Well! This experience was quite different from all our previous escape games. First a short blurb about our group, really only a duo. We are empty-nesters, except on the occasions our daughter is in town - or we are in town with her - and our biggest gripe (and brag) is that we have played our games primarily NOT in Long Beach, which is, what, the seventh largest city in California by population and has been trying to find ways to preserve and enhance the Queen Mary experience (so many cabins!!), and only has two escape room businesses in the area?! "The Queen" with Escape Long Beach (previously reviewed), gave us a really immersive hour that has been hard to top, but "The Game Parlor" with Ultimate Escape's Airstream in Shoreline Village was well worth the time and money spent.
Getting to Shoreline Village was super convenient and easy since we live here, and although we don't like paying for parking and usually play only when we don't have to, but since we were going to be in Shoreline Village anyway, we decided to go ahead and smile while paying the $8.40 for the hour.
Then, we come to the first cool thing about this game: it is designed to be played entirely inside a refurbished recreational (haha!) vehicle! We see it right there at the parking lot, and we know exactly how big it is! No wondering if we will ever get out of room after room after room! Any minuses that comes with this ingenious set up turned out to be either something not relevant to our experience ( we did not need to use the restrooms which were the public restrooms in the village) or a plus (there was no lobby, which meant we did not have to sit through a pre-recorded introductory video. They are cute to watch sometimes, but after more than 50 games, it's nice to just skip it and go straight to the game). We were also able to sign a waiver for our game ahead of time, so we did not have to fumble about doing that on site.
I have to be honest about completely forgetting what our assignment for "The Game Parlor" was the second our lovely game master Madelyn (sp?) left us to the blinking timer. According to the website, we are detectives who are supposed to find a number of people the criminal mafia masquerading itself as a mobile game room company is holding hostage after they fall for the lure of fun games in a mobile game room vehicle, who, once loaded, are never seen again ... In the course of our hour, our task is to find out HOW they are incapacitating the hostages, WHERE they are taking them, and WHO their Big Boss is. What actually happened at our game was that we got into the puzzles and décor of the room before the door even shut on us!
The puzzles were really clever and there were a number of unusual but still in-theme puzzles. For it to be a small room, you would expect a lot of locks, but that was not the case: the number & diversity of the locks was just right. In fact, "The Game Parlor" made really good use of a small space and it was not claustrophobic at all. There was no crawling required for any of the games, but we felt like we had a good work out, even so! We would call it a mid-tech room where we felt pretty immersed in during our whole time there, especially since we like traditional games. The high-tech elements had to be reset twice for us, probably due to frequent use, but it in no way hindered our enjoyment of the game. The best part about the game was that the number of red herrings was kept to a minimum, much like its economical use of space. We blame ourselves and only us for being so engrossed in the little cute stuff and being stuck on the last puzzle just as our time ran out - although, maybe, passwords should be no longer than ... one word!
"The Game Parlour" is the perfect add to Shoreline Village. The slightly lower cost of the game offset the cost of parking, and the size of room is perfect for 2-3 people, although 4 may be a little tight. Madelyn took good care of us all through the game and we were so happy with our photos. The big surprise for us is that our games are actually logged with Escape Games Global, and we already did seven with them! It is nice to see all our triumphs and stumbles in one place. Although when they sent us the link to review our game, it took us to The Ultimate Games - Ventura, I am keeping my review in the Long Beach venue. We can't wait to try their other locations! read more
