Panda
521 escape rooms
This is more of a scavenger hunt than an escape room, as the name implies. So it’s very different. You start out spending about a half hour or more walking around the mall. Then you have less than 10 minutes to use the intel you’ve acquired to complete a very, very miniature escape room. It’s a fun concept, though I kinda wish there were more puzzling and interaction involved with the actual scavenger hunt. For the most part, we were just solving basic riddles about stores around the mall. Which brings me to my plot twist… this mall is mostly abandoned. The mall being mostly “abandoned” is not on purpose by the escape room facility. The particular mall just happened to be on its last dying breath after years of neglect following the pandemic. Since almost every store was closed, we had to use the directory to find out where some places used to be. And then some parts of the room itself broke on us, including the final puzzle, leading to an anti-climatic end. But bizarrely, I liked it all because I had a very personal connection to this mall. Plot twist, but this was my childhood mall, so witnessing the now dead mall as I walked around looking for clues that were placed when the mall was once active was kinda unsettling, like a plot to an apocalypse movie. But it was also cathartic to give the mall a final send off in its last days. In the end, the room is going away because the mall is going away. Even as the Challenge Accepted company hopefully moves elsewhere and does bigger and better things with new rooms, I don’t know how this specific experience could be replicated especially for me. I don’t think this scavenger hunt is for everyone, not even me. However, all the puzzle pieces aligned for me to appreciate the journey of this hunt experience even more than the finale of the room itself. To greener pastures for this escape room company, and to a fitting farewell for my once beloved childhood mall.
Gameplay
Very different but fun if not simple
Atmosphere
The room itself was basic, but the mall outside is certainly mostly an abandoned mall
Customer service
Particularly interesting or different
Yes
Scavenger hunt throughout a (dead) mall and a 10-minute finale challenge
Story
There were fun videos and a CUTE acronym
Difficulty
Medium
Game tech
Mechanical
Scary
Not scary
Was anything broken?
Yes
Last puzzle key broke and a machine midway didn’t work either… don’t know how we could have gotten through it if it weren’t for the helpful staff
Live actors
No
Physically active
Very
Walking around the entire time
Accessibility
Color puzzles
Easy to find location
No
Parking
Easy
