Part 1/2 (See previous reviews for part 2/2)
I've done over 100 escape rooms in Seattle, LA, New Orleans, Houston, and the Bay Area. I actively travel and seek out the best escape rooms in the US, so this review is catered specifically to enthusiasts looking for unique, high quality rooms.
I had heard of this place from various people on the internet saying that this was the newest, hottest escape room in the area, and based off of their website design and pictures of their lobby, I initially had hope that this place would be as immersive as the better LA rooms (such as Quest Rooms) - with this type of graphic design and world building, it really did feel like the owners were going for an amazing immersive experience of that quality.
Lobby / Video Tutorial - 5/5.
And to be fair, the lobby and tutorial video rooms were definitely of this quality. With beautiful props, great sound effects, cool special effects, the intro sequence got me super excited for the game. The pregame experience was definitely among the best of the companies I've seen here and in general. The minute I entered the room though, I immediately knew that I had to reset my expectations, as what I saw clearly was not going to live up to the quality of the intro.
W.O.R.M - low 3/5 (a reasonable, but completely standard escape room. Enthusiasts can take it or leave it).
W.O.R.M is set in a small, effectively single room space with half combination locks/half basic rfid sensors, close to zero story progression/world-building past the intro, a static set with above average aesthetic but very limited interactions, and basic escape room puzzles. Enthusiasts may recognize this as reminiscent of a reasonable somewhat dated standard escape room design, and it was effectively that. This room was fine if you are okay with that, but quite disappointing after the intro, and certainly not of the same level as even the older games of the better companies in the area such as Omescape, Off the Couch, etc.
Story - The premise of travelling forward in time to stop an AI is cool, but once you're in the room, the room follows the standard escape room procedure of completely forgetting that there is a story and omitting any actual plot progression or world building in the game itself. While I've come to expect this from many rooms, it hurts here given the expectations set by the site and lobby. The few vaguely story related points in the room felt arbitrarily placed without much thought for the overall narrative.
The puzzle integration with the story was also not the greatest, and there were some puzzles that didnt really make sense in the context of the story, and were just there to be a part of a puzzle. Again, fine since standard escape rooms do this all the time, but disappointing in the context of the steampunk world that the company created in the lobby.
Set - The set itself looked nice and had a good finish, but it was a fairly static set devoid of the little lore snippets that make the world come alive, and cool special effects/moments that immerse you into the setting. I never felt like I was in the tech leaders cell trying to follow their clues, i was just in a prison themed room doing puzzles.
Puzzles - The puzzles in the room were pretty standard without any twists to enthusiasts. Certain elements were a bit frustrating - the game had a section involving 3 combination locks where it was ambiguous which code belonged to the lock, and you were just supposed to try all of them. The game also contained a red herring or two, which were somewhat annoying but not a huge deal. read more