observation and deduction skills. Puzzle-minded players and mystery solving sleuths might enjoy the extra challenge.

➖ In our playthrough, it just so happened that the perpetrator received almost all the clues pointing towards the solution and was able to conceal them from the group. This made it almost impossible for the group to understand the full picture of the story. More even distribution or more clues towards the solution of the story might prevent this from happening.

➖Mountains of Madness is a translation of a game originally written in Japanese. Very early on in the character introductions, there was an apparent error in printing that cast early suspicion on a character. The gamemaster quickly realized that the character was catching suspicion and explained the typo, but told us they thought it was funny so they left it in the script. I think it’s important to note that errors in printing and translation can create unintentional consequences for characters, and it’s important for the translation to follow the intention of the game design.

➕ I enjoyed how the game mechanics echoed the mountain climbing theme.

Tips For Visiting

• There is a large parking lot. 
• You can bring your own drinks and snacks into the game. There’s an H Mart nearby with Asian groceries and a food court. They also have drinks and snacks available at the studio.
• For that post-game discussion, we recommend Mothership, a gorgeously themed sci-fi tiki bar. They have delicious food and cocktails. It’s about a 15-20 minute drive. Be sure to make a reservation.

Learn more about jubensha at Script Labs, and tell them that the Room Escape Artist sent you.

Disclosure: Script Lab comped our tickets for this game.