Mafia Heist

I feel like every review here mentions it, but the set design for this room is top tier. There were quite a few sets and I feel like, for the most part, the flow between the rooms were good. When you moved to a new set, it fit within the story. The puzzles were hit or miss for me. I feel like most of the puzzles in the second room were really fun, but went down from there. There were also broken items in the room. The hallway puzzle had lights that would turn on and off, flicker, etc. which left us puzzled if we were right. We’re pretty certain that, after a while, the GM just triggered the door opening from that puzzle. We had a lock that we were certain was correct that wouldn’t open and the GM had to come in the room and basically twist and yank the lock off, which went above the “no brute force” rule we were given at the beginning (and in most escape rooms). The communication between the GM and us was lack-luster. They use a walkie-talkie system, but, with the loud music, both sides had trouble hearing each other. I also feel like our GMs weren’t super attentive. We wasted quite a bit of time with the stuck lock, which bottle-necked us because we finished all the other puzzles in the room and what was inside was needed for the final thing to move to the next set. Some of the puzzles were not super intuitive. No spoilers but there was a moment where you needed to backtrack that wasn’t explained, a puzzle that we unlocked once that should have opened a door that we were told we needed someone to push on (that we then needed to re-complete the puzzle, which took time because it was a sequence of screens that held on the screen for a while. Just a bit annoying and another time-waster). The lighting could also have used some work in some areas. In the first part of the last set, it was really hard to see what we learned at the end would have been necessary for one of the final clues. The ending also felt a bit lack-luster as a team who didn’t finish. The GM just came in and tossed down the photo elements. It would have been cool if there were maybe police sirens and a voice like “put down the ring!” Or something in-game that made it clear the game was over and we didn’t make it out. We had so much time wasted with the broken/finicky tech that made it annoying that we were so close to the end but, honestly, after the explanation of the final room at the end, I don’t think we would have made it out regardless if all our tech worked. I rate this a like for the set design/story, but I feel like the tech issues and unsupportive GMs made this a lower like for me.

Rating: 3.5/5 - Mixed feelings about this room, I had high expectations because of the TERPECA Finalist status but lot of it was a bit disappointing. It feels like a typical haunt owner company where the set is great but the puzzles are lacking. Pros: ➕Fantastic, immersive set. It's very large with tons of areas, special effects and cool reveals. ➕High tech with minimal padlocks Minor things that could be better: ➖A handheld radio was required to communicate with GM, it was very hard to hear ➖Nothing to write on, some puzzles could use it ➖Many areas were too dark with no lights provided ➖It's a fairly long room and 75 min feels rushed, would be better as a 90 min room ➖GM felt distant and not very friendly or helpful ➖Flow wasn't great with bottlenecks and backtracking required Cons: ➖Multiple issues like a stuck padlock and stuck door which wasted a lot of our time. ➖Finicky tech, some things didn't seem to trigger correctly

The sheer scale and production value of this experience is absolutely amazing. The puzzles are solid and thematic.

For an average team, this room should be 90 minutes to complete it. For an above average team, this room can be completed in the 75 minutes but you will feel rushed. Set design was crazy good. Special effects were on point. The puzzles felt within theme.

You can definitely tell that first and foremost, the people who built this game are haunt builders. One of the most interesting and immersive sets I’ve ever experienced, just like all the other reviews say. However, you can also clearly tell that they’re haunt builders because this game’s puzzles were mostly all bad. I think 80% of them were button pushing or entering a digit code into a keypad. Many of the puzzles had absolutely zero sense of direction and in the later half of the game we basically needed help with everything. There was also a red herring that sunk about 3 minutes of our time because it was obvious we should do something with it and then our game master told us to ignore it. There was a puzzle at the very end that was super cool, but again, no sense of direction to actually get the pieces to complete it. Clue system is done through a walkie talkie as well which I always hate, and we failed on the last puzzle and needed about 2 minutes or so to complete. (Which wouldn’t have been an issue without the clearly placed red herring) TLDR: extremely interesting and immersive set but really really bad puzzles.

We’ve done almost 50 rooms as a family and this is easily one of our favorites. The set is over the top immersive. Really really well done. The tech worked well. The puzzles were fun. Solvable but not easy. We will be trying more rooms at this place. Worth the drive.

An absolutely stunning room. The puzzles are solid, with some pretty interesting ones, but the set was the focus being enormous and dynamic. Hyper- realism was achieved, and sometimes it was a little too easy to disassociate from the puzzles and just waste time admiring the incredible set. That is a mistake because this room has a ton of puzzles and you will have to move efficiently to escape. The puzzles were well integrated, logical,and enjoyable (for the most part), apart from some puzzles that felt bland or just tacked on. The story was good as well. It is mostly linear, so I wouldn’t really recommend more than 5 people because there will be a lot of standing around. Overall, the best room I have done in the Chicagoland area!

This is an interesting room to review. It's a large labyrinthine of a room with some of the highest production values I've seen as well as some very unique aesthetics. However, for a larger group, this room is fairly linear and involved a lot of people watching one smaller set of people solve the individual puzzles. However, for the experience, it is one of the better ones I've done.

Mind blowing how massive in scale and fun factor this room is! Calling it just a “room” is a disservice to Mafia Heist because it feels like an absolute full adventure! The venue isn’t lying when it touts this experience as the biggest Midwest escape room. It spans a ridiculous number of rooms over apparently 2 stories. Which is NUTS! And I loved every minute of this 75-minute juggernaut! We went as a group of 4 and I don’t think we would have escaped with any less than that. The puzzles are no slouch, and require lots of logic, dexterity, and math. They’re mostly good, though there are a few annoying ones that maybe didn’t actually work as intended. The game kept surprising us around every corner. Honestly one of the top games I’ve ever experienced, and one of the top choices for the Chicagoland suburbs! Well done, you mad lads at Mind Trap! Well freaking done!