Dracula

2nd time visiting the new Mastermind Schaumburg location and had fun again, with Dracula being an improvement over Titanic. Solid sets in the rooms. All puzzles were fun and fair. Good amount of tech in each of the rooms. Had numerous puzzles where when you complete them, things automatically happen/open, and this brought excitement. Pretty linear room, which we like, so the flow to the room was good. Environment felt spooky but not scary. A couple fun moments and puzzles, and the final sequence was a lot of fun. Gm (Bre) gave us some good nudges along the way. Had a blast with Dracula so we will be going back to Mastermind to do more rooms.

I’ve done other rooms at this location and was disappointed by the low quality of this room. The set design wasn’t bad, however many of the puzzles didn’t make sense. While “Dracula” made his appearance at the end of the game, it was clear that none of the employees knew what Dracula is supposed to look like or probably just didn’t care.

Talk about Dollar Store Dracula! This room had some pluses, but they were few and far between. To start, the ending was cute to vanquish Dracula for good. It was also very anticlimactic, since the room had no audio. The first room looked pretty good, but from then on the build quality dropped and looked cheap and unfinished, which is uncharacteristic of rooms at this location. A ghost puzzle haunted one of the rooms, too. Some puzzles had logical leaps, albeit small, where you will be asking yourself how you were supposed to make that connection. Our GM was nice but sometimes overbearing, she would give too much help when we just wanted to solve things on our own. Some of the tech was finicky, and things got stuck and the game master had to come in to fix it. The puzzle flow was not good and the puzzles were a little bland and pretty boring for the most part. Not terrible puzzles, but nothing standout. One of the locks the code was 4 letters and the game master literally had to tell us that we had the right code but to just change the 4th letter because that’s how it is. They couldn’t find a lock with that particular letter in the last slot. So that was weird. I guess it’s just because at the other mastermind location and with the other rooms here I expected a decent room, but we ended up getting a room that was fun to play just to point out its flaws. And seeing Dracula… the real Dracula does not look like that. You’ll still have fun if you come play, but don’t expect anything like the Titanic Room here or the Jack The Ripper room.

The room was ok but the experience was hampered by the game master. They kept giving us nudges and hints when we didnt ask for any and led us down a wild goose chase where there was nothing because of their error. Also some things in the room didnt work so they had to stop the time and come in the room to solve something for us.

This room sucks… your blood! And I’m all here for that. The room was fun, had some good props, and interesting puzzles. The room gets dark but there is a flashlight, and you can use your phone for that too. Wish the ending was a little more exciting, but we got exactly what we were expecting. Despite the theme, there isn’t anything really scary here, in case you are scaredy cats like us. Certainly a good spooky atmosphere though. This location used to be Odyssey Escape Games, but has changed hands to Mastermind (this is a 2nd location in Schaumburg, IL for them). I’d say this room is one of the better ones for both locations here. We escaped with 2! If you dare face Dracula, get your crosses, holy water, and stakes ready vampire killers!

The atmosphere was wonderfully immersive, with amazing attention to detail in both the set design and soundscape. The puzzles were a perfect mix of high and low tech, and just the right level of challenging to keep things fun and engaging. Between both locations, we’ve done four other rooms, and to be honest, we didn’t love three of them. But The Shed was a standout favorite and now Dracula is too. Both The Shed and Dracula are absolutely worth the trip — they’ve definitely won us over again.