The Haunted Hotel

This place is an extremely mixed bag. It did enough right that it would feel wrong to give them a thumbs down but man this place is juuust barely earning this thumbs up. TLDR: looks fantastic, plays terribly. The sets are beautifully crafted. I had read that they were designed by the scenic team at Sleep No More, so no surprise there. Everything feels old, grimey, gross, and perhaps even a little bit haunted. There was one particular prop that looked brand new and felt very anachronistic as well as a few other props that could use some maintenance. The atmosphere is excellent. From the second you step off the elevator you enter into a different world and your adventure starts right away. Unfortunately that is where the good stuff ends. The puzzles REALLY drag this place down. I personally prize sets and immersion high above puzzles but damn did this place remind me how important good, logical, intuitive puzzle flow is to creating a satisfying, and fun, experience. For context, we played as a group of three. Experience ranging from 60 rooms to 290. We played on hard mode, which means you get three clues total, standard stuff. If you choose easy or medium, they will automatically feed you clues at set time intervals. I have no pride or shame in receiving clues, I'm just here for a good time and if I need some nudges along the way that is more than welcomed. The puzzles were largely unintuitive and some required some great logic leaps. There were several puzzles we got hung up on, and asked for clues and were given information that was not signposted anywhere in the room. When you get a clue you want to feel like "Oh duh, OF COURSE it's that. That is so clever!" not "wait... how were we supposed to get that?" We never were able to get into a good flow and build momentum. We completed about 70% of the room within the hour. Our GM told us that they only have a 30% success rate and the majority of teams that fail make it about as far as we did or slightly before. Whether that is true or he was just trying to make us feel better, who knows. Typically when a place brags about low escape rates that is a red flag for bad room design, and sadly I think that is the case here. Perhaps more brains to try and make the tenuous connections between clues would be beneficial. I don't think having a larger team would have helped much as we spent long stretches standing around searching the room over and over again trying to figure out what we missed. At the conclusion of the room our GM told us that we could be entered to win a free room if we leave a 5 STAR review on Google. The drawing is once a month. I hate when companies try to bribe people like this and it's another reason why it is hard to trust google reviews. Praise be unto Morty!

Did this room in a party of 2 and got 70% of the room complete with ... a lot of clues (2 clues every 10 minutes). I'd rate the overall experience 3.5 stars out of 5, the service and venue professionalism and theme boosting the rating. The puzzles themselves were not bad, but were rather difficult to get started with. I love how thematic the room and the whole experience from entering the lobby was. Brainxscape seems to do everything they can to make the experience as immersive as possible (not displaying a countdown timer and instead using a system of listening to the dong every ten minutes, not meeting the game master until the very end, reading the clues off of a very old TV, etc.) The theme really make this experience memorable, but I was disappointed at how we weren't able to proceed ourselves on anything without asking for clues to get us started and even pieces parts of the puzzle together. The puzzles were good for the most part, but I think they could've been a bit more intuitive. Or maybe it would've helped to have at least an extra person in our party. We were missing pieces/props of a puzzle, which made solve the puzzle impossible, so we had to rely on clues to get passed it. Missing key props made the experience more confusing and caused us to waste time unnecessarily. Overall, good experience. Not the smoothest escape room because of the missing props, but the immersion and theme were really good. Game master was also very nice. He was patient and answered all our questions at the end during the debrief even though there was another party waiting to do the room right after us.

Beautiful set. Awful puzzles.

possibly my favorite room ever. had great theming (which was really the standout of the room) and the puzzles were tricky and complicated without requiring too much of a leap in logic for three (fairly experienced) escape room players. i’d recommend elevator to hell over this one at this location for those who are less experienced with escape rooms but for those who are more experienced you won’t be disappointed

The set design is the star here, as you are immersed into the haunted atmosphere. Nothing too scary, as this is not a horror room. I loved the creative and authentic way of giving hints. I completed this alone, as I was traveling solo, but barely.

The set design was amazing! The atmosphere and props were really intricate and immersive. 10/10 on that front. One thing I don’t like is when the timer is indicated by a noise every x # of minutes, which was the case with this room. I just like to see my timer and how much time I have left. I also felt some of the puzzles were not good; they lent easily to going down rabbit holes on a puzzle mechanic, making the payoff less satisfying. More puzzles with more straightforward solves would improve the room. All in all, great spooky atmosphere, but frustratingly difficult puzzles. Rip.

One of the harder rooms I’ve done but so much fun! Big rooms with an interesting layout

Fun set but puzzles felt frustrating at times

I played this room by myself: it’s 100% linear, so playing with more than 2-3 people is probably not advisable unless you are okay watching. The set was well done and the background audio is quite immersive. The puzzles are a mixed bag: there is logic behind them, but sometimes it is a bit inscrutable. Don’t be precious about it: just take hints if you’re stuck. Besides, the way you get the hints is really cool. I would actually have liked a bit more story: the final step you take to finish the room is quite obvious and you will definitely do the right thing, but I didn’t really understand why doing that specific thing was what saved the day. In any case, I had a good time.

I had high hopes for this venue. The set design was really good. But the story and the gameplay was atrocious. I have done 150+ rooms and I thought Rikers and this room would have been in my top 50 for sure. The puzzles were highly illogical in most cases and we constantly had to get a nudge because of this. I’m not even sure there was a proper story to understand and the ending was so weak we didn’t even realize it was over.