Category: Greenville, SC

Escape Artist Greenville – The Lift (Mini-Adventure Review)

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Location: Greenville, SC

Players: 2-4 (We recommend 2-4)

Price: $20 per group

Time to Escape: 10 minutes per episode

Cherie Berry would not approve.

Theme:

For The Lift, you choose from one of two different capers, The Gambler and The Pickpocket. For your chosen adventure, you’ve chased a notorious criminal into a nearby elevator, but they’ve turned the tables on you! Having rigged the elevator to rise to the tenth floor before plummeting into the basement, you have only ten minutes to figure out how to escape before disaster strikes!

First Impressions:

The Lift is installed within a side room of Escape Artist Greenville, and is apparently mobile, allowing the business to take this experience on the road for shows and events. We were impressed by the craftsmanship and versatility of this room, and were excited to try out our first mini-escape adventure! For each trip into the elevator, our GM handed us a piece of evidence recovered from our respective criminal, hit the button to start our journey, and left us to puzzle our way out of the elevator.

High Points:

Taking place over only a few short minutes, The Lift’s two episodes perfectly capture the frantic final moments of an escape room for the entire experience! From the second you begin, the lights flicker for every minute spent, announcing the current floor and slowly heralding your demise. There’s nothing quite like that frantic last few minutes within a well designed room, and the adrenaline these adventures provide is perfectly thrilling. The games themselves are short, containing two to three puzzles and satisfyingly tacticle interactions, but the length of each puzzle is appropriate for a ten minute room and each one is intuitive and connects well to the theme. We found The Gambler to be a great fit for a warm up game or for new players, with a simple game flow and some neat surprises to be discovered. The Pickpocket will cater to those seeking a more difficult challenge, having almost bested our team, who escaped with mere seconds left on the clock!

The sets are well implemented and excellently designed for versatility between games as well as a streamlined puzzling environment that will comfortably hold the maximum four players during the whole experience. Though simple, the sound and lighting design elevate the adventure into a pulse-pounding mission that is sure to keep even the most hardened escape veteran on their toes!

Low Points:

With such a short period for escape, the game definitely leaves you wanting more, which is certainly the point, but after finally experiencing a good elevator game, we’d love to see what could be done by expanding on this idea into a full 60 minutes!

Verdict:

The Lift is a great add-on challenge to any of the rooms at Escape Artist Greenville, so if you’re looking for a warm up or extra dessert challenge, definitely try out The Gambler or The Pickpocket while you’re there! You can book your rise to glory, (or sudden drop,) here!

Full Disclosure: Escape Artist Greenville provided media discounted tickets for our team.

Escape Artist Greenville – Classified (Review)

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Location: Greenville, SC

Players: 4-5 (This is a hard limit, you must have 4 or 5 ONLY. We recommend 4.)

Price: $30 per person (Always private booking)

Time to Escape: 75 minutes

[REDACTED]

Theme:

I can’t tell you much about the theme of Classified since it’s… well… classified. I mean, I could; we did the room, but that would spoil the fun. Basically, Escape Artist Greenville has a mission for you, and once you arrive, they’ll tell you all about it! (For the skittish, it’s definitely not horror based, as noted on their website,) However, we’ve left some clues in our after room photo:

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Per the above, Classified must be about a intrepid D.A.R.E. task force who are tracking the Shake-Weight Killer during Mardi Gras using only their wits, fanny packs, and massive machetes. (This is totally not the theme, but now that I write it, I want to play this room.)

First Impressions:

This was our 15th room on a 17 room birthday escape extravaganza, so I had actually forgotten that we were given no clues as to what the theme of the room was until we were just about to start our adventure, which made that segment of the game that much cooler. Our GM came in an explained the mission to us, gave us what we needed to complete it, and sent us on our merry way! I’ll just say I was surprised but very intrigued by what we were getting ready to do!

