Latest update: January 22, 2020
On our trip to Colorado, we drove an hour and 15 minutes south of Denver to Colorado Springs, where there were lots of fun games to play. These are our top recommendations for Colorado Springs.
We also have recommendations for Denver and Fort Collins.
Latest update: January 15, 2020
There are tons of escape rooms in Colorado, more per capita than any other state. On our trip to Colorado, we drove an hour due north of Denver to Fort Collins where we found a few companies creating unique experiences.
If you’re looking for an escape room in Fort Collins, Colorado, check out our recommendations below.
We also have recommendations for Denver and Colorado Springs.
Latest update: January 8, 2020
Denver has a lot of escape room companies. In fact, Colorado had the most escape room companies per capita in both 2018 & 2019. Here is our guide to the best escape rooms in Denver.
If you’re in the area, check out our guides to Fort Collins and Colorado Springs.
Chuga Chuga Chuga Chuga. Search! Search!
Location: Broomfield, CO
Date Played: September 6, 2019
Team size: up to 8; we recommend 4-5
Duration: 60 minutes
Price: $30 per player
Ticketing: Public
Emergency Exit Rating: [A+] No Lock
Physical Restraints: [A+] No Physical Restraints
Themescape’s The Terminal had a cool-looking graffitied NYC subway set. It was for the best that it looked good because the game felt like it was about 95% search-based.
The entirety of the experience was grounded in escape room logic. Nothing made sense. It hearkened back to the earliest days of escape rooms.
We just didn’t like this game. It always feels tragic to see a weak game in a solid set. Themescape’s The Gate was considerably more interesting. I’d strongly encourage playing it over The Terminal.
A blackout had killed power to New York City. However, a runaway subway train was barreling towards the end of the line. We had to restore power and engage the train’s emergency brakes.
The Terminal looked like a modern New York City subway station… but created to evoke the graffitied imagery associated with the New York City of a few decades ago.
The set looked pretty good, even if it didn’t ring true to me at all as a New Yorker.
Themescape’s The Terminal was a standard escape room with a low level of difficulty.
Core gameplay revolved around searching.
➕ Themescape crafted a bright and busy train station set. It looked pretty good.
➖ The gameplay was almost entirely search. Once we had everything we needed, puzzles solved in seconds. Any time we paused, it was because of a search fail.
➖ The Terminal lacked gating. We spent a lot of time trying to solve puzzles before we’d found all of the components. There was no in-game cluing to clarify that these puzzles weren’t active yet.
➕ The Terminal had one large set piece that was a fun input mechanism. It had another nifty device that gave some variety to the continual searching.
➖ The cluing was misleading. In one instance, we found a “secret clue.” Due to the labeling of the clue, we thought the game could be solved without it. The thing was, a note on a prop had already led us away from the item now in play due to the “secret clue.” This entire set up was baffling.
Book your hour with Themescape’s The Terminal, and tell them that the Room Escape Artist sent you.
Disclosure: Themescape comped our tickets for this game.
Disclosure: Our trip to Denver was sponsored by the Denver escape room community. Contributions were anonymous.
Puzzle Gear
Location: Loveland, CO
Date Played: September 6, 2019
Team size: up to 10; we recommend 3-5
Duration: 60 minutes
Price: $24.99 per player
Ticketing: Public
Emergency Exit Rating: [A+] No Lock
Physical Restraints: [A+] No Physical Restraints
Area Q was a unique experience. Some of it was brilliant and some of it was a mess (literally and figuratively).
The crux of the game was built around a heist. We were stealing something and needed to navigate the security system as well as the guard. In a lot of ways, it felt a lot like a Metal Gear game.
The cool thing about Area Q was that there were a lot of different ways to play it. If you played Area Q as a straight puzzle room, however, I think that you would find it pretty dull; the puzzles were decidedly subpar. That said, you don’t have to play it that way. It can be what you make of it.
I’m really glad that we played this game because it was different. Q The Live Escape Experience tried some interesting concepts… and they nailed the actor interactions. The catch here was that the puzzles, cleanliness, and finer points of set design felt all but ignored.
If you’re open to a unique experience that is equal parts exciting and flawed, then this is worth checking out. However, if you’re looking for something that is more grounded in escape room tradition and functions more smoothly, The Conjuror was a stronger all-around game.
A meteor had crashed into Earth and had been retrieved by a criminal organization. Their scientists had extracted alien bacteria and used it to engineer a plague. Now they planned to auction it to the highest bidder.
