Location: Washington, DC
Players: 2-8 (We recommend 2)
Price: $27.99 per person
Time to Escape: 60 minutes
Don’t go there. That way lies madness.
Theme:
You are the students of a renowned scientist who is pushing the limits of time travel research. You’ve come to his lab to see a new project he has been secretly working on, but his assistant has not seen him. Find out where he’s gone, but be aware that his new invention is unstable, and could cause serious complications if you can’t solve the mystery!
First Impressions:
My first impression of Omescape DC came two days before we played Omega and it was not good. As a bit of background, we were originally booked to play Kingdom of Cats on a Friday evening, but about three or so hours before we were to be there, I received a call from them saying that the room had been broken due to a previous group. Repairs were being made, but we would need to reschedule. This would’ve been fine if the tone of the call had not been seemingly exasperated with us. Fast forward two days later, and two hours before our new time, we call to find out if we are still good to go for Kingdom of Cats. We are not, and are rebooked in a fairly confusing jumble of new rooms and times. I was still confused after our call, so I walked into the lobby early in order to just confirm we were booked for the time I assumed. When we did arrive for our game time, we noticed that the only person working was at the front desk on their phone, and we heard another team calling for hints in a back room, which she eventually went to answer. She was also to be our GM while this room continued. This did not instill confidence.
High Points:
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Low Points:
First off, the room is sweltering, as there is no a/c. There are a very small amount of puzzles within, and none of them are terribly interesting. In fact, the first was the most exciting, and it wasn’t much. There’s very little to in the extremely empty room at all stages, and the majority of the props were broken. The room has so little to do and is strictly linear, but still manages to have so little connective tissue to be bewildering at times. One of the mid-game puzzles isn’t clued and barely works, so it’s hard to tell if it is even part of the room. There is outside knowledge required for one puzzle, and the logic to figure it out is some of the most tenuous I’ve ever seen. The penultimate puzzle required remembering a fact that is not included in the room, and the cluing points towards something completely different anyway. Written props and hints contain multiple grammatical and spelling errors, which aren’t part of a puzzle either, and feel sloppy. So much of the room is slapdash an busted, it’s actually quite amazing it still runs. When asking for a hint, our calls went unanswered several times, and had I not been hyper assertive with my requests, I am certain we’d still be waiting to hear back. My teammate, after only 20 minutes in the room, wondered aloud if we could just leave. I thought the same thing, but felt obligated to see this awful experience through so that you don’t have to.
Verdict:
I had honestly thought I’d seen the worst room I could think of before entering Omega, but this one smashed my already low expectations. I mulled over the score for this one for a while, and felt as though the dead bottom of a 1/10 was not quite enough to convey my displeasure with this cut rate experience. Therefore I’ve instituted a new, lower rating to let you know that you should never, under any circumstances, consider visiting this room. I usually include a link to the room, even on low ratings, just in case you’d like to visit, but cannot bring myself to do so here. Therefore, Omescape DC’s Omega room receives a:
0/10 (Atrocious)
Escape Room Adventurer 