BTRoku

Reviews

Reviews

Cabin of the Cackling Man

Cabin of the Cackling Man

POP-UP Escape Rooms

  • Escape room
  • Pop up
Rating: 2/5 I have mixed feelings about this room. For a pop-up, they actually made a decent effort to include interesting tech and make things as immersive as possible considering the space. The mood was appropriately creepy. The design had a lot of potential and if I played it when it was brand new and had a better GM, I could see myself liking this room. It was a mix of padlocks and tech. The following issues are why I disliked the room: -One major item in the room was broken. The GM told us it was broken but did not tell us what was wrong with it, they just warned us to not mess with it too much which made it too hard to solve since we didn't want to break it even further. -Puzzles didn't flow well, too non-linear which can get chaotic for a public room with up to 10 people. Lack of gating resulted in too many things being available before we could use them. -Props were too fragile (lots of tape, cardstock, velcro) and many were falling apart already. This was on the first day of a 4 day convention, so it's way too early for things to be breaking. Everything felt a bit too home-made and not professionally built. -Some puzzles were too easily bypassed, so we were left with items that we were trying to find a use for but no longer needed. -GM seemed less than enthusiastic and spent a lot of time looking at their phone and not noticing what we were doing, many of the hints were way too vague and unhelpful or were for things we already solved. -We were given a dry erase marker, but no whiteboard to write on, the GM couldn't find it. -I played at Gen Con and the 10 person public limit is too high. We played as a group of 6 and it was already feeling cramped.
Codenames: Heist Escape Room

Codenames: Heist Escape Room

Czech Games Edition: CGE at Gen Con

  • Escape room
  • Pop up
Interesting concept, one player is separated and sits at a desk with screens while the rest of the team breaks into a museum to steal a prized object, both sides can openly discuss things. Strong communication and description skills are required, similar to the game its based on. Many of the puzzles involve codes and words/letters, but weren't particularly interesting. The set is mostly just a single room and it's small, but it didn't feel too crowded with 4 people (since the 5th player has their own area). The set feels plain but they did at least include some custom artwork and sculptures for the museum, the walls were solid which is good for a pop-up since most just use the fabric barriers. It was a mix of padlocks and maglocks.
Warlocked: Escape the Lich's Lair [Season 2024]

Warlocked: Escape the Lich's Lair [Season 2024]

Eclipse Escapes at Gen Con

  • Escape room
  • Pop up
Rating: 2.5/5 For a pop-up, this is decent but there is very little immersion since it's a temporary space set up in a hotel. It's mostly a bunch of lockboxes and decorations placed on tables. There was only 1 tech interaction and unfortunately it wasn't working properly. Puzzles were OK, though the ending was fun. The GM was helpful and made the experience better. I played as a group of 4 and there still wasn't enough for everyone to be busy the whole time so playing with the 8 max would be way too many people. Considering the cost is $30 for such a low tech room, the value is not great, especially since the time limit is only 42 min. If you are at Gen Con, I would rate Pop-Up Escape Room's games slightly higher than this. They have slightly better immersion, more tech, more interesting puzzles, and the cost is cheaper. But neither company is great. If CU Adventures brings another escape room to Gen Con in the future, I'd highly recommend them, they are on another level.
The Last Masquerade

The Last Masquerade

POP-UP Escape Rooms

  • Escape room
  • Pop up
Rating: 2.5/5 - Decent game, but no immersion and everything felt too flimsy I played this pop-up room at Gen Con with 5 strangers. I somewhat enjoyed it as the puzzles were decent and they managed to fit in some nice surprises. There was also more tech than I expected with some locks mixed in. My main issues with this room is that there was little to no effort to decorate, most of the props and puzzles were just spread out on tables or hung on the barriers with clothes hangers. They ran another game in the same room so you could hear the players on the other side of the fabric barrier. While I enjoyed the tech, many of the props felt flimsy/fragile, so much tape was used to finish objects and everything felt home-made (not in a good way). The GM was friendly and helpful though.
Welcome to Catan – Island Adventure

Welcome to Catan – Island Adventure

Catan Studio at Gen Con

  • Escape room
  • Pop up
Surprisingly cute and fun! Not a traditional escape room, it's a large open area with the floor decorated like the CATAN hex tiles. Each tile had a puzzle themed to the resource (brick, wool, etc.) and your team solves one at a time, the GM follows you and helps along the way. The puzzles were pretty easy but still enjoyable because they involved a lot of physical props. However, they made it more fun by adding a robber character who would sabotage us or try to steal things, she was hilarious and playful. The game went pretty quickly, only around 15 minutes, but it was a good time. Puzzles were all physical/mechanical/locks, no tech.
Escape Room: Paranormal Investigation

Escape Room: Paranormal Investigation

Chicago ConLARP at Gen Con

  • Escape room
  • Pop up
Rating: 1/5 - Not a good escape room, these organizers should stick to their LARPs as those events are very fun. I've played numerous temporary pop-up escape rooms at Gen Con over the years and this was by far the worst. The theming was non-existent and the puzzles were frustrating. The main objective was to open two black plastic tubs with FOUR padlocks each. Opening each padlock was unsatisfying since there was no immediate reward. The in-game cluing is severely lacking which makes it hard to figure out which information is actually needed, there are pages and pages of text that you have to read. There was also a long cypher with absolutely no guidance on what to do so if no one has experience with cyphers, it's basically impossible to solve without a hint. Fortunately someone on my team was good with cyphers but it still took him probably half the time to solve it. Some locks were opened just by seemingly random numbers you found on objects. The room does have one redeeming puzzle which involved a piece of tech. However, it was also poorly clued so that we had no idea how to interact with it without a hint. While the booking is for 1 hour, the game is only 40 minutes (5 minutes for intro and 15 minutes to give you time to walk to your next event). I played as a team of 7 with random Gen Con attendees. On one hand, it was too many people because there weren't that many puzzles to work on and most of us were just spinning our wheels. On the other hand, it was helpful to have more people cause we just tried every random thing we could think of until someone had an idea that worked.
Secret Aboard Starship Astraeus

Secret Aboard Starship Astraeus

POP-UP Escape Rooms

  • Escape room
  • Pop up
Rating: 2.5/5 I played this room at a gaming convention (Gen Con). I appreciate the effort to make this room high tech but the execution could be better. The experience was a bit rough, the game master was in the play area with us and was setting up for future interactions or fixing issues while we're playing which is awkward. The immersion is low since this is a pop-up set up in a temporary space, most of the puzzles and props were just placed on top of tables. However, I did like some of the puzzles and was glad that there were little to no keys or locks. There was a lot of tech used throughout the game which is cool, but it definitely felt like a lot of the props and tech were created by someone just tinkering around in their basement, it didn't feel very high quality or professional and some of it wasn't working correctly and needed GM intervention. Also, due to the nature of playing it at a convention, I ended up playing with 9 other people so it was way too crowded and not enough for everyone to do, I wish they limited it to 6-8.