River City Escape Room  – Manhattan (Review)

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By: Johnathan Byerly

Location: Richmond, VA

Players: 2-7 (We recommend 3-4)

Price: $25 per person

Time to Escape: 60 minutes

Theme:

To grandmothers house we go! But wait, oh no, the ground rumbles and shakes, could it be thunder? For goodness sake! For it is 1940, and the Manhattan project awaits! Not all may make it out alive, what will be your fates? A bomb is dropping and safety you must find! Before the radiation leaves you all behind…

First Impressions

River City is a long-time favorite of ours, so returning felt comfortable. All new faces, but the same comfortable waiting room and staff. Plus all the Halloween candy we could eat! We were excited to try their newest room, having played all of their previous experiences when possible.

High Points

What a beautiful experience! The set design immediately makes you feel like you’re in grandma’s home, and there are lots of set and prop details that both put you in the location and the time. Props were durable and mostly intuitive to use.

The room is almost entirely linear, but the puzzles are designed well for group work, so not a lot of people crowding around a single item in a scramble of hands and thoughts to figure out a solution. The use of locks and tech felt natural, so this isn’t a room just covered in different types of locks for no apparent reason.

There are a few clever reveals that were both tactile and pleasantly unexpected, opening up the experience as we progressed through the puzzles.

Low Points

As beautiful as the set was, it was also easily the room’s largest pain point (literally). Including multiple levels in the standard office space of about 10 ft vertical made for a lot of stooping, bending, and accidentally banging your head. As someone just over 6ft tall, it was not a comfortable experience.

Take their warning of the room being physically active seriously. If anyone in your group couldn’t navigate the average child’s play space at a fast food restaurant or arcade, they’re not going to be able to fully participate. 

There is a transition between rooms that feels outright dangerous and a few of us didn’t feel comfortable using it more than the 1 time required to move to the next space. This room really needs another 3-5 feet of vertical space for comfort and safety. Lack of lighting in the second space amplifies this sense of danger, as well as makes some of the puzzles unnecessarily difficult.

It was also felt that a number of puzzles had been removed or deactivated. Perhaps the initial test runs had proven too difficult? Sadly, the room hasn’t been reconfigured to remove these elements and you’re left feeling like you’re skipping puzzles at some points.

Although the props were spot-on for their era and purpose, it was an odd mix of some that were used and some that weren’t, and not always with the best cluing between function and decoration. At least once we “solved” a puzzle in our first interaction with a prop, not fully understanding what it did. Also, the dreaded “black light for no reason” made a return, but this time with some added physical difficulty of locating the writing.

The biggest letdown was that the final puzzle didn’t have an automated ‘win’ declaration. You feel certain you’ve done the correct thing (and don’t know what else to do), but have an easy 30 seconds of dead air while the GM rushes to the room to manually trigger the last experience. It felt wildly out-of-place for a business with a history of well-hidden and immersive tech.

Verdict

We can’t recommend this room in its current state, especially with their Alice room being right next to it and easily one of our favorites. Save this one for the completionists and go for the other experiences first.

You can book your experience by clicking here.

4.5 out of 10

Full Disclosure: We received a media discount on our ticket purchases

A-Escape  – Mystery Lodge (Review)

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By: Cassandra Smith

Location: Asheville, NC

Players: 2-6 (We recommend 2-4)

Price: $25 per person

Time to Escape: 60 minutes

Theme:

Great Uncle Lou’s Mystery Lodge is full of all sorts of wondrous and bizarre collections! UFOs? Bigfoot? Ghosts? You name it! When a greedy businessman hatches a plot to tear down the Mystery Lodge and open a car wash, it’s up to you and your friends to solve the riddles within the Lodge and save the day! Work through cryptids, magic DVDs, and mesmerizing puzzles in this fun-filled room!

First Impressions

I’d been to A-Escape back in 2017, and had an absolute blast in their Selachi Research Lab room, long before I started reviewing rooms. Despite having a more “home-made” feel, it was a brilliant little room, with loads of interesting interactions and a mysterious vibe that stuck in my head five years later upon my return to Asheville on a couple’s retreat with my wife. I was excited to return, and I loved the idea of a room based on a cryptid “museum” of sorts. At first, we were only going to play Diner 51 (which the wonderful Johnathan Byerly reviewed here,) because there were no other time slots available, but we contacted the folks at A-Escape on a lark, hoping for a miracle, and they were more than happy to have Mystery Lodge ready for us to play as well!

High Points

The Mystery Lodge promises a wide array of cryptids and supernatural enigmas to explore, and it absolutely delivers! The decor of the room is on point, and I really loved the strange and wonderful exhibits that really seemed to take time and care to create. From jackalopes to my personal favorite, Mothman, this little lodge has it all. But what is a cute theme and well decorated room without puzzles? Luckily, this lodge is filled to the brim with them! The room was semi non linear, and despite our experience in escape rooms we found that we were given an appropriate challenge to conquer, and never felt like anything was too elementary or overly obtuse. In fact, the only hint we needed was in order to overcome our Achilles heel of finding items left out in the open. We really need a remedial class on “spotting things hidden in plain sight.” Several of the interactions in the room resulted in some interesting results, and one in particular is really well done, producing a magical result we certainly weren’t expecting! All of the puzzles in the room have some sort of way to tie the clues together, with icons or similar motifs allowing us to make connections between the plethora of clues we had at any given moment, which was a nice touch. Despite the room being full of crazy props and exhibits, there weren’t any items that stood out to us as extraneous, or as red herrings, and the game flowed very smoothly from point to point. One of the focal points of the room is the hint system, which is well delivered, and a really fun, integrated way to dole out hints without detracting from the immersion. All in all, I’m very glad we added this room on to our trip, and had an amazing time saving Great Uncle Lou’s Mystery Lodge!

