My boyfriend and I booked the Disappearance at Fogmore Mansion last minute so we could attempt the room with just the two of us. We've done over 20 escape rooms and have successfully escaped almost all of them. Since it was just two of us, our game master asked if we'd like some helpful nudges in the right direction to help us get through the game, which we gladly agreed to.
I really wanted to like this escape room, but from the beginning this experience ended up being one of the most frustrating escape games we've ever played. We began our game in basically pitch blackness, unsure what we were supposed to do. We almost pulled our phones out to use as flashlights until the game master came back in because he had forgotten to light the candles that would allow for any visibility. Not off to a great start.
The puzzles in this room were different than anything we've ever seen before, mostly because they required a lot of reading that takes up much of the time. Some of the technology involved in some of the puzzles was pretty cool, however, we got stuck on one of the puzzles for the better part of 20 minutes to the point where we were getting frustrated both with each other and the room. The game master eventually asked if we wanted help, which we said yes. It didn't seem like the game master had been watching our game at all and basically lead us back to part of the puzzle we had already solved, which took us back probably another 5-10 minutes. The hints the game master gave weren't really hints at all, basically telling us to reread things we had already read and solved. Eventually we ended up solving the puzzle on our own and our time was up shortly after beginning the next puzzle.
In our prior experience, it is the game master's job to provide useful clues as to what you are doing incorrectly on a puzzle to prevent feelings of frustration to help you get through the room. This was not the case here and would benefit from generating explicit clues for each puzzle where people typically get tripped up to offer more help other than "reread the riddle".
After failing to escape we were told that we could get a discount to come back and try the room again after only completing ~65% of the room, which we did originally think about doing. However, I don't think I would pay more to repeat this experience. While the puzzles were interesting and different from other escape rooms in the area, the experience as a whole was incredibly frustrating due to the amount of reading and lack of direction we received from the game master and as a result we were underwhelmed. Maybe it was because we booked last minute and the game master may have not been ready for us but I'm sorry to say I wouldn't recommend this room with so many other quality escape games in the area. read more