Website: http://escapehour.com/
The Lost Jewel Of Zanzibar – 6.5/10 (by Bubbletease)
- Overall impression and experience (3.5/5): The puzzles were reasonable and everything worked well. Clean place. Theme was apparent overall in most puzzles. The walls were just fancy wallpaper though, and the immersion aspect of the adventure was not strong. The overall feel was that it was a playable room, but there were no outstanding elements.
- Guest service (1/1): Friendly, accommodating, professional staff. Very genuine, personable individual.
- Creativity (0/1): No particular outstanding creative components in comparison to other escape rooms. It felt like a make-belief adventure with well set-up puzzles inside a child’s themed birthday party room.
- Puzzles (0.5/1): Overall, the puzzles were designed well and ran smoothly. Hints were appropriate for the puzzles. Good use of the texting system through the display monitor to give hints. The non-linearity of the puzzles worked well and still offered a sense of progression. The finale puzzle felt like there was a sense of closure and accomplishment.
- Set and decor (0.5/1): The decoration in the room fit the theme well. The walls were made out of just wallpaper though. The sense of immersion wasn’t too strong.
- Room reset/functionality (1/1): No reset errors were evident. There were no problems encountered in the room. Hints were given at appropriate times. The room was clean.
The Curse of the Evil Genie – 5.5/10 (by Flavescape)
- Overall impression and experience (3/5):As early as the intro video, I quickly realized that much of what I know of Persian folklore and culture is based off of Aladdin. However, being unfamiliar didn’t really matter, as the room immersion is shallow. Despite our game master’s enthusiasm, I found the hint system intrusive and annoying—if I want help, I’ll ask for it; otherwise, I’d prefer to grind so that I’m satisfied when I solve a puzzle. Overall, it was a fun room, but it could be improved with more clarity and deeper immersion.
- Guest service (1/1): Our game master was quite friendly and was very attentive to us. One could tell that she was doing her best to make our experience fun, and she was excited about what we were taking part in.
- Creativity (0.5/1): There were a few parts of this room that were interesting, but nothing that was outstanding.
- Puzzles (0.5/1): Although there was a nice mix of different kinds of puzzles, some of them were rather poorly designed and somewhat confusing. In addition to this, there were several points where we completed the first half of a puzzle, but could not understand where/how to utilize what we had discovered.
- Set and decor (0.5/1): The room was relatively nicely decorated. However, it was a little confusing to grasp that the entirety of it is supposed to be INSIDE of a lamp… It never really takes advantage of that aspect.
- Room reset/functionality (0/1): Upon entering the room, you quickly find a dry erase marker with no obvious place to use it (we later learned that you wouldn’t need it until way later in the room). However, I noted that there was drawing on the wall right where the marker was found which was poorly erased. I followed suit, only to be later chided for doing so. This kind of poor room planning continued when, upon receiving a magnet, I put it on a doorknob (it REALLY looks like you should put it there) that disabled the final puzzle and said that we had escaped. The game master had to come in and reset it and was surprised by how this had happened.
Doctor Escape 