The Gate

We’re usually huge fans of 13th Hour and recommend it to everyone. But the other night doing The Gate, we had one of our worst escape room experiences. The two staff working admitted they were overwhelmed running three games at once, which meant we often went long stretches without clues. This left my wife especially upset and ruined her enjoyment. On top of that, we ran into broken flow with props out of place and puzzles needing to be manually triggered. It made what should have been a fun night stressful and frustrating instead. To make matters worse, we drove nearly an hour from NYC, only to walk away feeling the experience wasn’t worth it. Wrote about all of this in an email (also inquired if we could get a refund/comp towards a future game) but have not heard back. While most of their rooms are amazing, customer service leaves something to be desired here. 👎

Overall, it was a decent room. We just unfortunately had a really bad experience with the game master and set up of the room. I wish the game master let us know before beginning the game that it was her first time being a game master and that she may struggle to respond because she was also overseeing two rooms. We had to wait over 15 minutes for our first hint (it was frustrating not knowing how to receive her attention nor when we’ll receive it), only to receive hints that we already solved… She also placed some of the items in the wrong places that only appeared later in the game, so we were stuck aimlessly wandering for another roughly 15 minutes… If she knew the set-up, she could have easily intervened and corrected herself. Thankfully, JayJay, the other game master who was handling Campground at the time, stepped in from there and was able to help us. Poor guy was essentially overseeing three rooms… Just again, poor communication. A lot of my frustrations could have been alleviated if the situation was let known from the beginning. Also, knowing that they could give us more minutes for the lost times could have also helped.. Some criticisms for the actual game would be a wear-and-tear in lights, a box malfunction, and a red herring.

One of the best escape rooms I’ve ever been to! Quality is fantastic, storyline is great, really gets your brain going, employees are top notch. I will ALWAYS recommend this place to anyone!!!

It was a good room. Had plenty of technical aspects to it with a few number locks. Temple themed. Everything up to date and in working condition. Staff wasn’t very personable. When asking for a clue they gave us a wrong clue because they had switched GMs half way through and didn’t realize where we were in the game. Took a random picture of us when we walked in but not sure why 🤔 Then had to ask them to take our picture at the end when we escaped.

This room was fun but not the best from what we expect at Thirteenth Hour. They took a pre-made room theme that can be bought and spruced it up but overall we didn’t love it compared to the other rooms there. This was their first foray into rooms that aren’t in their “John Hayden” series but I would do those first if you’re a first-timer. The technology aspects of the room were pretty cool, but like Stephanie said - the storyline was unclear.

This room was ok!! This atmosphere is a little more bare bones than I would have liked, and I wish it was a little more built out. I really enjoyed the technical aspects of this room though and thought it was fun and high-tech!

Excellent room from the folks at 13th Hour! Unlike their other rooms (aside from Oz), The Gate is not a creepy horror room. It’s a sci-fi archaeology mash-up that is actually inspired by the movie Stargate. I have seen that film, but honestly, you don’t need to know anything besides that the movie and room cover a juxtaposition of themes that mesh well together. The gameplay was very fun, due to the combination of different elements. There were a few times we got lost, and there was at least one broken lever. But a stellar finale and variety of interesting puzzles gave it a fun adventure feel! Worth doing if you’re already here for the Oz room and/or the other horror rooms!

Loved this room. This was a genuinely fun experience that had me on the floor at the end. Such an interestingly designed room with some difficult puzzles. Some of the puzzles were very unique, thus thinking outside of the box is necessary. Some may find this room lame but I love the theme so much as an Ancient Egypt admirer.

I enjoyed the atmosphere immensely, from the sound design to the lighting, it all fit. A mixture of tech and mechanical puzzles, it had a good mix of things and a lot of great payout from solving puzzles that are largely due to the cool effects. Our game master Brandon was very cool and talked to us a ton about the background and answered all of the questions we had!