East End Express - Bad Guy

We like the idea of this room where you can pick from two scenarios. We did Good Guys back in March. We preferred that one over Bad Guys. The puzzles were a bit more of a stretch on this version. What I did like is that it was completely different puzzles from the other version. It’s a really good idea to be able to theme one room with two different stories. Still one of our favorite escape room companies.

It is hard to give a room with this company a bad rating because we really love what they do, but we had an awful experience with this version of this room. We really struggled to find anything positive with this version of the room beyond the basic design and theming. The puzzles, especially compared to the other version of the room, were awful content-wise and in execution. It seemed very haphazardly thrown together to make some effort to connect it to the storyline. Puzzles did not really have any apparent logic to their order, and, at times, it was difficult to discern what information met criteria to be included in a puzzle response and what did not. We had an issue with our game master just giving us the answers to puzzles we hadn't even reached, which was also frustrating. The final nail in the coffin of our experience with this game was that we were given a key that stuck in the lock but didn't open the lock. We requested help several times, but no one came (just directed us to the lock). Ultimately, the key broke off in the lock as we tried to manipulate it, and we just stood there shrugging at the camera until the game master saw we weren't progressing. When we asked what might have happened with the key, we were just dismissed. We had very high expectations for this room after playing the other version (and having many other great experiences with this company). This just wasn't it for us.

For this game we picked yes which is the bad guys. Our group enjoyed playing as the bad guys better than playing the good guys. You can technically play either game before the other one.

We played both versions of this and really liked both. Obviously, whichever you do second is faster, even though there isn't any overlap, but they're both cool. We actually disagree on our favorite, we each liked different version most. There's a good mix of puzzles and styles, from some are very brain heavy and some are very physical. It's cool to see both in the same game, and they're well spaced. Love the way the story flows, too.

My least favorite experience from Memphis Escapes. Extremely good atmosphere but the puzzles just all seemed extremely obtuse. Multiple times my group got frustrated by puzzles in this room which is rare for us. I wonder if this is a syndrome of a room being two track or the day we played we just all were off our game. I still would recommend this experience with the caveat that this company has better offerings.

This was a fun room! We did the “good” track this time. There were some neat puzzles; however, this got downgraded in my mind because several of the puzzles were non-intuitive

This was my second time playing this room, and my complaint for the second track is the same as my complaint for the first: there are too many oblique puzzles that expect you to be able to intuit things that are non-intuitive. That being said, there are also some really cool and unique puzzles that we loved!