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embarrassingdad

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@embarrassingdad
Morty score97
  • Escape rooms97
  • 272Wishlisted
  • 28Reviewed

embarrassingdad

    @DGEscapesReality
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    • Bio
    • Experiences (97)
    • Wishlist (272)
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    • Escape rooms (28)
    Hell House

    Hell House

    The Panic Room 3 - St Georges Centre

    • Escape room
    • IRL
    Panic Room have clearly lavished money and care in creating this set, which is the most impressive of any of their rooms. Bizarrely, though, they have scrimped on some very basic upkeep. A number of puzzles in the game depend on a printed journal you're given-- but the journal has now faded almost to the point of illegibility. Plus, the rooms are dimly lit and cannot be traversed without two handheld lanterns you're given-- but one of the lanterns stopped working ten seconds into the game. With literally twenty quid worth of upkeep, this could be a top-notch game. Unfortunately, until Panic Room can be bothered to take a few simple steps to make it playable, I can't recommend it.
    In Flanders Fields

    In Flanders Fields

    Atrium Mortis

    • Escape room
    • IRL
    Although this has one TERPECA nomination, it isn't talked about as much as some of Belgium's bigger and flashier games. I think that's a shame. The set isn't massive but it's great fun to explore, and it's beautifully designed and suits the theme. The puzzles were solid and I appreciated them even more when I learned that the owner had based some of them on actual codes used in WWI. All in all, I think this is well worth playing.
    Magician's Workshop

    Magician's Workshop

    Escape Room Herndon

    • Escape room
    • IRL
    La Cale De Cortez [The Cale of Cortez]

    La Cale De Cortez [The Cale of Cortez]

    Get Out Escape Game

    • Escape room
    • IRL
    An OK pirate-themed room. There was one clever twist on a search puzzle, but other than that, it didn't feel like there was anything special about it. If Morty had a "meh" option, that's how I'd rate it. But we ended up getting a little frustrated on the final puzzle, which tipped my experience negative territory overall.
    Le Fort [The Fort]

    Le Fort [The Fort]

    Get Out Escape Game

    • Escape room
    • IRL
    In most respects, this was a fairly average room. It was smallish, with solid but unspectacular decorations. There was a fairly heavy emphasis on physical puzzles. I personally enjoyed this but your mileage may vary! If you're traveling around Belgium playing the country's best escape rooms, you can probably skip this one. But if you've got a free space in your schedule and you want a competently done room to fill it out, this is an acceptable option.
    Dystopia Escape Game

    Dystopia Escape Game

    Dystopia Escape Game

    • Escape room
    • IRL
    The setting is fantastic. It's a real-world space that has very convincingly been repurposed into an underground sci-fi bunker. And the sci-fi theming carries through to a very funny AI character (present mainly in pre-recorded vocal tracks) that adds a lot. The puzzles relied heavily on pattern-matching, which is not usually my favorite, but they fit very well into the story. Anybody who is escape-rooming their way through Brussels should include this on the itinerary.
    Demise of the Gricers

    Demise of the Gricers

    Entered

    • Escape room
    • IRL
    VERY IMPORTANT: This game is physically dangerous. I would say it is roughly as dangerous as skateboarding or downhill skiing. That's not an intolerable level of physical hazard for a leisure activity-- but it is substantially more dangerous than a well-run escape room. Gricers offers many of the same pleasures of a good escape room-- it's an exciting story-driven challenge in a fully immersive environment. I'm not surprised it's been embraced by the escape room community, but I worry that leads to people diving into it with inaccurate expectations around risk. If you are enough of an escape room enthusiast to be using Morty, you have probably skimmed through or ignored numerous overwrought safety warnings for escape rooms. Do NOT ignore the safety warning that comes with Gricers! If you do choose to play, I encourage you to read the Room Escape Artist's review first. It has some useful information that will help you play more safely (although, again, still with a skiing-level of risk.)
    Le Prince

    Le Prince

    Escaping Belgium

    • Escape room
    • IRL
    The setting was beautiful, with a wonderful attention to detail. The puzzles, though, ranged from "pretty good" to "frustrating and a little arbitrary."
    L'Évasion des Dalton [The Daltons' Escape]

    L'Évasion des Dalton [The Daltons' Escape]

    Escape Prod

    • Escape room
    • IRL
    A happy surprise for me. It's a small space, and the decor is nothing special. But a bunch of the puzzles had a cartoon logic that delighted me. I wouldn't travel to Brussels just to play this one, but if you're in town, I'd definitely include it on your agenda.
    Escape Room Arcade

    Escape Room Arcade

    Enigma Quests - Holborn

    • Escape room
    • IRL
    Going in, you should know that this is not an escape room. It's a challenge arcade, analogous to Boda Borg, Level 99, or Prison Planet. The only other challenge arcade I've done was Boda Borg in Boston. Unlike Boda Borg, all the challenges at Enigma Quest were a single room. In each room, you've got 5 minutes to score as many points as you can in one particular game. I missed the escape-room-like sense of discovery you get of moving into a new room within a challenge-- but I nonetheless had more fun at Enigma Quest. I found Enigma Quest's scoring system much less frustrating than Boda Borg's binary pass/fail system. Games tended to be less like escape room puzzles, and more like challenges you'd see on The Crystal Maze or Survivor. (This was a plus for me-- I enjoyed the change. Your mileage may vary.) The themeing within the rooms was excellent and most of the games were very fun. I had two complaints: --The rooms are all next to each other and there's a certain amount of sound bleed. --In one of the rooms, a lightbulb within a game was burnt out. Depending on certain random elements within the game, that burnt out bulb could completely paralyze your progress, at which point you are basically stuck in an unplayable room until your five minutes run out. We mentioned this to the staff and they said, "Oh, yeah, we know about that, but we didn't think it was worth shutting down a whole challenge over one lightbulb." Despite those quibbles, we had a great time and I would happily return to try the games I didn't get to this time (and to try and improve my score on some of the games I particularly enjoyed.)
    The Time Machine

    The Time Machine

    Deadlocked Escape Rooms

    • Escape room
    • IRL
    A fun and inventive game. The creators clearly didn't have a massive budget or a ton of space to work with, but they more than made up for with humor, inventiveness, and an obvious love for both sci-fi and escape rooms. And the in-character hosting was delightful.