Kingdom Of Cat-tastrophy

This was a unique room. We’ve done multiple rooms at both locations and this fell right in the middle for me. Omescape is top tier for set design. Sometimes the puzzles really make my brain work extra hard compared to other companies, it sometimes seems like a jump to get to the answer. This room was great for my husband and I. We both were busy the entire time and got to work together so neither missed what the other was working on. We got out in 72 minutes with 1 hint.

Medieval cat room, what’s not to love meow? We actually did this 90 minute room as the 5th in a row of Omescape’s super long games. And although we were tired, we still had a great time because of the fun cat puns, silly humor, and purrfect combo of a cat castle. Some puzzles did feel unintuitive or made no sense, but maybe we were just tired. Room still made me smile! It’s a ridiculous novel premise that just works and it’s easy to love! I only wish we got to see more kittehs! MEOW!

I went through several different phases of anticipation before this game. First: "Oh that sounds so cute!" Second: "Oh no, it better not be Cats the musical themed." And finally: "OKAY IT IS ITS OWN THING. Thank God." Overall, I wish that they took the cat themeing even farther than it actually was, as this game had a very cute premise for cat lovers. Solid room. Nothing about this game felt incredibly novel, but flow, decor, story, puzzles all showcased Omescape's excellent builds. Story felt like there was room for the players to make an impactful choice, but we were unfortunately disappointed by the illusion of choice when there was none. This room contains a lot of sound based puzzles and cues. This can be difficult to navigate due to ambient noise that impacts sensory sensitivity as well as difficult for people who are hard of hearing. Fortunately, players are given a walkie talkie to speak with the GM should they need help with with any information that was played and missed. I always appreciate being able to receive help when it is necessary.

This one did not work for us. A significant amount of the time is spent listening to recorded instructions telling you what to do next, rather than actual puzzle solving. Many intentional red herrings leading to a lot of wasted time and nonsensical puzzle solving. We also had tech issues on one of the last puzzles meaning we got stuck for ten minutes with a broken sensor; eventually the GM just opened the door. In terms of puzzles and game flow, this was a very weak room. The set and theme were fun, and there weren’t too many keypads or locks to take you out of the game (there were still some). Overall I don’t recommend this room – sad for major cat lovers!

Such a fantastic room! Well designed, themed, staff was super kind, great experience!

A great experience! The staff was friendly and helpful and the theme was on point! The puzzles were fun and interesting to solve, and all of the information was presented to us. The room was well built and all of the mechanisms went off with clear indications!

This room had a lot of challenging puzzles, at least for our group of 2 experienced enthusiasts. Some of them really challenged our thinking. When we thought we’d figured it out, it turned out to be something different. So I appreciated the difficulty, but also felt like we needed more hints than we normally would, so I guess it didn’t feel as satisfying as being able to figure it out yourself. But a challenging room is a good thing. I’d definitely put this at a Hard, rather than a Medium, personally. Overall I would recommend this room, but I enjoyed the “Undercooked” and “Forbidden Temple” rooms here more.

This room was not quite a total catastrophe, but a real meh for us. Especially given how great Omescape’s other rooms are. It just didn’t flow well, the story felt forced, and some of the puzzle solutions were unsatisfying. We felt like we spun our wheels needlessly at several points sometimes because we overthought it but sometimes because we didn’t think hard enough. We felt like we were wasting so much time on certain puzzles—but we still got out early! This made us realize that this room is likely 90 minutes not because there’s a lot to do but because it was designed to make you spin your wheels on a few tedious tasks, which isn’t our idea of a fun way to make a 90-min escape room. (Undercooked was fun—that room could be 90 instead of 75!) Also, parts of this room definitely felt like it was designed for exactly 4 people, but other times, 4 felt like a crowd. Overall, the room just felt uneven. We didn’t love the other cat one either at the San Jose location. It’s kinda sad that both of the cat-themed rooms are not the cat’s meow for us—maybe we had higher expectations?

Highly recommend this game.

This was a cute take on a medieval game… the puzzles were clever…