Tag: Escape Tactic

Escape Tactic – Mine Trap (Review)

~ EscapeAdventurer ~ 2 Comments

Location: Charlotte, NC

Players: 2-10 (We recommend 4-6)

Price: $25 per person

Time to Escape: 60 Minutes

Mine Crap

Theme:

You are a group of miners stuck in a deep mine shaft out in the middle of nowhere, West Virginia. A recent collapse has you stuck far away from the elevator, and honestly, it’s unlikely that the elevator is even working right now. As always with this place, the only thing standing between you and the exit is a whole bunch of padlocks and a light smidge of tech. Have at it.

First Impressions:

We thought King Tut’s Curse was okay, we were disappointed with Amazon Survival and when entering the dark mine shaft, we were really hoping for a miracle. The sparse, black painted walls and Styrofoam coals did not raise my spirits. Luckily, we were paired with a group of six really fun strangers, at least! That’s not sarcasm, they were really cool and I hope they get to do better escape rooms in the future. Those guys were great.

High Points:

At least the room is big enough to hold ten people, even if the game flow is not up to the task. Also the Game Master was responsive and upbeat.

If it seems like I’m having a real hard time coming up with anything nice to say about this room, it’s because I am. What a disaster.

Low Points:

You start out in a dark room, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, some of my favorite rooms start out that way. The problem here is that the mechanism to ever so slightly light up the room is implemented in the worst possible way. One of your teammates is going to be locked down operating the lights for a while, which is possibly one of the most boring interactions I’ve ever come across in an escape room. I’m not saying everything has to be high-octane adrenaline the whole time, but this was beyond the pale. We immediately came across a destructible state puzzle, which is inexcusable for what it was, and the experience was pretty much all downhill from there. The game itself trends more linear for the most part, though the game has branching puzzle paths on occasion, but never really supports 10 players. There are going to be a lot of dead moments for teammates who aren’t actively working on puzzles. The main highlight of Escape Tactic, set design, is also completely absent from this room, as the shaft itself is mostly black painted walls and darkness. There’s just not much else to look at, and what is there isn’t all that interesting. Again, as in previous Escape Tactic rooms, everything here is pulled from the early days of escape rooms, with puzzles we’ve seen done better in far superior rooms time and time again. One particular prop that was used on at least two separate occasions barely worked, and the Game Master had to break in both times to clue us in on what we needed to be hearing. In fact, she did this without our prompting, so it’s obvious this is a frequent problem. Lock after repetitive lock is the answer to every puzzle, save for a precious few, and the trial and error of entering codes gets tiresome fast. The more “challenging” puzzles require enormous leaps of logic, and some even have multiple solutions, depending on the orientation, forcing you to flip and shuffle highly cumbersome large props. The horribly uninspired “shine the blacklight literally everywhere because of reasons” puzzle returns, and is still not clever in any way. What is it with blacklights and mine shafts anyway? Finally, just to cap off our misery, two of our teammates had allergic reactions to this very dusty room.

Verdict:

I haven’t been in a room this bad in a long time. I try to make sure I vet each location we visit for quality, since we hate to waste our money on a subpar experience, and our time is valuable to us when we travel, but sometimes a real stinker like this one slips through the cracks. An awful game through and through, Mine Trap isn’t worthy of visiting, and I absolutely cannot recommend this one to anyone. The impeccable Twisted is right across the street guys, and there are tons of better rooms in the Charlotte area, Masterpiece Escapes, The Box, and Exit Strategy, to name a few. Go there. Not here.

1/10 (Rubbish)

Escape Tactic – Amazon Survival (Review)

~ EscapeAdventurer ~ 1 Comment

Location: Charlotte, NC

Players: 2-10 (We recommend 2-5)

Price: $25 per person

Time to Escape: 60 Minutes

Don’t go chasing discount waterfalls.

Theme:

You’ve been kidnapped by an Amazon tribe, poisoned, locked in a bamboo prison, and left to die! You’ll need to break out, figure out how to make an antidote, and escape with it before your captors return! Unfortunately, this primitive tribe has gotten ahold of an almost obscene amount of modern day locks, which they’ve slapped on every available surface! Obviously, you’ve got your work cut out for you here.

First Impressions:

Our second room at Escape Tactic started with a heart attack for any seasoned enthusiast. We were going to be paired with a group that were being allowed to bring a baby into the room. As someone who has had ups and downs with strangers joining our party, the prospect of an infant in what is usually a high energy, possibly stressful environment is not a great one. Most venues require a full buyout of the room if children are involved, so it was a huge surprise to see this.

High Points:

Even though there were very few original puzzles included in Amazon Survival, it is sometimes fun to be able to recognize one of the “greatest hits” puzzles within a room. One that you’ve had fun with and completed before, and enjoy the process of solving. There were several of those moments here. The set is also very nice, and while set alone cannot deliver a sense of immersion, it does a good job of setting the tone. Also, customer service was handled well, as expanded on below.

