The Forest of FablesCU Adventures in Time and SpaceEscape roomIRLThis room was really a highlight for us! The live actor really made the story and I love how she was integrated in, it truly felt like you were entering the storybook. I loved how each story changed and gave you an artifact. My favorite part was Humpty Dumpty falling. Got quite the laugh out of me. The “twist” was also really interesting and the room had a very satisfying ending. If you’re headed to CU Adventures (and man, are you in for a treat), I’d definitely recommend Forest of Fables!
Crazy Train: The Ballad of Skeemin' PlotzDoldrick's Escape RoomEscape roomIRLThis room was so cool! I was in awe at the beginning over the set, and every element came into play at one point or another. It felt similar to being in a 20’s cartoon and the ending sequence was so cool and felt a bit video game-esque. We had a great time and would recommend it to smaller groups of players!
Game NightCU Adventures in Time and SpaceEscape roomIRL𓆜𓋘𓄁 𓊛𓇙𓋸𓌤𓌥 𓌦 𓅐𓆢 𓆣 𓀉𓆤 𓆥 𓅑𓆘 𓆙 𓅒𓄙 𓄚 𓄛 𓅓𓃺 𓃻 𓅔 𓅕 𓃕 𓃖 𓃗 𓎷 𓄁𓎸𓅖 𓅽 𓅾 𓅿𓅗 𓅘 𓇆 𓇇𓅙 𓅚 𓁵 𓁶𓂵 𓂶𓃝𓋲 𓋳𓀬 𓅛𓁃 𓂺𓅜 �𓅝𓃄 �𓄁𓅞𓂙 𓅟𓂿 𓆜𓋘𓄁 𓊛𓇙𓋸𓌤𓌥 𓌦 𓅐𓆢 𓆣 𓀉𓆤 𓆥 𓅑𓆘 𓆙 𓅒𓄙 𓄚 𓄛 𓅓𓃺 𓃻 𓅔 𓅕 𓃕 𓃖 𓃗 𓎷 𓄁𓎸𓅖 𓅽 𓅾 𓅿𓅗 𓅘 𓇆 𓇇𓅙 𓅚 𓁵 𓁶𓂵 𓂶𓃝𓋲 𓋳𓀬 𓅛𓁃 𓂺𓅜 𓂨𓅝𓃄 𓄁𓅞𓂙 𓅟𓂿This review contains spoilers.Unscramble𓀗
Murder MansionCountdown GamesEscape roomIRLMurder Mansion was a great room - if you’re in the Lexington area, I would recommend this room and Ghost Town as must-dos. I rank this as a low love / high like, rounded up due to the great experience and lovely staff. The concept is that you’re a detective re-visiting a cold case in a mansion to figure out who the murderer was. The puzzles were all fairly fun and interesting (I think my favorite was the room with the twist and getting to listen to the stories, really well done and fun). One of the puzzles was a bottleneck (maze). I assume this is a bit of a timewaster for most groups, as they label where you need to start/go through/end to get where you need to go. We overthought the hints a bit. I didn’t dislike this puzzle, but did think that it could be shorter. We had one person doing it by themselves and the other four of us were just waiting for it to finish. The door puzzle was really unique, I’ve never seen a puzzle like that before. I thought it was fairly fun too and the reveal to the final room was really awesome! The final puzzle does require some math skills. My partner and I are apparently math beasts and got it fairly quickly. I would recommend a good number of people for this room. Besides the bottleneck, the first puzzle in the last room really needs someone reading, someone completing the puzzle, and ideally one person in two other rooms figuring out what the clues represent. We did with 5 enthusiasts and I thought this number was appropriate and we finished with about 6 minutes left.
Rise of the FungiHeadlock Escape Rooms OnlineEscape roomVirtual This is a virtual escape room that is the prequel to The Fungus Among Us. We played the original back in 2021 and it was one of my top virtual rooms I played. You can tell the creators put a lot of time and effort into the storyline and making it all work in a virtual environment. This game contains a couple of sets (4-5) and there was never any dead air time. It flowed so well, which must not be easy in a live environment. The puzzles were pretty straightforward. We played with a group of 4 enthusiasts and we finished in about 45 minutes. They give you 90 minutes to play, which I think is so every team has the chance to see the entire story, even if they struggle with a puzzle here or there. This was definitely a winner in my book! If you have a chance to play this while they’re still running the live zoom, you should!