High Points:

One thing I can say without spoiling anything is that Classified works off of a point system, and even though we were able to obtain the full run of points and make the leaderboard, it was a tough but highly rewarding experience! Though challenging, the room flows extremely well, and the puzzles and connections made between them are intuitive, requiring no logical leaps or mind reading to complete. The experience itself is also layered in ways we were not expecting, allowing the room to open up as we progressed, but doing so in a manner we had never seen before. The masterful use of space added an excellent level of required teamwork to the game that lasted the entire experience. In fact, through this team focused game design, there was never a dull moment for any of us; we kept engaged and immersed for the whole mission!

Our Game Master was an integral part of the experience, giving story beats and popping in to be generally hilarious from time to time, and the way he interacted with our group was top notch. All of our experiences with GMs at Escape Artist were awesome, but our adventure through Classified was made even more amazing through his efforts. The puzzles themselves are highly varied, and allow for some great tactile challenges, many of which we’d not seen before in other escape rooms. In fact, this game held some of the most highly original designs we saw on our weekend trip, making this easily one of, if not the, top games we played during this outing!

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We had to take a picture because we did all of these rooms on the last day of September! Oh, our fleeting leaderboard glory!

Low Points:

We aren’t the biggest fans of process puzzles, (puzzles in which you devise a method of solving and must then enact the method,) and there’s a huge one we spent a large chunk of time on in Classified. Running through the steps over and over began to become frustrating, and though we knew how to solve the puzzle, hitting all those steps just wasn’t interesting overall. However, that’s just one puzzle of many within this excellent room!

Verdict:

Save for one section of Classified, this room is flawless! With an amazing flow, great storyline, and excellent variations on the usual escape room theme, Classified is one of my favorite rooms in South Carolina. I’d expect players would like to have a room or two under their belts before booking Classified, as it is a challenging experience requiring excellent teamwork, but I highly recommend checking it out if you’re in the area. And if you need some recommendations on that first room to get warmed up, why not try out Dr. Fratelli’s Cabin, also at Escape Artist? Book your top secret mission here!

9/10 (Excellent)

Full Disclosure: Escape Artist Greenville provided media discounted tickets for our team.

Escape Artist Greenville – The Inventor’s Enigma (Review)

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Location: Greenville, SC

Players: 2-8 (We recommend 2-4)

Price: $27 (Public Booking) or $30 (Private Booking) per person

Time to Escape: 60 minutes

Great Scott!

Theme:

You’ve been invited to the workshop of one of the greatest inventors of our time, and his apprentice is here to give you the grand tour! There’s a couple of things he’ll need to take care of before he can safely take you around, so you wait for him in the main workshop. After he falls into a wormhole, however, (occupational hazard, pretty standard really,) it is up to you to find some way to get him out before the portal closes up for good!

First Impressions:

Escape Artist Greenville has some incredibly good set designers on their hands, and as we stepped into the Inventor’s Enigma, we were definitely not disappointed in what we saw! Furthermore, the upbeat and in character GM continued to prove that the staff here were 100% committed to delivering excellent experiences!

High Points:

One of the most stand out parts of Inventor’s Enigma is how tactile the whole room is. Almost every puzzle involves at least a light bit of moving or manipulation of props, and it fits extremely well with the theme. Nothing overly physical, but when in an inventor’s workshop, it’s always fun to be able to play around with their tools! This room also contains one of the best hidden surprises we’ve seen in a while, taking us by surprise almost 200 rooms in. That’s no easy feat! As usual for Escape Artist Greenville, the set is amazing, and highly immersive, providing more than just a room of puzzles and truly bringing you into the world of the story. The GMing here is great too, with hints and interactions being on theme throughout the experience, allowing the game to stay in universe throughout the experience. As you progress through the game, puzzles bounce between rooms, and bread crumbs you discover will provide satisfying ah ha moments as you come back to a puzzle that stumped you before. Some very simple, yet innovative pieces of tech bring this quirky room to life in unexpected ways, challenging the group to think outside the box throughout the escape.

