The Last SupperQuest TavernEscape roomIRLFantastic game! Like a medieval Ms. Jezebel, with a sinister host who keeps coming and going from the room, and you have to scramble to solve puzzles while he's out, and then put everything back and rush to your chairs when you hear him coming back, which is super fun (and there's a hint of humor so it's not too anxiety inducing). I played this chaperoning a group of teenage girls for a birthday party, and at one point there was a fantastic "emergent" Scooby Doo moment where they taught the bad guy the Electric Slide, and then Electric Slide-d him out of the room. My one complaint is that Quest Tavern REALLY needs to rename this room (my daughter suggested "The Fiends Feast"), because I've talked to a lot of people who have avoided it because they assumed "The Last Supper" meant that it was literally Christ's Last Supper themed.
The Bridge BetweenQuest TavernEscape roomIRLAnother fantastic game from Quest Tavern (location of the phenomenal Last Supper). A great variety of clever puzzles, and a super cute and fun ending. As with "Last Supper", my only complaint is that the name has nothing to do with the theme of the game, which is about rescuing a unicorn from poachers. ("The Lost Unicorn", perhaps?)
Blackwell ManorNew Mexico Escape Room - McLeod LocationEscape roomIRLGreat game with tons of cool tech. Completely linear, and a couple of Simon puzzles, but almost all of the puzzles are presented in a way that requires the players to work together so it's NOT just one player solving the one puzzle available while the other players stand around. Also some great "jump scares", but no gore at all, just family-friendly spookiness. The game contains a LOT of fog, so if you're allergic to fog juice bring a mask. I'd heard this billed as a "two story" room, which is incorrect; there's a second story to the main room, but it's just a cosmetic balcony and inaccessible to the players.
The Secret At Whitmore EstateBreaking Point Escape RoomsEscape roomIRLLots of great tech and puzzle variety, and does a pretty good job of presenting multiple puzzles at a time so players can be working on separate puzzles simultaneously, and some fun puzzles that required players to be simultaneously doing things in separate rooms. That said, it felt like there were "too many keys, and not enough locks"; we were constantly finding keys before finding the locks they went to, which felt weird and out of order. One bigger complaint is that the final puzzle is very simple and doesn't feel at all like it'll be the "final puzzle". So when we got the clue for it, one person in the group ran off to another room to do it, which triggered the finale, which the rest of us missed because we weren't in the room. We also had about half an hour left at that point, and all had an "is that it?" reaction when the host came in.
Wizard's Treasure60Out - HollywoodEscape roomIRLAn absolutely amazing room that I can't stop thinking about several months later. This is my #1 recommendation for first-timers, but also one I keep recommending to veterans. My veteran teen and I brought my 7yo along to this for his first room and he loved it and constantly felt included. It was perfect for our tiny group of 3, but it felt like it could work just as well for a group of 8. Top notch puzzle design, set design, and tech, with the main room cleverly split into several sections, each with its own standalone puzzle setpiece, so that there are plenty of non-linear puzzles for players to do simultaneously, or jump between.
Super SecretNew Mexico Escape Room - McLeod LocationEscape roomIRL"Super" fun game that packs a great variety of puzzles into a small space. Lots of puzzles require the team to work together, which is always a good thing. I didn't expect much from the "superhero" theme, but it really delivered in a fun way (think 60s Batman), and had a cartoon that showed your accomplishments in the room effecting the plot. Also lot's of cute, Albuquerque-specific in-jokes, that natives will recognize, but that won't get in the way of out-of-towners. A very minor downside is that there were several places where solving a puzzle activated another puzzle, but there's no auditory cue of the new puzzle activating -- just lights which are easy to miss in the brightly-lit room -- so in one place in particular we thought we'd failed a puzzle and kept trying it over and over when we'd actually solved it but hadn't noticed that an innocuous shelf had lit up to show a newly-unlocked puzzle.
Pandora’s BoxTrapped! Escape Room - Los AngelesEscape roomIRLA lot of really fun effects, but unfortunately completely linear, with only one single-player puzzle available at a time, despite the central set piece being a big cube with separate puzzles on each side. Very much a single-player experience, with all of the puzzles presented one at a time, and none needing more than one player to solve. In fact, there were several times where one player would be doing the one puzzle available, and have to "shoo away" the other players who were trying to help but were just getting in the way. Two of the puzzles were of the frustrating "button 1 rotates A 90*, and B 180*, button 2 rotates B -90* and C 180*, etc." variety, and several of the locks had been lazily scrambled so that they were already set to about 80% of the solution. One neat thing is that this room had "bonus puzzles", which are unlocked by how much time is left when you complete the room, and then how much time is left when you complete each subsequent bonus puzzle. We got through 2, and I think there are 4 total. That's a cool twist that I'd love to see more of.