Our assignment: infiltrate the facility under cover of darkness, avoid being caught by the guard, steal the plague sample, and plant a bomb to destroy the remaining samples.
Area Q sent us down into a rustic research lab. The reality of this staging was a game in a large, dusty, and dark warehouse space. Most of the set pieces were large wooden crates behind a chain-link fence. The laboratory portions felt hacked together.
It was spartan.
Every 10 minutes, like clockwork, a security guard patrolled the space. The actor was fantastic and really imbued this character with a personality.
Q The Live Escape Experience’s Area Q was an actor-driven escape room with a moderate level of difficulty.
Core gameplay revolved around searching, puzzling, hiding, and engaging with the actor.
➕ Area Q was an escape room in principle, but the gameplay was open ended. We could play it straight by solving puzzles, or go for a more dramatic, improvisational approach with the actor.
➕ The guard gave this game intrigue. He walked with personality. He was imposing and threatening, but also amusing. He was adaptive too. He would play the type of game that the players wanted to play. When we chose to mess with him, he gave it right back to us. This was a ton of fun.
➖ The puzzles were downright boring. They felt like tedious work we had to slog through. It didn’t help that we had to abandon them and hide every time the guard approached.
➖ The gameplay was largely search-focused. Search was frustrating because the set was large and dark. Although we weren’t bumping into things, we weren’t keen on blind searching, considering the dirt and splintery props.
➕ Although Area Q was a dark space, it needed to be for the premise of the game. We had enough flashlights for each teammate. The space was also devoid of clutter and tripping hazards. We weren’t going to miss these props.
➖ There is a difference between a dirty-looking set and an actually dirty set. Area Q was filthy. After hiding in this set, we were covered in dirt and dust.
➕ Area Q had a laissez-faire approach to solving. There was no definitive way to accomplish something. We could solve the puzzles or find our own means to accomplish our heist. In fact, they’d designed different paths to get teams to the same ending. Depending on how a team approached the game, different things could happen, but none of them would be game-ending. Instead, they would set the team on a different path to a successful ending.
➖ There were opportunities to make the props more interesting. For example, the plague sample we needed to steal could have looked like something we wanted to get our hands on.
➖ Area Q built a ton of tension with the constant hiding and the actor dramatics. Given this build up, the ending fell flat. Our exit from the gamespace was anticlimactic in comparison.
Book your hour with Q The Live Escape Experience’s Area Q, and tell them that the Room Escape Artist sent you.
Disclosure: Q The Live Escape Experience comped our tickets for this game.
Disclosure: Our trip to Denver was sponsored by the Denver escape room community. Contributions were anonymous.
Playing old hit.
Location: Colorado Springs, CO
Date Played: September 9, 2019
Team size: up to 6; we recommend 4-5
Duration: 60 minutes
Price: $30 per player
Ticketing: Public
Emergency Exit Rating: [B] Emergency Key
Physical Restraints: [A+] No Physical Restraints
Rock Star: The Final Curtain was a challenging puzzle-centric game that had a cute intro and stronger final act. The middle was a bit shaky.
This game didn’t need to be as hard and grindy as it was. So much of the difficulty stemmed from the volume of partial puzzle content that we had access to. It could have been smoother and more energetic.
We think that this is a heavily modified version of the N.E.R.D. game of a similar name. Our teammate who had played the original was pleasantly surprised that he recognized a few puzzles.
Rock Star: The Final Curtain had some bright spots and we were glad to play them. However, you need to fight through the early-game to find the stuff that’s special. If you’re up for that, absolutely give it a try. Otherwise, we strongly recommend Locked In Escapes’ The Infected; that game was lovely.
Our favorite band since high school US THEM OR DEAN was on their farewell tour. We’d managed to score backstage passes to meet them (OMG!).
As we’d made our way through security and to the dressing room, we learned that a pop music-hating madman had planted a bomb in the arena. We became trapped inside with no other option than to disarm his destructive device.
After an adorable in-character introduction, we were led into a dressing room that looked pretty spartan and rough. There were some strong details, but the overall look of the space didn’t give us the sense that we were in a big rock star’s dressing room.
From the props to the interactions, the second act staging looked and felt a lot stronger.
Locked In Escapes’ Rock Star: The Final Curtain was a standard escape room with a high level of difficulty.
Core gameplay revolved around searching, puzzling, and keeping organized.
➖ We were physically locked in this game with an emergency key hung near the exit door. This was less than ideal, but fine. The problem that we had with this particular setup was that the exit door was in a dark, cramped area of the game. I understand why this game’s setup called for a lock-in, but it would be far safer with a maglock instead of a keyed lock.
