Insane Asylum

Wouldn’t recommend this room tbh. The first puzzle was such a logical jump and the gm said people almost never get it. The rest of the puzzles were easy. Room was a bit dated. We had the correct answer on a puzzle but the lock was so old, we had to confirm with gm it was correct and it still took like 10 jiggles before it actually functioned. Too many fishing puzzles brings down the puzzle quality. Not my fave.

My first ever escape room experience! I was reluctant about getting into the hobby of escape rooms prior to this, but the moment my friend and I stepped into this escape room, I was immersed and dumbfounded. The attention to detail and quality of the props really made me feel like I was inside an insane asylum. The staff were also wonderful and welcoming. If you're trying to get friends into escape rooms, I highly recommend this room as it is moderately difficult with mild horror themes.

Overall, it was okay. The puzzles were not too challenging, but we did need hints in a few of them. HOWEVER, I very much disliked puzzles that require manual labor (the ones that take a long time to do -- e.g., fishing keys out of something). This is because, depending on your team comp, you can get this done relatively quickly, or you can get stuck on doing this for more than a few minutes, which takes away from actual puzzle solving. Overall, it was okay. But there's one particular puzzle in this room that made this room one of my least favorite of all time. I really hope they revamp this room (and the storyline for that matter).

Wild West: Locked up in the local jail, we had to make our escape before the sheriff returned. Asylum: The inmates are running the asylum and our goal was to get out fast. Perfect Crime: Like the board game Clue only better. Who done it? When? With what weapon? Where? We had to figure it all out. PanIQ San Jose is a welcome addition to the San Jose escape room scene. They had only been open a week when we played all three of their rooms. We are happy to report that the experience was top-notch from start to finish. The waiting room was neat and tidy. All of the gamemasters were efficient and friendly. We started our day in the Wild West room and were immediately impressed with the quality of the set design. This room and the other two rooms were perfectly decorated to theme. The sturdy construction made for a great user experience. There was enough searching to make the game fun, but not so many props and so much furniture to prove overly distracting. The game play proceeded smoothly in a simple linear fashion. We did not easily escape, but the puzzles were logical and relatively straight-forward. We completed each game with ten minutes or less to spare and struggled a bit as a result of our own mistakes. The game master helped guide us with hints to keep our game perfectly on pace. We really enjoyed the mix of mechanical, kinesthetic, logic, deductive reasoning and symbol puzzles. Honestly we loved PanIQ room and will highly recommend it to all of our friends. We have played so many poor or middle of the road escape rooms lately that we were pleasantly surprised by our overall awesome experience at PanIQ room. Go play here!

I didn't like that the room had some red herrings.

I wasn’t a fan of this room. There are puzzles that simply don’t make sense. Two of our members spent 30 minutes on a single maze/coordination puzzle — they were beyond frustrated. The room is creepy, especially the beginning.