Low Points:

Inventor’s Enigma felt like a different room that had been upgraded into a newer theme and “remastered” a bit, and our Game Master confirmed that that is exactly what had been done. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing, but we were a little confused about how this inventor had invented a wormhole that the whole story revolved around, but it seemed pretty much all he engaged with inventing was cars. Apparently the previous room had been about a racecar driver, so that cleared a lot up. The theming would’ve benefitted from less focus on cars and more on fantastical steampunk inventions to be more in line with what we were expecting. The cluing overall needs work, as some things are hidden around the room for the sake of being hidden, and while we found them, it is always much more fun to find items based off a puzzle rather than because they were just hidden somewhere. A late game puzzle was a great idea, and very tactile, but the clues themselves were either extremely direct or incredibly vague, frustrating us during  one of the most climactic moments of the game.

Verdict:

Inventor’s Enigma is a good room that could use a bit more adjustment to the flux capacitor in order to make it really great. It’s an upgraded older room that would really benefit from further distancing from it’s previous incarnation to become it’s own entity, but a good room nonetheless. If you like Escape Artist Greenville, I definitely recommend checking this one out! You can book your time saving the Inventor’s apprentice here!

7/10 (Good)

Full Disclosure: Escape Artist Greenville provided media discounted tickets for our team.

Escape Artist Greenville – The Fallout (Review)

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Location: Greenville, SC

Players: 2-7 As a one team experience, 4-14 for a competitive experience (We recommend 3-4 per room)

Price: $27 (Public Booking) or $30 (Private Booking) or $21 (Private Party of 10+) per person

Time to Escape: 60 minutes

Ain’t never liked them no good Bluefords anyways!

Theme:

The Redfields and the Bluefords have been at each other’s throats ever since… well, ever since that falling out their great great great grandpappys had with each other over… something or other! Either way, each family thinks of the other as a bunch of no good, lyin’, cheatin’, son of a gun scoundrels, and now that the nuclear apocalypse is on its way, they’ve got an excuse to blow them to smithereens! As a member of one of the colorfully named families, it’s up to you to arm your dynamite and blow up the other team before they can do the same to you! Then you should probably take cover in your fallout shelter. You know, on account of the bombs!

First Impressions:

I always love it when an escape begins outside of the room itself, and though this one is only technically “outside,” it’s still a lot of fun to start by breaking into your own fallout shelter! While we elected to do this room together rather than compete against ourselves in a 2v2 experience, we can definitely see how fantastically chaotic this initial breaking in sequence could be for competitive groups!

High Points:

The set design is great, giving off the feeling of being deep underground, ready to endure the coming nuclear fallout, while still giving off a somewhat goofy vibe via the competitive theme. The set up of the game allows for plenty of interaction with the other team, socially. Progress can be tracked easily between the two, and with the main room being shared by both teams, I’m sure you’ll hear about it from the opposing family! The game flow is fairly non-linear to start, which makes sense for a head to head escape, allowing the team to frantically divide and conquer in order to beat the clock and the other team. We stayed engaged throughout due to this, and when the game did slim down to the linear climax, we were still immersed within the puzzling flow. The climax to the fight between the Redfields and Bluefords is excellent, and I’m sure with the addition of another team to blow up, it’d be even more awesome.

Puzzles themselves are a great mix between code breaking, brain teasing enigmas, and tactile interactions, including a pretty large dexterity game to tackle. Bits of the room come together to become bigger interactions intuitively, and allow for a fair few ah ha moments throughout. Clues are hidden well around the room itself, and are challenging without being unfairly hidden or too obtuse in their presentation. Though the theme of the room is blowing up an opposing family while the nukes fall from the sky, things stay light hearted and fun the whole time, which kept the experience enjoyable.

