The Founder's Secret

Let me get the easy stuff out of the way first. The Founder’s Secret is an excellent escape room; likely the best in the Twin Cities. If you value great sets, a very cool environment, an unending series of unique interactions, and well-designed puzzles, this is the game for you. It is not necessarily committed to telling a traditional beginning-to-end story, but if you pay attention, there is a lot of environmental storytelling and lore that will help you solve the room. Run, don’t walk, etc. However, no single entry in Morty can capture what (IMO) makes the Lodge at Lazarus Crowe so uniquely special, so I’m going to use this review as my soapbox, because I think this may be the most structurally innovative escape room location in the US right now, and if you don’t pay attention you might miss it. The Lodge of Lazarus Crowe makes extremely creative use of their (very unique) space, with each of their experiences weaving in and out of the corridors of the collection of this secret society. The more traditional "investigations" proceed from the corridors into more traditional escape rooms, while their "field work" and "stay and play" experiences stay in that liminal space. By doing this, the Lodge creates a world that is full of intrigue - why is that person staring at that painting? how do *I* get to interact with that cool prop? - where it's never clear what is just decor and what is actually part of a puzzle (minor spoiler: it's all part of *some* puzzle). To me, the true magic of the Lodge is not just from playing any one game, or even all of the more traditional rooms, but from the incremental surprise and delight of learning how the different elements layer together to form a more complete whole. Some of that comes from playing the investigations, but at least as much comes from the non-traditional experiences. I found The Alchemy Lab, A Brief Case, A Fatal Claw, and Initiation to all be consistently well-written and -edited with fun and satisfying solve paths. And that is my main advice: don’t assume that the field work and stay and play experiences are “less-than” their more standard escape rooms. Even if you just space out your rooms and plan to spend a few hours of downtime at the Lodge, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.

What a great room and the puzzles were wonderful and unique.

This room is a must-do in the Twin Cities area—and preferably the first room you do at The Lodge at Lazarus Crowe story-wise bc it’s a good intro to the founding. The entire experience was great from start to finish, but how you gain access into the room is a truly unique and fun part of the experience. We loved the variety of puzzles in this room and just overall how much of the space we got to interact with. We also enjoyed the need for teamwork! We did this room as 2 enthusiasts and got done in a little under 60 mins for this 75-min experience. Pro Tip: If there’s down time between escape rooms, you can hang out in their bar/cafe and grab drinks (they have good mocktail and non-alcoholic drink options!) and play board games you can check out for free.

The location and the entire experience getting into the room itself was fantastic and immersive. We barely made it in time but mostly due to an error which left us spinning in circles for 30 minutes.

This room is incredible! Would recommend as maybe a second or third room to experience at Lazarus Crowe just based on gaining more lore knowledge, but would be ok if you wanted to dive in head first as well. You won't be disappointed with this one!

Top to bottom fantastic. Incredible use of space, fantastic props and using mechanics and game design that I’ve never seen before! Possibly the best escape room I’ve ever done. Three cheers to Lazarus Crowe!

Definitely doable with two people if you keep a reasonable pace. GM was awesome, love some of the novel elements of this location and would highly recommend! Building is pretty warm, bring some ice water or a neck fan if you're sensitive to heat. I absolutely plan on doing the other rooms here!