In the spirit of Halloween, our escape room team (Team Bad Math), decided to take on The Cabin at Escape Woods in Powder Springs on October 30, 2016. Escape Woods is part of Sleepy Hollow Farms, which is a giant 60-acre property about 25 miles west of Atlanta. The farm itself was a good 34-minute drive from my home in Midtown. It's a hike. Once on the property, you have to drive a good bit on dirt roads to get to Escape Woods. At night, there's minimal to no street lighting which, as we drove in, really helped set the eerie mood ahead of time.
Escape Woods has three outdoor escape room games: The Cabin, The Dig, and The Bunker. The Cabin is literally a cabin in the woods. The premise is it belongs to a future serial killer and you're trapped inside. You have one hour before the killer returns to make you his first victim. All the clues you need to escape the cabin are inside.
What I like about this escape room compared to the others I've done (I've played 28 different rooms up to this point) is its realism. Not only do you have to drive to the sticks to a farm, but then you have to drive on a series of dirt roads to get to the entry point on the edge of the woods, then walk through the woods to the cabin itself. It's desolate and seriously out in the middle of nowhere. You're in an actual cabin and it's dirty. You're not in an air-conditioned office building in the city. I barely had any signal on my phone.
Unlike other escape rooms where you get a nice briefing before the timer starts, at The Cabin, you are led into the cabin, the door slams shut, and you're bruskly told you have one hour. The cabin looks just like the type of place where a maniac would hole himself up and live. It's messy, dirty, and filled with all sorts of vile and disturbing stuff (not for kids). Of all the rooms I've done, I've never felt more overwhelmed with the amount of material and potential clues that this room contained -- books, notes, pages, scribblings, pictures, etc. It was a lot to take in and process.
My main gripe with the room is there was too much material and "trash" that deterred from actual clue-finding. Then again, it did help with the realism of the environment and I give a lot of credit to the designers for the work they put in. It's realistic. If you're serious about escaping, you will have to get your hands dirty to search for clues, so be prepared. It was actually so filthy that afterwards, we were blowing dust and lint out of our noses. Gross.
The Cabin regularly costs $31.64 per person ($28 + $3.64 tax per ticket), but I paid $31.50 for two people ($15.75 per person) thanks to my friend who bought a Groupon deal. I think she may have gotten additional discounts on top of the Groupon too. Here's a link to the deal page: https://www.groupon.com/deals/escape-woods. Hopefully, the deals will still be available if you decide to go.
We brought a group of 8, which is the maximum number of people allowed for The Cabin. Due to the small size of the cabin, it did feel a little claustrophobic at times. In fact, I think it may have been easier to solve the room with less people for the simple fact that there would be less of a chance of someone inadvertently physically blocking a clue, which is kind of what happened to us.
Despite all the dirt, dust, and grime, at least the restrooms are nice and clean.
The staff was nice.
In the end, we had a good time and have already talked about coming back to try The Dig and The Bunker. read more