Jurassic Island

Rating: 2/5 - Cool theme in theory, but execution leaves much to be desired. Pros: ➕Set had some nice props. ➕Multiple areas to explore and decent progression. ➕Many puzzles fit the theme. ➕GM was helpful when needed. Could be better: ➖Longer game time comes with higher expectations for the set and puzzles, they did not meet them. ➖This theme is ambitious but they didn't pull it off that well. Much of the first outdoor area still felt like an office with items placed in a room, like someone temporarily decorated it for Halloween. ➖Many puzzles did not feel intuitive and left us frustrated. ➖Some boxes had multiple locks on it, it makes solving a puzzle unsatisfying since you get no immediate reward. ➖Way too many immersion killing "do not touch" stickers. If the item is not part of the game, then hide it or secure it down so that people can't mess with it. ➖They're old school and require you to lock up your phone and don't allow unlimited hints or nudges. They take themselves a bit too seriously and don't seem to value having fun like most other escape rooms nowadays. Cons: ➖A lot of props and items in the room felt like they were part of a puzzle but were never used, they ended up being red herrings for us. ➖There were more annoying and time wasting puzzles than fun ones. ➖Very Gen 1, almost all padlocks and no tech, only 1-2 electronic locks. This is a newer room made in 2023 so it's disappointing that it has so little tech. ➖Too many 4 digit locks, so you have to try the combination on multiple until you found the right lock. It's higher difficulty so I'd recommend 4-5 players. UPDATE: My ranking of Rugged Xscape rooms I've played, however I don't really recommend any room here, I enjoyed my time a lot more at Mission Breakout Lafayette. 1. The Morgue - 3/5 👍 2. Boiler Room - 2.5/5 👍 3. Vanishing Act - 2.5/5 👍 4. Revenge of Dr. Evil - 2/5 👎 5. Jurassic Island - 2/5 👎

We travelled to Lafayette for three games (at two locations - one room here) and this was my least favorite of the three we played. There was a good chunk of puzzles, and a good variety of them, but many of the puzzles were either no fun (in my opinion) because they were super easy and didn’t require much thinking or there were parts needed that weren’t really unlocked and just hidden randomly around the room (and we used one of our coveted four clues just because we couldn’t find the last hidden item around the room). There were two locked items, in the last room, that each had two locks you needed to use to unlock them. I hate having multiple locks on something - the whole point of finding the code is to unlock something else you can use. We were also told there was a one-and-done system but one of the items we used to unlock one lock just had the word code for the other lock on it. There wasn’t a lot of joy in figuring out the answer. Our group escaped with about 5 minutes left and used all of our clues. This was probably on the lower end of all the rooms I’ve done, but the storyline was pretty interesting and the GM was really friendly. I also liked the touch of teams who complete a room get to sign their wall.

Definitely a great atmosphere room with some fun puzzles! Wish our game master had been a bit more attentive on one puzzle but overall the theme was fun and everything flowed great!