Low Points:

Once we were in our fallout shelter, it was a pretty standard escape experience from there. The room itself wasn’t too surprising, and what we saw was mostly what we got from then on. This wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, but the potential for hidden stashes or another bunker (or toilet,) via a secret room would’ve been a nice surprise. A particular dexterity puzzle was a large frustration for a couple of our teammates, as while we worked on a different puzzle, they were trying to mitigate bad luck and timing that was required on top of the dexterity. While they eventually got it figured, it was expressed that they wished there wasn’t so much luck involved with parts of the interaction. We were able to skip one puzzle entirely due to our experience in previous rooms with a particular technical item, which confused us. It’s always sad to miss out on a puzzle, even if you solve it in a non-standard way!

Verdict:

While The Fallout is a fun game for a solo group, a duel would definitely up the stakes, making things more intense and exciting. Beginners will definitely enjoy this room, as the competitive nature allows for a large group of friends to face off while still enjoying the thrill of escape. For enthusiasts, this one will feel a lot more standard, but everything is still presented within a great game flow and enjoyable set. You can book your time as the warring families here!

7.5/10 (Good)

Full Disclosure: Escape Artist Greenville provided media discounted tickets for our team.

Escape Artist Greenville – Dr. Fratelli’s Cabin (Review)

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Location: Greenville, SC

Players: 2-6 (We recommend 3-4)

Price: $27 (Public Booking) or $30 (Private Booking) per person

Time to Escape: 60 minutes

Why do we keep visiting creepy cabins in the woods?

Theme:

The formerly world renowned psychologist Dr. Fratelli has gone into seclusion over the past few years. No one has heard from the eccentric doctor until you and your friends receive an enigmatic invitation to Dr. Fratelli’s private cabin out in the woods. Nothing weird about that, right? As  you are led into the cabin, you’re told to make yourself at home and look through the doctor’s research to your heart’s content. Though his assistant said he’d be by shortly, the doctor doesn’t seem to be showing up. Even worse, the door you came in has been locked behind you, and a mysterious countdown just popped up on the television…

First Impressions:

Escape Artist Greenville’s website shows some glimpses of their rooms, and due to the awesome looking designs, they’ve been on my radar for a while. Luckily, we had a big trip to plan, and Greenville, SC was on the way. After stepping into the good doctor’s waiting room, I could definitely tell that the sets wouldn’t be the only good thing about this experience!

High Points:

The storyline for Dr. Fratelli’s Cabin was fairly straightforward, but at two particular points there were personal touches that added some fantastic twists to the adventure! We greatly enjoyed the addition of these story beats, and it helped bring the immersion even further into focus. The set design here was amazing, as expected, really bringing forth the feel of a small cabin inhabited by a crazed psychologist, especially as we ventured through the many layers of the room. Speaking of layers, there were several, as the rooms opened up in unexpected and sometimes amusing ways. It’s always nice to be surprised as an enthusiast, and this cabin was chock full of surprises!

The game flowed well, with only a couple of hiccups when our group started to overthink the puzzles. Throughout the flow, which vacillated between linear and non-linear puzzling threads, our group of four stayed engaged and actively interacting with the experience, especially with the final puzzle, which spanned the room and depended on our teamwork to complete. The game itself ended climactically and included another fantastic ending via a mysterious final missive, leaving us wanting more in the best way possible!

Low Points:

The gating between some of the mid to late game puzzles wasn’t quite as tight as we’d like it to be, and as a result, there was a bit of frustrating time wasted on a puzzle that seemed solvable at first, but proved to be extremely difficult without an item encountered later. Luckily, the game master intervened to let us know to stop beating our head against that particular wall. There was also another interaction that presented text in a difficult to read manner, which seemed strange due to the way this puzzle was set up.

Verdict:

Dr. Fratelli’s Cabin was Escape Artist Greenville’s first room, but it certainly doesn’t show its age! A more classic escape experience, there are still many surprises to encounter and original interactions and puzzles sprinkled throughout the entire experience! I definitely recommend checking out the old cabin if you’re in Greenville! Take part in Dr. Fratelli’s experiment here!

8.5/10 (Great)

Full Disclosure: Escape Artist Greenville provided media discounted tickets for our team.