➕ Locked In Escapes built excitement with their presentation of the game. Our in-character gamemaster set an energetic tone. This sold the introduction.
➖ The set for the first act wasn’t particularly interesting. It was a bit cramped and didn’t really sell Rock Star’s dressing room.
➕ As we solved through Rock Star: The Final Curtain, we’d be interrupted now and again by newscast videos, which reminded us of our situation and added to the drama of our plight. These were fun interludes.
➖ In the first act, we had access to too many unsolvable puzzles too early. These gating issues slowed the gameplay and caused us to spend a lot of time working on things that we couldn’t solve. Because of this, Rock Star: The Final Curtain was more challenging than it needed to be (or probably should be).
➖ We found an iPad in the dressing room, which we used in a few different ways throughout the first act. While this worked to facilitate gameplay, it bottlenecked like a runbook. We would have preferred less on the iPad and more in the room.
➕ Locked in Escapes justified consumable in-game refreshments. The refreshments and their justification were unusual and appreciated.
➕ We loved the mid-game transition. The second act was also staged quite well. Any sliding energy levels abated.
Book your hour with Locked In Escapes’ Rock Star: The Final Curtain, and tell them that the Room Escape Artist sent you.
Disclosure: Locked In Escapes comped our tickets for this game.
Disclosure: Our trip to Denver was sponsored by the Denver escape room community. Contributions were anonymous.
Spy Trainer
Location: Denver, CO
Date Played: September 7, 2019
Team size: 2-5; we recommend 2-4
Duration: 60 minutes
Price: $27 per player
Ticketing: Private
Emergency Exit Rating: [A+] No Lock
Physical Restraints: [A+] No Physical Restraints
M.A.S.K. was a family-friendly puzzle game with a light 5 Wits vibe. There was a lot of great content in this fully automated experience.
A few puzzle sequences that weren’t particularly tangible or engaging held M.A.S.K. back. Additionally, when we got stuck late in a puzzle, the hint system had no idea where we were and we had to grind through unhelpful nudges until we got the assistance that we needed.
If you’re looking to play as a family, M.A.S.K. would be a good fit (although I think that I’d recommend The Curse first because it really caters to family dynamics.)
All in all, I really liked this escape game. There were some great puzzles and it was fun to see how they reset themselves. It was also cool seeing a company commit to building and iterating on complete escape room automation. If that sounds like your kind of good time, it’s worth checking out.
An evil organization known as INTERCEPT had been terrorizing the city with dastardly cyber attacks.
A secret organization of crime fighters known as M.A.S.K. was the only thing standing in INTERCEPT’s way… and they had called upon us to join their ranks.
We had to answer the call, receive training, and foil INTERCEPT’s plans.
M.A.S.K. was an escape room in two parts: hero training and heroing. (It’s a word because you know what it means.)
The training segment placed us within the exact setting that a kid imagines when thinking of a spy agency. It looked sleek, clean, and techy.
The city streets had a kid-friendly grit to them: intimidating, but just grim enough to feel like Batman might swoop in.
Throughout this experience, the adaptive technology adjusted the volume and difficulty of the puzzles.
Puzzah!’s M.A.S.K. was a points-based escape room with a moderate level of difficulty.
A single interface gated all the puzzles. Gameplay was linear and railroad-style.
Core gameplay revolved around observing, making connections, and puzzling.
➕ M.A.S.K. was a points-based escape room. The game kept throwing puzzles at us until we ran out of time. We aimed to solve them as quickly as possible in order to attain the best score. This was unusual and fun.
➕ M.A.S.K. was a high-energy escape room. We were in a rush to solve quickly, not to escape, but to earn more points. Seeing the points tick upwards gave us momentum. The interface gating the gameplay spoke to us robotically, moving us forward on our mission.
➖ Thematically, M.A.S.K. seemed like it couldn’t tell whether it was a spy thriller or a superhero story.
➕ M.A.S.K. onboarded us cleanly. Since the gameplay revolved around a single interface, the initial moments introduced us to the world while teaching us how to input puzzle solutions. It was elegant.
➕ Puzzah! designed puzzles that allowed us to build mastery. The game would present the level 1 puzzle, and once we solved it, it presented the next level. (Not every puzzle worked this way, but many did.)
➖ Sometimes the puzzles didn’t make any sense in the game world. In one instance, as the puzzles built complexity, they became more interesting abstract puzzles, but narratively entirely too far-fetched.