The PassageTwisted Limits Escape RoomsEscape roomIRLMy partner said this was likely his favorite room he’s done in the 8 or so we’ve completed together. The set design was impressive. The GM (who I believe was also the owner) told us afterwards that he doesn’t have a set designer and had two people take about a year to design the room. A lot of work went into the design and it really showed! There were quite a bit of puzzles in the room, but very few were linear, which would allow for bigger groups to play. We had five enthusiasts and there wasn’t a point where any of us were really sitting around waiting for another puzzle to be completed. The moment between the first and second sets was really impressive! I haven’t seen that in any of the other 30-ish rooms I’ve done so far and it was really cool and worked well in the story. The communication between us and the GM was really nicely done! There was an iPad you carried around with you and “notes” from headquarters would display on the screen. I don’t typically like rooms where you’ve got to carry around tech from room-to-room but this worked in-game! The GM was great. He was very attentive and gave us hints just enough to get us to realize what was needing to be done. There were also no moments, I believe, where we were sitting shouting at the sky that we needed a hint, which shows how attentive he was to understand the prompting we needed before we were completely confused. Overall, I was really impressed with this room! Their other rooms are in the same universe and this story and it made me want to play them all! Very well done, especially for a smaller owned company. You can tell there was a lot of love and passion put into the game!
Mafia HeistMind Trap Escape RoomsEscape roomIRLI feel like every review here mentions it, but the set design for this room is top tier. There were quite a few sets and I feel like, for the most part, the flow between the rooms were good. When you moved to a new set, it fit within the story. The puzzles were hit or miss for me. I feel like most of the puzzles in the second room were really fun, but went down from there. There were also broken items in the room. The hallway puzzle had lights that would turn on and off, flicker, etc. which left us puzzled if we were right. We’re pretty certain that, after a while, the GM just triggered the door opening from that puzzle. We had a lock that we were certain was correct that wouldn’t open and the GM had to come in the room and basically twist and yank the lock off, which went above the “no brute force” rule we were given at the beginning (and in most escape rooms). The communication between the GM and us was lack-luster. They use a walkie-talkie system, but, with the loud music, both sides had trouble hearing each other. I also feel like our GMs weren’t super attentive. We wasted quite a bit of time with the stuck lock, which bottle-necked us because we finished all the other puzzles in the room and what was inside was needed for the final thing to move to the next set. Some of the puzzles were not super intuitive. No spoilers but there was a moment where you needed to backtrack that wasn’t explained, a puzzle that we unlocked once that should have opened a door that we were told we needed someone to push on (that we then needed to re-complete the puzzle, which took time because it was a sequence of screens that held on the screen for a while. Just a bit annoying and another time-waster). The lighting could also have used some work in some areas. In the first part of the last set, it was really hard to see what we learned at the end would have been necessary for one of the final clues. The ending also felt a bit lack-luster as a team who didn’t finish. The GM just came in and tossed down the photo elements. It would have been cool if there were maybe police sirens and a voice like “put down the ring!” Or something in-game that made it clear the game was over and we didn’t make it out. We had so much time wasted with the broken/finicky tech that made it annoying that we were so close to the end but, honestly, after the explanation of the final room at the end, I don’t think we would have made it out regardless if all our tech worked. I rate this a like for the set design/story, but I feel like the tech issues and unsupportive GMs made this a lower like for me.
Time MachineCountdown GamesEscape roomIRLYou’re in a Time Machine and you need to go back in time to retrieve several artifacts… you travel through the 50s, 60s, and 90s to retrieve them in order to make your way back home. The set had some really awesome items from the decades you traveled through, but there were only a couple rooms/decades you traveled through (which this is just a 60 minute room, so it does make sense, but I would have liked to see some more decades or props, personally.) There were some really cool moments in this room, including the movement from the 60s to the 90s, and the final puzzle. The wall maze was really frustrating for our group - it wasn’t that you had to find your way out. You had to find the right way out based on what pieces you had left that matched each exit. So you wouldn’t know it was the wrong way until you got to the very end. And you had to do the puzzle twice, so it ended up just being a time waster. There was some outside knowledge needed for the final puzzle but, truthfully, we were able to guess most of them just by listening. And, thankfully, if you got some wrong, it showed you which ones needed to be changed, which was really helpful. Probably the best way to do a puzzle like that. Overall, this was probably my least favorite of the four we did at Countdown (in order from least to fave: Time Machine, The Scary One, Murder Mansion, then Ghost Town). But I think that speaks more to how ambitious and incredible the other games are than this room lacking.
Rise Of The IcarusCU Adventures in Time and SpaceEscape roomIRLWe did this one with a group of 8 people and I think we didn’t have enough people. There were quite a lot of puzzles and some that required people on different levels to play. (There is also a point where there’s some stairs for anyone with mobility issues or who have trouble going up and down stairs). But I thought it was really immersive and, like most of the games here, you can tell the owners put a lot of time and effort into it.
White Rabbit SocietyThe Exit Games - Front St.Escape roomIRLThis room was so cool! It was a one-room escape room, but everything was so immersive. I’m not a big Magic fan, myself, but it was cool to see so many popular magicians and popular Magic tricks.
