Travel Room was a beginner escape room that didn’t feel like most of the others. What it lacked in decor and adventure, it made up in innovative puzzles and fair pricing.
Who is this for?
Puzzle lovers
Best for beginners
Why play?
Beginner room with some innovative puzzle design
Story
A retiring travel agent turned his office into an escape room as a final promotion for his business. We had 45 minutes to determine where in the world he was. There were no stakes, just puzzles.
Setting
We entered a bright, fluorescent-lit travel agent’s office. It had a desk, some chairs, and a collection of travel posters from around the world.
While the room didn’t inspire a sense of adventure, the execution was careful and clean.
Gameplay
Travel Room was all about the puzzles. This was an old-school puzzle-your-way-out-of-the-office-game. Travel Room could have been a point & click Flash escape room.
As with the setting, the puzzles weren’t shocking, but they were smart, cared for, and well executed.
Standouts
The puzzles flowed well. They were well clued and they worked.
One significant interaction seem strangely random… until we understood its message. It was also well designed to engage the group.
One prop wore a lot of puzzles well. It was entertaining.
I cannot overstate how much I respect Escape Room Park City’s approach to pricing. This room is good. It’s worth playing. It’s also priced fairly. Their premium game, Mine Trap, cost twice the price, but it was twice as interesting, twice as complex, twice the size, and more than twice as detailed.
Shortcomings
The set was uninspiring. It was an office.
Escape Room Park City had a lot of rules… and their delivery felt combative. This aggression detracted from an otherwise fun experience. Some of those rules got in the way of simply enjoying the gameplay:
Our gamemaster warned us not to flip over certain items as the contents might break. This whole category of rules could have been avoided with a little bit of foam. Instead we walked around the room nervously hoping that this wouldn’t be the game in which we accidentally broke a thing.
Travel Room clued us to improvise a solution to a puzzle. At the same time, it warned us not to take a specific action, which would have been the obvious solution. This felt uncomfortably restrictive and not all in the spirit of the clue we had received.
Tips for Visiting
If you’ve never played an escape room before, this is a great on-ramp.
The building has a parking garage.
Enter the building through the elevator in the parking garage. (This was confusing.)
Park City has no shortage of food options.
Travel Room costs about half as much as Mine Trap, but Mine Trap is twice as interesting.
Team size:Â 4-40 (4 copies of the room, each for up to 10 players); we recommend 3-5 per room
Duration:Â 60 minutes
Price:Â $22 per ticket
REA Reaction
We have mixed feelings about The Heist. Getout Games played with some truly brilliant game mechanics in creating a beginner-friendly competitive escape room. Unfortunately the first half of the game was underwhelming and it left us wishing that Getout Games had focused more on the unique elements of this escape room.
Who is this for?
Best for beginners
Teams looking to compete
Players who don’t need to be a part of every puzzle
Why play?
To race your friends
The mid-game puzzles
A brilliant final set
Story
Notorious Salt Lake City mob boss Crazy Coz had left his office for the day. We were seeking to relieve him of some of the gold it was rumored he had been trafficking.
Setting
The Heist took place in Crazy Coz’s rented office… which didn’t look all the much like an office, let alone a notorious mobster’s office. It had white walls with a few hangings, a few simple pieces of furniture, and some knickknacks.
The initial gamespace was about as uninspiring as escape rooms get. Fortunately as The Heist progressed, the set became increasingly more interesting. Getout Games staged the final act in a really cool manner.
Gameplay
The Heist was a competitive escape room. Multiple teams could simultaneously race for the gold in up to four adjacent sets.
The Heist was an old-school search-and-puzzle escape room that improved over the course of the experience. The first half was mundane. The second half offered quite a bit more intrigue.
Standouts
Getout Games excelled at the transitions in this escape room. Although they used escape room standbys, they delivered. One was impressively concealed. Another was overt, but smoothly executed.
We enjoyed one mid-game puzzle sequence that changed our perspective.
The Heist was a race. We wanted to find the gold before the other team. If we had been neck and neck as we approached our prize, oh wow, would it have been a dramatic conclusion.
Shortcomings
As it was, we won decidedly. Because of this, the conclusion was underwhelming. We recommend that Getout Games shuffle the puzzle flow to increase the chances for a dramatic race to the gold. Otherwise, the unique staging is a missed opportunity. While it’s always possible for one team to absolutely blow out another, we suggest stacking the odds in favor of perceived competition, even if one team has a significant edge.
The setting was unimpressive. Getout Games could make the office facade more believable or play up the mob boss character. Either one would give the early game more depth.
Much of this escape room took place in the dark with poor flashlights. There didn’t seem to be any reason for this frustrating game mechanic.
We experienced three reset failures during our one playthrough of The Heist.
Tips for Visiting
Much of The Heist takes place in the dark, with flashlights.
The Heist could be played by a single team, but you will be missing something if it’s not played competitively.
Getout Games has a large lobby and ample parking.
Book your hour with Getout Games’ The Heist, and tell them that the Room Escape Artist sent you.
The writings of H.P. Lovecraft are filled with curious and adventurous minds driven to madness. Cthulhu’s Library of Horrors replicated that. Its design was highly ambitious but bumpy execution and lighting problems kept some great ideas from reaching their potential.
Who is this for?
Adventure seekers
H.P. Lovecraft fans
Players with at least some experience
Players who don’t need to be a part of every puzzle
Why play?
Because Cthulhu calls
Dramatic moments
The gamemaster
Story
The Old Ones, the horrors born of H.P. Lovecraft’s mind, slumbered dreaming of their ascendance. We had to puzzle through the madness and lore to prevent them from rising and destroying all.