➕ Puzzah! designed the gameplay and puzzles in a style akin to 5 Wits. We moved from one room to the next, never backtracking, so that another group could start in the room we’d just completed. The puzzles were self-resetting because (a) the solved state was the initial state for the next group, or (b) the game required us to put items back, or (c) the puzzles were solvable without moving any physical items. For this theme and setup, this gameplay style worked well.
➖ Puzzah! should increase the soundproofing between rooms in this game.
➖ Because of the no-reset design, many of the puzzles didn’t involve any physical interactions. We recognize that it’s a challenge to make this type of puzzle more tangible. In one instance where we did take an action, however, we wanted more resistance from the mechanism, to make it feel believable.
➖ Because M.A.S.K. was entirely automated, it struggled to hint us appropriately. Hints were always delivered in order, regardless of where we were stuck. At one point, we understood exactly how to solve a puzzle, but failed to find one piece of information in the room. The game had no way to tell us we’d search-failed and could only hint us step-by-step at solving the puzzle.
Book your hour with Puzzah!’s M.A.S.K., and tell them that the Room Escape Artist sent you.
Disclosure: Puzzah! comped our tickets for this game.
Disclosure: Our trip to Denver was sponsored by the Denver escape room community. Contributions were anonymous.
Brave Sir Puzzles
Location: Denver, CO
Date Played: September 7, 2019
Team size: up to 8; we recommend 3-4
Duration: 60 minutes
Price: $28 per player
Ticketing: Public
Emergency Exit Rating: [A+] No Lock
Physical Restraints: [A+] No Physical Restraints
Excalibur was an uneven experience. This was consistent throughout the game.
If you looked in one direction you might see gorgeous set design, but turn 90 degrees and you’d probably look at something that felt pretty dated. The same was true of the puzzles. While some were thoughtful and fun, others felt half-baked.
The net effect was that the game felt average.
Excalibur was a fine traditional escape room. If you’re in the area and have already played Epic Escape Game’s Wizard’s Academy (which was considerably more consistent), then it’s worth a play.
With the death of the King, Merlin had traversed time and space seeking someone who might be worthy of the crown. He’d magicked us away to Camelot to see if we could pass the tests and pull the sword from the stone.
Excalibur was primarily staged within a throne room. From a purely aesthetic standpoint, it felt uneven. Depending upon which direction we looked, the set was more or less convincing.
The last act had the most elegant staging, but this area was a bit cramped.
Epic Escape Game’s Excalibur was a standard escape room with a low level of difficulty.
Core gameplay revolved around searching, observing, making connections, and puzzling.
➕ Excalibur got rolling with a fun clue.
➕ Epic Escape Game created standard escape room-style puzzles with satisfying solves. These worked well and the game flowed from solve to solve.
➖ One puzzle was purposely designed to tangle people up. Players could solve it correctly and still wind up at the wrong solution. There would be more interesting ways to add challenge to this puzzle.
➖ There were a few too many lengthy process puzzles that were more tedious than interesting.
➕ / ➖ We encountered one tangible puzzle that was a bit too easy to bypass. Epic Escape Game didn’t mind when we bypassed, which we appreciated… but why build the puzzle without some structure to necessitate it being solved?
➕ / ➖ We have mixed feelings on the final puzzle. It relied on a type of gating that we really enjoy when puzzling at home, but don’t usually enjoy in escape rooms. While it felt ok in the context of this game, is was the type of individual solve that tends to create a bottleneck. It probably slows momentum for most teams right where you want momentum to pick up.
➕ As one would expect from a game named Excalibur, the culminating interaction delivered a strong sense of victory.
Book your hour with Epic Escape Game’s Excalibur, and tell them that the Room Escape Artist sent you.
Disclosure: Epic Escape Game comped our tickets for this game.
Disclosure: Our trip to Denver was sponsored by the Denver escape room community. Contributions were anonymous.
Au wow! My long-lost uncle had a lot of money.
Location: Lakewood, CO
Date Played: September 8, 2019
Team size: 2-6; we recommend 4
Duration: 60 minutes
Price: from $80 per team for teams of 2 to $150 per team for teams of 6
Ticketing: Private
Emergency Exit Rating: [A+] No Lock [A]
Physical Restraints: [A+] No Physical Restraints
Dead Man’s Secret was a strong execution of a traditional escape room.
From the setting, to the setup, to the puzzle types, to the level of difficulty, everything about this game felt like an old-school escape room… except for the generally refined execution.
While Dead Man’s Secret didn’t have any mind-blowing moments for an experienced player, it nailed and elevated traditional escape room gameplay. If that sounds like your idea of a good time, then you should book it.