Low Points:

Obviously, as previously stated, we weren’t exactly thrilled to see a baby joining us for this room. We were incredibly lucky, however, as it was extremely quiet throughout the experience. The fact that you can be paired with little ones, though, is a definite knock against Escape Tactic on the whole. We also ran up against two separate locks that were not reset, one of which we noticed while solving the attached puzzle, and the other which was opened by a member of the other group, so we never found out what puzzle was supposed to open it. Another puzzle failed to trigger due to the looseness of one of its components, requiring a fair bit of jiggling to get everything back into place. Our Game Master was also missing in action on the couple occasions we needed a hint, leading us to have to waste time trying to get her attention. Luckily, we were given refunds for this subpar experience, so thumbs up to the customer service here, at the very least! One initial puzzle that really set the tone for this unfortunately unenjoyable room was a physical interaction that even when it was “completed” would not trigger. The interaction itself was very hard to identify, and required an unreasonable amount of dexterity. Our GM had to come into the room to move us forward, which from her reaction, seemed like something that happened often. Several puzzles within this room are highly ambiguous and require huge leaps of logic to solve, lending a large amount of frustration and very little satisfaction to the experience. In fact, one puzzle is just a repeat of a previous puzzle, with a small change and less of an ability to retain the answer in a meaningful way. As with King Tut’s Curse, the room itself was a very early days escape room, boasting very little in the way of technology, and quite a few modern locks, many types of which are repeated several times throughout the room. It is clear that Escape Tactic’s slogan of “Escape Rooms Remastered” might need to be walked back a little bit.

Verdict:

Amazon Survival is a nice looking set, but beyond that, was overall a major disappointment. The experience itself really stumbles quite a bit, and the room’s décor just cant carry the puzzling experience itself. I would think new players might get more out of it than we did, due to most of the good puzzles coming from the “been there, done that” category, but enthusiasts should be advised that there’s not much to like here, especially with so many better options in Charlotte. You can get kidnapped in the Amazon here.

3.5/10 (Poor)

Escape Tactic – King Tut’s Curse (Review)

~ EscapeAdventurer ~ 2 Comments

Location: Charlotte, NC

Players: 2-10 (We recommend 2-5)

Price: $25 per person

Time to Escape: 60 Minutes

King Tut’s Directional Lock

Theme:

You are a team of archeologists sent to the tomb of Tutankhamen, dead set on recovering the missing crook and flail that he was buried with. Unfortunately, the infamous curse that has hovered like a dark cloud over the tomb since it’s discovery in 1922 has struck again, sealing you inside! You have little time to find a way out, but it’s certain that you’ll need the crook and flail in order to do so! Unluckily, someone’s crept into the tomb and put modern locks on everything, which is a bit weird, but what’re you gonna do? Escape rooms, right?

First Impressions:

Escape Tactic is located in a pretty nice area just across the way from Exit Strategy South, which was convenient after we finished up the amazing Twisted! We were definitely jazzed to keep the escape train rolling, and from the look of the nicely appointed lobby and later, the excellent set of the tomb, we were immediately ready to take on King Tut’s Curse.

High Points:

As previously stated, King Tut’s Curse boasts an excellent set, with stone walls, a beautiful sarcophagus, and interesting props. While the immersion was quickly broken by the large amount of key and code locks, it was still an impressive room to look at. With a mostly non-linear array of puzzles to work on, our group of 4 immediately set upon the room’s adventure! The game flow works well, and flows from puzzle to puzzle until the ultimate resolution of each thread. Each room is mostly self-contained, allowing for ease of solving, and is immediately accessible to newcomers to escape rooms. Most puzzles worked well, and though there wasn’t much tech, it provided a magical feel to the tomb itself in a way modern locks cannot.

Low Points:

After looking over Escape Tactic’s website and reading their online reviews, I was pretty excited to see what they had to offer. The promise of “Escape Rooms Remastered” however, was not what was delivered. In fact, Escape Tactic really didn’t have much in the way of next generation tech or effects within their rooms. King Tut’s Curse was very simply a early days, classic escape room with a snazzy set design. While a classic room isn’t a bad thing per se, we were really expecting more from the new kid in town. While the set is admittedly well done, there are so many random objects that don’t belong in an ancient Egyptian tomb, like cabinets, modern cases, and loads of present day locks. For a room that is touted to be extremely immersive, that immersion was broken quite frequently through such anachronism. Also, many of the classic escape room sins were exemplified within the room. Random hidden codes in illogical and sometimes random places made for a tedious scavenger hunt during some puzzles. Destructible state puzzles reared their ugly head, meaning that several props could be moved, making a puzzle unsolvable if the GM doesn’t pay perfect attention. Repeat lock types were scattered all over, forcing us to try to open locks via trial and error once we’d found a code. Finally, among the very slight technical interactions, the mechanisms were so temperamental that you have to spend a long time adjusting the pieces around, hoping that the puzzle will finally trigger after it has been solved. Don’t get me wrong, we had a decent time, but it really wasn’t what we expected when booking.

Verdict:

King Tut’s Tomb is a fun, if basic introduction to escape rooms and the types of puzzles usually included. A newbie to the hobby will definitely enjoy the room, though enthusiasts will get the feeling of “been there, done that” from most, if not all the puzzles. A classic experience that tasks you with finding keys and locks throughout the room, with a few technological interactions here and there, the room provides an alright experience, but lacks the Wow factor that many other rooms in the Charlotte area provide. You can book your time escaping King Tut’s Curse here!

6/10 (Alright)