This is the third and fourth of a set of five reviews we are writing for Yelp, for the escape rooms we have done so far in 2021. We did a short series of reviews back in January this year, and were a little worn out with writing reviews back then - but we're finally up to talking about our most recent five escape experiences!
More than once we're so glad we live in Long Beach, which is just about equidistant to Los Angeles and Orange County - and lately, we've taken to driving almost two and half hours (depending on traffic, DoT) just to play rooms that don't require us having our masks on the entire hour. We have our favourite rooms, and if you haven't tried Boss Play yet, you must! The Chocolate Factory (Yelped) was a fantastic experience, so much so when we decided to do Prohibition Ransom, it was just to see what new spin they managed to put on a somewhat standard theme.
Here, the speakeasy set-up is a front for a hostage situation, whereby we find ourselves the new hostages of kidnapper "Machine Gun" Kelly, after his original victim, Millionaire Oil Man Charles Urschel escaped. The mobsters demand that we find the millionaire's cash and liquor reserves within 60 minutes ... or else!
As previously mentioned, parking here is free, in a covered lot, and the coded bathroom outside the business on the same floor is clean. There is a pub downstairs, but the town center is just down the freeway a little if something more substantial is called for.
Right from the start, Prohibition Ransom takes us to the set of an Elliot Ness movie. The puzzles are a hoot with the "it's-right-there-in-front-of-you" mixed in with the "I-couldn't-see-it-even-if-you-put-it-in-front-of-me" variety - and you can sense is a trademark about the rooms. You can tell that these rooms are meaningful and personal to the developer, and they have a very different feel to the franchise rooms of the bigger businesses. In fact, playing a Boss Play room is like playing in an old friend's house. We felt comfortable very quickly, and we've never pressed for time. Jeremy, the boss (haha) and also our game master this time clearly loves his business, both as a player and a game designer, and we had a lot of fun talking with him about the other games we've all played.
The room was not high-tech the way the franchise rooms are, but using a pencil and paper to sort things out is no less challenging. There are a number of really good effects, and we didn't have to worry about finishing the room too early and not getting as much bang for our buck that way, because the room won! We are more than fine with not making a full escape out of a room because, for us, the fun is in just playing, but we really appreciated Jeremy letting us stay for an additional few minutes to finish the game, since a big part of each experience is seeing how each room is designed and built.
Neutrino 42 is memorable for us partly because it's our first space-themed room. We are Trekkies, so we were anticipating some kind of holodeck glitch or something, going by the description on their web site: we are supposed to be Reuleaux Rebellion spies assigned on the prisoner transport ship, Neutrino 42! Our mission is three-fold: to our cryo-chamber imprisonment, intercept the enemy battle plans and end the evil reign of the Third Realm - and I don't know what we were expecting, but we were not expecting quite as much hands-on fun as we had!
Aspen, our game-host, was fantastic in helping us through all the puzzles and various tasks. We found ourselves not so much on the holodeck of a starship as at the helm of one. Right from the start, the adrenaline pump was set and the excitement never let up. We had a heart-stopping 62 minutes that got our pulses up more than a space ride in a theme-park!
Thank you, Aspen!
The best part about playing in Oceanside, of course, is not being required to play with a mask on! Civilisation, indeed! Especially for Neutrino, since we had to crawl some and use our physical muscles as well as our minds. It was also a very good test for team-building: for one thing, that's exactly how we would be expected to work in a real-life (threatening) situation on a space ship. It's especially enjoyable for us, two empty-nesters, because one of us (the empath) is totally non-conversant in space techno-lingo, so having to work through all that final frontier jargon was certainly a bonus.
Loved Neutrino 42. If you live in Oceanside and haven't tried it yet, you must! So, we had a great time - and once we get a chance, we will be hitting their second location. It's worth the drive just to be able to breathe normally while playing a good game! read more