Witch's Hollow

This is a really interesting game. The first act is absolutely phenomenal, and then the game gets to the main second act. While still very strong in a cool nonlinear fashion, the puzzles feel 75% complete. There’s great intention behind them and some super novel ideas, but the puzzles feel a little incomplete. There’s some detail or something holding each of them back from truly being standout, resulting in some confusion. Additionally, there are some clues that literally revolve around the game master telling you what to do, which takes you out of the experience a little bit, because there was no cluing for what you were supposed to do. However, those are all minor nitpicks, and the room is very strong overall. While I do prefer The Boring Office, this is one worth playing if you’re at Stained Hourglass Escapes.

This was our second escape room at Stained Hourglass and well worth the wait for it to open. Despite the Salem-obligatory witch theme, I didn’t find the room overly kitchy, and Stained Hourglass thankfully avoided the gory-silicone-body-parts type of design; the room works well for families and those averse to gore. They made some really cool choices with how the room starts and how you interact with the puzzles and the GM; just like The Boring Office, it at times called to mind much bigger and super high-end rooms like Escaparium’s Wardrobe for sale. The puzzle design was varied and flowed satisfactorily with few bottlenecks, and there was laughter and delight along the way to the end. Clearly this team is very talented, and we can’t wait to play their third room!

Witch’s Hollow has been on our list as a group of escape room players for a while. So I’ll sort out some likes and dislikes: Likes: - Excellent theming - though for a town steeped in actual witchcraft and magic, I would love to see them steer away from stereotypes. - Different Puzzles - nice variety of puzzles. - GM/Live Actor - talented and attentive. Dislikes: - Too small - With a group of five, there’s too many hands to actually participate in like half the puzzles. I was shoved out multiple times and gave up trying to participate- not my group mates, the physical space and the number of puzzles wasn’t set up for five adults. - Brute Force Puzzle - I like to think out how a puzzle could work before actually touching all the buttons. For one puzzle, there’s zero indication of what to do… - Event Triggers - You play a game with the live actor, but there’s no actual trigger for it. You just wait for the actor to offer the event.

Absolutely fantastic game. My group has done 30-40 rooms, and this is easily in our top three or five. Do it! MJ was a great and hilarious GM!

The highlight of this room for me was interacting with the GM's character at various points in the game. I'm not sure whether to count this as a character interaction, as the GM was never actually in the room with us, but the banter and characterization was funny. The other main thing that stood out was the props and set - everything we interacted with was satisfyingly detailed, which helped sell the immersion of being in another space. In particular, some books had a surprising magical effect to them which I haven't seen before and was a real "Wait, how did you do that?!" moment for me. There was also a room transition effect which was novel to me and seemed more magical and surprising than a simple door opening. I will caveat this praise because the rooms felt a little big for the contents (i.e. too much open floor space) -- I suppose this is good for larger groups, though, so small enthusiast groups might not be the designed-for audience. Along the same lines, as an enthusiast, I would have liked to see a few more puzzles; perhaps in the starting room, which felt underutilized. One thing I've started to nerd out about post-game with GMs is scalable difficulty: the ability to cut puzzles on the fly so that less experienced groups are more likely to finish. This game has a couple shortcuts designed in, so I'd have no hesitation recommending this room to new players.

So after we replayed Boring Office (highly recommended) with a friend who had not played it yet, we played Witch’s Hollow. Such a great time, fun puzzles and detailed sets. A lot of fun surprises await!

We have done dozens of escape rooms. This one was a surprisingly fresh experience for us. Thoughtful puzzles with “ohhhhh!” And “aha!” moments and excellent theming and technical effects. Really fantastic, engaging game master (thank you MJ!)

Our visit to Witch’s Hollow was very last minute, but it was a worthy addition. Stained Hourglass is quickly becoming one of the best companies in mass, with both games excelling at tactile, epiphany-driven solves. Like The Boring Office before it, the puzzles in Witch’s Hollow are baked so deeply into the set and story, a perfect blend of puzzle solving and narrative-driven gameplay. While the world of the former was a little more unique, that isn’t to say this room was less spirited. The game is largely nonlinear and perfect for larger groups of inexperienced players (or small groups of more experienced players). My favorite interactions felt like being in a classic adventure game, with the set reacting in interesting and exciting ways. My only critiques are pretty minor. I would have loved some more small interactions to build up to some of the cooler interactions, just a little more linearity to create smaller progression as well. Another, which is also pretty minor, would be to funnel the solves into a some kind of meta puzzle, at least, something slightly more complicated than the finale (not that the final interaction wasn’t good, it could just be gated with a little more complexity). This critiques are analyzing the game from a more detailed perspective, and do not mar an otherwise shining example of immersive game design. I am dying to see what this company puts out next!