Low Points

One of the items we needed in order to solve the room was broken. Luckily, it could be worked around, but it always stinks to miss out on part of the room, despite this not being 100% the fault of the business. It would probably be a good idea, however, to have some duplicate props on hand for future unfortunate events. Some parts of the room felt a little worn, and despite the theme, this wasn’t the kind of worn that looks as excellent in an escape game. There is one particular part of the room that looks really cool, keeping something truly mysterious under lock and key, but feels like a missed opportunity once it is revealed. It’s not all that bad by any stretch, but we were really hoping for more.

Verdict

We had an awesome time in what is now my favorite room at A-Escape! I loved the theming and the inclusion of loads of interesting cryptid and supernatural exhibits housed within the Mystery Lodge, not to mention the slate of excellent puzzles to solve. I absolutely recommend checking this one out, and you can book your time in the Lodge here!

8 out of 10 (Great)

A-Escape  – Diner 51 (Review)

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By: Johnathan Byerly

Location: Asheville, NC

Players: 2-6 (We recommend 2-4)

Price: $25 per person

Time to Escape: 60 minutes

Theme:

A nondescript diner in the middle of the desert.

A missing scientist.

A decoded signal from light-years away.

On the eve of humankind’s first contact with an arriving extraterrestrial fleet, you may be Earth’s final hope for discovering how it’s all connected.

First Impressions

Booking was easy and the staff were quick to respond to emails. Stopping in was a last-minute decision, so we were really happy with their responsiveness.

No video intros or instructions, the staff member is there to answer all your questions and tell you the story in person. A warm throwback to earlier days of escape rooms and happy to miss the often cheesy video introductions. After a very simple lobby and exterior, the game master led us into the diner and we were off!

Immediately we were impressed with the level of effort and detail put into the set design and theming. It was clean, shiny, and bright, much like you would expect a road-side diner.

High Points

This first room was amazing -. Bright colors, old-school diner booths, even a counter and register. It’s their newest room and their effort to make a quality room shows.

Many of the props were interactive and there were some great reveals. I loved there’s a final puzzle that you work on throughout the entire experience and the story leaves you with a critical choice that’s both fun and very thematic. Lots of backstory for those who like reading and reviewing props not directly related to solving a puzzle.

The design varied from being linear to bring us together to letting us each work on a puzzle in smaller groups or alone. There’s also some great hands-on puzzling.

Low Points

Sadly another major reset failure (and the use of a power-related prior puzzle in Abandoned Submarine) led to us turning off the power to half the building. Seriously, if no room ever asked me to interact with a breaker box, fire alarm, interior of wall sockets/light switches, or other obvious electrical systems it would be great. To their credit, the staff leaped into action and got everything up and running again within minutes. Still, we left feeling a bit embarrassed.

The second part of the experience clearly doesn’t have as much love and attention as the first part. While we loved the “E.T. Phone Home” style capstone puzzle, it was a little flimsy and touchy to use.

Verdict

A unique take on the alien trope! I don’t know why more places don’t explore the classic diner experience, but it really made for something memorable. This is also one of the rare experiences that lets you make a choice on how your room ends.

You can book your experience by clicking here.

8 out of 10

Full Disclosure: We received a media discount on our ticket purchases

Webscapade – Season 0: Welcome to Argenia! (Review)

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Location: Your Home!

Players:  We recommend 1-4

Price: $25 per team

Theme:

From Webscapade website:

You receive a strange letter from your Uncle Rory asking for your help. But what starts out as a simple task for a quick payday suddenly turns into a mission filled with danger and intrigue. Can you foil the plot and save the day before it’s too late? Will you be the hero that Argenia longs for? Can this be yet another rhetorical question?

IMage

High Points:

I had a LOT of fun with this game. It felt very much like an escape room, but within the constraints of an online, self led experience. It required having a lot of tabs up, but they were set up similarly to an Unlock! game, so it wasn’t much of an issue, and the game specifically denotes when a tab can be removed, ensuring that you’re never overloaded with useless information. There was a beautiful variety of puzzles, and I really enjoyed how well designed the game flow and individual interactions were. I also thought how Webscapade approached searching the rooms was well done, even though it is a smaller part of the experience. Each stage of the game is a big puzzle, with various pieces sprinkled about, and I absolutely adored how so many clues led to fantastic ah ha moments! This was an involved, multi-level challenge, excellent for a intermediate or expert solver, but hints were always available, so new players will also have a great time working through the mysteries of Argenia. I solved this one solo, and it was a great time, but Webscapade includes ways for multiple players to tackle this one together, and they all seem to work reasonably well. As a heads up, my particular style of solving required me to copy, paste, and print a few things, which isn’t necessary for some, but definitely was in my case.

Low Points:

One particular puzzle required an answer to be highly specific, and even though other answers were still correct, they did not work. This led to a few “wrong” answers and frustrations that slowed the game down to a halt. Luckily, the creator was very open to changing the entry to allow for variations of the correct answer. Another puzzle involved some symbols, and a couple were very similar when implemented the way the game required, making it a little more difficult to ascertain what was happening.

Verdict:

Webscapade’s initial entry into their intended series of Argenian adventures is amazing, and their interesting methods of cluing, as well as an exciting story and intriguing scoring system make for a brilliant time! I highly recommend giving this one a shot asap. Plan your trip to Argenia here!

9/10 (Excellent)

Full Disclosure: Webscapade provided a complementary play.