The One About Escape Rooms

Just as you can’t judge a book by its cover, you also can’t judge an escape room by the size of its budget and its intricate set design. This was the lesson I learned this past month after visiting two very different escape rooms. Escape Story in Lisle, IL and Mind Trap Escape Games in Montgomery, IL both contained some fun, awe-inspiring moments, but proved that clever puzzle design is at the core of a great escape room experience. Without it, even the most impressively decorated rooms will leave you frustrated and disappointed.

Escape Story’s Indiana Jones room did not instill me with hope for an exciting evening upon my group’s initial entrance. Two small rooms were sparsely decorated to be some sort of Indiana Jones museum with some cheap replica weaponry, a desk, and some other unexciting decorations. I didn’t feel immersed in anything other than a decorated office space. However, after a few minutes of gathering clues and solving puzzles, I began to appreciate how varied the puzzles were. There were a couple of combination locks, sure, but not many compared to the other clever puzzles I won’t spoil here.

The use of technology in some of the puzzles was surprising and exciting, leading to some moments that filled every single one of us with a child-like sense of wonder and exploration. By the time we escaped, we were giddy with the fun of it all. Those in the group who had never done an escape room before were especially enthusiastic. The set design may have looked cheap, but the puzzles and fun surprises made this escape room worth every penny we spent.

Fresh off the high of Escape Story’s Indiana Jones room, I organized another group to try another escape room a couple weeks later. I was looking for a room that would immediately catch our attention with its theming and set design and show some more escape room virgins the incredible potential this type of entertainment could have. I settled on Mind Trap Escape Games’ Doctor Death room. Mind Trap is owned by Massacre Haunted House and seems to pride itself in its elaborate and immersive sets. Not only would the room’s theming be impressive, but we’d also get a live scare actor to add to the intensity of it all. I was beyond excited.

First impression were incredibly strong. The lighting was atmospheric and every inch of the room was designed to make us feel trapped in some murderous doctor’s layer. Let the games begin! I hit the ground running when the timer started, immediately sticking my hands in the dark holes that others were less inclined to explore. Fortune favors the bold, right? There were some great and spooky moments in this room that had me laughing with glee (and some others recoiling in fear). Doctor Death’s sporadic jump scares were also a highlight, even if I do feel that the character could have been used in more interesting ways than bursting through a door and yelling. One more strength of this room worth mentioning is how expansive it is. By the time we were done, I counted at least five rooms connected in interesting ways. There was even a shortcut to make traversal less of a hassle.

Despite all these elements that I adored, the room left me disappointed, and not just because we didn’t escape. Unlike Escape Story’s Indiana Jones room, most of the puzzles involved a four digit combination lock. There were so many of these, in fact, that most of our time was spent running around trying numbers we had found in one of five or six different places that took a four digit combination, never quite sure whether the number we had found was incorrect or simply input into the wrong lock. Compounding our frustration was how dark some of the rooms were. It was creepy, sure, but more often than not it just interfered with our puzzle-solving. There were a couple of clever puzzles and cool surprises for sure, but overall the puzzles felt lazy. Unlike the Indiana Jones room, there was little value to splitting up and solving different puzzles. This room felt much more linear. If you get stuck on one puzzle, there isn’t much else to work on. We could have asked for clues via the walkie-talkie given to us at the beginning, but for the first twenty to thirty minutes, our walkie-talkie wasn’t working. An employee had to come in and fix it mid-game, breaking the immersion a bit.

I have one last criticism. All three escape rooms I have done have employed red herrings to some degree, a non-clue that certainly seems like a clue. That’s fine. However, the Doctor Doom room was absolutely filled with elaborate red herrings that led nowhere. These red herrings seemed to promise some of the most interesting puzzles of the night, but ended up just feeling like padding to distract from the small number of actual interesting puzzles.

I didn’t hate Mind Trap’s Doctor Death room. In many ways, I had a blast. I enjoyed the tense atmosphere and a couple of jump scares got me pretty dang good. Still, I left disappointed. As I’ve reflected on these two experiences I have started to understand more what makes an escape room good. Admittedly, I’ve only done three escape rooms in total now and am nowhere near being an expert on this topic. However, I now know I’ll take clever puzzles over elaborately designed sets in a heartbeat.

Fortunately, there are escape rooms that excel at both. My first escape room experience was the Sasquatch room from Escape the Netherworld in Atlanta, GA. Escape the Netherworld, like Mind Trap, is owned by a well-respected haunted house with a large budget. The difference here is that the puzzles were varied and creative, challenging much more than your ability to connect the four numbers found on a piece of paper with a combination lock. The goal of the game wasn’t even to escape. Instead, hidden among the clues (including an audio recording) a narrative began to immerge. Our ultimate goal was to right a wrong through an ancient ritual, not just unlock the last door.

On top of fun and interesting clues the room was also incredibly immersive. Every prop looked and felt authentic. The lighting was eerie, but it didn’t interfere with our ability to look for clues. There was even impressive and startling use of animatronics! The icing on the cake was our gamemaster, not content to sit quietly in another room until we asked for a clue. Instead, he played a character within the narrative, constantly chatting with us in a way that felt natural rather than annoying. My favorite escape room memory will forever be his flabbergasted admonishment of “Camper, that is disgusting!” when I stuck my hand down into a toilet to grab an item, not noticing the net hanging on the wall in front of me. All in all, Escape the Netherworld’s Sasquatch room was the perfect blend of immersion and fun puzzles that caused me to fall in love with escape rooms. If you’re ever in the Atlanta area, I highly recommend checking it out.

As with all types of entertainment, escape rooms exist on a spectrum of quality that is fairly subjective. It all depends on what you are looking for in an escape room experience. Some are more immersive than others. Some are more fun than others. Some are scarier than others. Try a few and find out what YOU like. For me, I’m just getting started in the world of escape rooms, but I think I now know what to look for.

Escape Story: https://www.escapestorychicago.com/en

Mind Trap Escape Games: https://mindtrapescaperooms.com

Escape the Netherworld: https://www.escapethenetherworld.com