Setting
We found ourselves in a sporadically lit library amidst skulls and the lore of H.P. Lovecraft.
The set design was uneven. Some of it looked great; other portions were uninspiring.
While there were moments of intensity, this was not a scary escape room.
Gameplay
Cthulhu’s Library of Horrors was a standard escape room with a bit of searching and a heavier emphasis on puzzling and interpreting lore. We struggled to navigate the gamespace without blocking another teammate’s light.
Much like Dracula’s Castle, our in-character gamemaster introduced and vocally oversaw our game… and, oh my, was he a character.
Standouts
Mystery Escape Room opened Cthulhu’s Library of Horrors with an engaging and hilarious introduction. It added excitement to the adventure ahead.
Our gamemaster was a character in our experience. Although offstage for the duration of the game clock, his verbal interactions were helpful and amusing. He was an integral part of Cthulhu’s Library of Horrors.
Cthulhu’s Library of Horrors included an unusual and entertaining Lovecraft lore manual.
The most thematic puzzle had us accept the madness of Lovecraftian lore and unexpectedly triggered an effect.
I’d been waiting for a Cthulu-themed escape room for a long time now. Mystery Escape Room delivered. I was happy that I got to play it.
Shortcomings
In attempting to stay true to the lore, Cthulhu’s Library of Horrors didn’t deliver the intensity that Cthulhu demanded.
The dark gamespace quickly became the most prominent puzzle. We were always in each other’s light… which kind of drove us insane.
There was a lot of reading material, and not within the library books. This was especially frustrating given the lack of lighting.
While Mystery Escape Room built some interesting tech-driven opens, we saw them coming a mile away. To enhance their dramatic effect, we recommend hiding wires and concealing the technology.
We bypassed the final puzzle through a combination of observation and knowledge of Cthulhu lore. We recommend Mystery Escape Room modify the puzzle flow such that teams cannot miss the climax of the adventure.
Tips for Visiting
Mystery Escape Room is located in The Gateway. There are plenty of restaurant options in the complex.
There’s a paid parking garage in The Gateway complex.
At least one or two players will need to crawl a short distance.
Mind your gamemaster for hints and entertainment.
Book your hour with Mystery Escape Room’s Cthulhu’s Library of Horrors, and tell them that the Room Escape Artist sent you.
Disclosure: Mystery Escape Room comped our tickets for this game.
We were locked up with a zombie, but Zombie Apocalypse Escape was not Trapped In A Room with a Zombie. This was a different take on the zombie escape room format that focused more on creating tension and bursts of excitement between puzzling challenges. You’ll need at least a few brave players with decent cardio to make it through this zombie apocalypse.
Who is this for?
Adventure seekers
Agile people (not all need to be)
Nerf marksmen
Any experience level
Why play?
Fleeing from a zombie
Zombie hunting
Thrills and tension with horror overtones
Story
With the zombie outbreak running rampant, we entered a survival bunker looking for another group of survivors we had heard on the radio. Unfortunately, there was something else in there with us… and it was hungry.
Setting
We were initially released into a quiet and dim storage room. Zombie Apocalypse Escape began there as a typical escape room. If our group had been larger, we might have found ourselves in a split room scenario. With our smaller team, our gamemaster played the part of the other survivors.
The early game built tension. At some point – I won’t say when – the zombie emerged.
Gameplay
The first half of the game was a standard escape room with a lot of added tension because we didn’t know when or how the zombie would reveal itself.
The second half of the game split our attention between puzzling our way to freedom and not getting eaten. In order to keep the zombie at bay (as our gamemaster explained in advance of the game), we would shoot it in a bullseye on its shoulder with a remarkably well-maintained Nerf gun. Shooting the zombie would incapacitate it for a little while, allowing us some puzzling time.
When the zombie wasn’t subdued, we could only focus on not getting tagged by the zombie as it had no chain. This zombie was more like Zombieland than Walking Dead… By that I mean that cardio is necessary for wrangling the zombie.
If running from the undead doesn’t sound like your speed, there was a safe zone where the zombie would not enter, but participation options from that space were limited.
Standouts
From its opening moments, Zombie Apocalypse Escape built tension. The premise worked. We were on edge, in a good way, as we uncovered new gamespace, anticipating what else we might find there. Anything new was inherently scary because we didn’t know when or how the zombie would enter the game.
The early sets felt appropriately apocalyptic and intense.
Unlike other zombie escape rooms, at any given moment in Zombie Apocalypse Escape we were either solving puzzles or escaping a rampant zombie. Alcatraz Escape Games introduced a game mechanic that allowed us to separate these two challenges. This didn’t mean, however, that we could relax; the zombie could easily wake up and attack. We aren’t endorsing any one particular style of zombie play, but we did enjoy seeing something wholly different that required us to strategize in new ways.
The zombie actor had a lot of control of the team’s experience. He read the team well and made Zombie Apocalypse Escape exciting and challenging, but winnable.
The best challenges were life-sized. Or maybe, dead-sized.
Shortcomings
While the earlier sets felt ominously apocalyptic, the final set was escape room-y. It was a room with puzzles… and a zombie. We would have preferred the survival bunker aesthetic to dial up over the course of the experience, rather than evaporate into a game room.
We found the initial staging confusing: we were searching for another group of survivors, but our gamemaster was “playing” as the other survivors. Alcatraz Escape Games does not split smaller groups. The staging wasn’t adequately explained at the onset and we were pretty confused by our gamemaster for quite some time.
We received one misleading pregame instruction that caused us to be far too gentle with an important set piece. We recommend rephrasing to avoid confusion.
Given the in-game exhilaration of a hungry zombie, the escape was anticlimactic. The game ended abruptly.