Reclusive billionaire Conan Drum had passed away with a strange will that made one simple statement: his fortune would belong to the person or people who could figure out how he’d made it.
Dead Man’s Secret was set in a study. This set had a lot more personality than we’re accustomed to seeing in office-based escape games. It wasn’t a massively exciting environment, but it served the game well.
Conundrum Escape Rooms’ Dead Man’s Secret was a standard escape room with a high level of difficulty.
Core gameplay revolved around searching and puzzling.
➕ The set was artfully designed. Although it was basic, it was more interesting than many study-themed escape rooms. It looked good.
➕ The puzzles were challenging, satisfying solves. One in particular had us rolling the wrong direction for a bit before the exciting “aha.”
➖ Dead Man’s Secret felt crowded. The space was small and there was a lot to find and solve. We were continually moving puzzle pieces around the space, trying to figure out where to collect items and then solve things.
➖ One puzzle broke the illusion. If we misstepped, Conundrum Escape Rooms could step in – almost invisibly – and reset so that we could continue. Although the gameplay could continue uninterrupted, it didn’t make sense.
➕ The culminating sequence of puzzles was exciting to solve. We enjoyed interacting with the set and props.
➕ We enjoyed Conundrum Escape Rooms’ twist on the “dead relative’s fortune” theme. It gave them an opportunity to take the second act of this escape room in another direction, which was surprising and enjoyable. The narrative made sense and the gameplay was justified.
Book your hour with Conundrum Escape Rooms’ Dead Man’s Secret, and tell them that the Room Escape Artist sent you.
Disclosure: Conundrum Escape Rooms comped our tickets for this game.
Disclosure: Our trip to Denver was sponsored by the Denver escape room community. Contributions were anonymous.
It was better than it looked.
Location: Aurora, CO
Date Played: September 7, 2019
Team size: 2-8; we recommend 3-4
Duration: 60 minutes
Price: from $76 per team for teams of 2 to $184 per team for teams of 8
Ticketing: Private
Emergency Exit Rating: [A+] No Lock
Physical Restraints: [A+] No Physical Restraints
Stepping into Treasure Hunt felt like entering a time warp to the early days of escape rooms. The first act looked and played aggressively old-school.
As the second act unfolded, Mission Escapes presented something more dramatic and interesting.
Overall, Treasure Hunt was a standard, traditional escape room that played smoothly and had a couple of interesting moments. It was a solid game because it played well… and that’s still something. If you’re in the area and want to explore something a bit old-school, check out Treasure Hunt. That said, Lunar Mission was a considerably more intriguing game.
The office of a deceased wealthy man seemed to contain a wide variety of puzzles hiding his most treasured item. His heirs couldn’t solve them, so we were brought in to figure out what was going on.
At first glance, Treasure Hunt looked like escape rooms did in 2015. It was an office filled with used furniture and padlocks.
The second act put a different twist on this experience. In a lot of ways, it felt like Lunar Escape, Mission Escapes’ other game. This shorter segment was where Treasure Hunt shined and justified its existence.
Mission Escapes’ Treasure Hunt was a standard escape room with a low level of difficulty.
Core gameplay revolved around searching, making connections, and puzzling.
➕/➖ Treasure Hunt felt like the type of escape room that got us hooked on these things back in 2014/15. That also meant that it felt dated in many places.
➖ The first set didn’t look like much. It didn’t instill any energy or a sense of adventure.
➕ The puzzles flowed well from start to finish. They were well clued and resolved cleanly.
➕ Although the set and props were basic, Mission Escapes added some details, like using cloth instead of paper to deliver written clues.
➖ We encountered wear on a later puzzle that caused issues in both the cluing and the triggering of an otherwise solid puzzle.
➕ The second act felt so unlike the first. This was surprising and intriguing. Treasure Hunt shined most in this segment.
➖ Although the transition space looked neat, the construction was messy. Players will move through this space in the dark. It needed better padding and the ceiling height shouldn’t change; it was too easy to hit one’s head too hard. I know because I bashed my head pretty badly.
➕/➖ We liked how Mission Escapes added pressure to the final moments, whether or not a team had been racing the game clock. That said, the “puzzle” felt cheap and its resolution even less satisfying. This was a case of a great concept, but rough execution… although I imagine it might feel different to a newbie.
Book your hour with Mission Escapes’ Treasure Hunt, and tell them that the Room Escape Artist sent you.
Disclosure: Mission Escapes comped our tickets for this game.
Disclosure: Our trip to Denver was sponsored by the Denver escape room community. Contributions were anonymous.
