Escape room

The Escape Game

Special Ops: Mysterious Market

The Escape Game is always great, but this room is exceptional. 

The set was beautiful, and tools and puzzles were integrated in a seamless and immersive way. The puzzles were varied and engaging, and some we had never seen before or hadn’t seen integrated in such unique ways. We were challenged without getting frustrated. There was always plenty for our group of four to be doing, so nobody was ever standing around bored or waiting. I can’t recommend this room highly enough!

The GMs at The Escape Game are also always fantastic. They really make us feel like the stars of own thriller.

Escapology

A Pirate's Curse

This room had an exciting premise and pretty immersive theming. There were some nice interactive set pieces.

Our biggest frustration with this room was the oversimplification. Hints and instructions were fed to us the entire time when we were not asking for help. In some cases, we were given full instructions for puzzles before we had even started working on them, or as we were about to find the solution organically. It left us feeling rushed, and there was no sense of excitement in finding the answers ourselves.

The flow of puzzles was very linear, so everyone had to work on one thing at a time to unlock the next item, which led to several members of our party of four waiting around if a particular puzzle did not require “all hands on deck.” 

There were no big moments of discovery and not much excitement. The last act of the room was anticlimactic; we thought there was going to be more to do when the game ended.

Ultimately, this room felt like a themed instruction manual. We left feeling not very accomplished.

4 Dreams Escape Game

The Dreams

We had a fine time in this game, but what really made the experience poor was what we later learned about how the team here misleads their players.

As for the game itself: This room is a three-in-one linear experience that takes you through three small rooms in 20-minute increments with a basic story connecting them. Three groups are playing the game simultaneously, so when you enter room 2, another group enters room 1 and so on. There was only one GM moderating three groups during our game.

We most enjoyed the second room, which had more traditional puzzles and the most complete theming. The other two rooms had minimal decor and featured what I would call “mini games” rather than puzzles, including memory tests and dexterity games. 

It was interesting to incorporate some games into the traditional escape experience, but the drawback is that you could easily fail to complete the rooms in time due to failing a dexterity test, even if you solve everything else, which feels frustrating and cheap, not to mention not very accessibility-friendly.

We ultimately solved everything with the exception of one puzzle in the final room. Our GM later confirmed that we had in fact solved it correctly, but the sensors in the prop malfunctioned.

The experience itself was underwhelming but fine. But was really surprised us was what we learned about the game afterward.

We spoke with the GM after our game and he led us to believe that everything in the experience was designed and built in-house by himself and the room’s owner. He also told us that it was an independent room (not a franchise). We were impressed to learn that everything was built from scratch. There were some very cool props and mechanics on display, and while the decor in 2/3 of the rooms was pretty basic, it was impressive coming from a brand new game designed by a team of two.

However, we did some research about the game afterwards, interested to learn more about their story, and discovered that none of this was true. There are several other 4 Dreams locations throughout the country and based on their websites, they all feature the same game with nearly identical rooms.

The most impressive props and puzzles, we learned, came from a props company that specializes in turn-key escape rooms. In their catalogue we found most of what we had just seen at 4 Dreams.

4 Dreams is promoting a Jumanji game, and we also saw this “Jungle Game” premade room available to order from the same purveyor — using the exact same photos and videos 4 Dreams is currently using to promote theirs, despite the GM telling us that they were currently designing and building it.

To be clear, I don’t believe that purchasing puzzles or props makes a game bad. However, if you are using a premade room, I expect that saved effort to be spent on making the rest of the experience exceptional. When I believed 4 Dreams was built and designed entirely by a two-person team onsite, I didn’t mind that there were some glitches, or that the spectacle was lacking. But knowing that they bought their most impressive and complex pieces prefabricated leaves me very disappointed in the lackluster attention paid to everything else.

And most importantly: We were lied to about all of this when we talked to the GM about the game, praised specific set pieces, and were told that he and this location’s owner created them. 

I would happily replay a lackluster game that improves over time, but I have no interest in returning to a business that has misrepresented its product and lied to its customers.

jymmot

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