Tag: NC

Key to Escape – Under Pressure (Review)

~ EscapeAdventurer ~ 2 Comments

Location: Statesville, NC

Players: 2-6 (We recommend 3-4)

Price: $28 per person

Time to Escape: 60 minutes

Watching some good friends screaming “Let me out!”

Theme:

From the Key to Escape website:

In 1925 our city of Statesville had a devastating fire that nearly leveled three city blocks. The fire was started when the hidden still at Key and Co exploded after being left unattended. The owner of the still had been nabbed by police and no one was able to find the hidden valve key to release the pressure from the still in time to save our city. Your escape room adventure entertainment begins as your team is selected to travel back in time to prevent the explosion. We have built a time portal machine and have the opportunity to send your team back in time for only one hour to try to save the still and our city from ruin. The pressure is on as you race the clock.

First Impressions:

We’ve been planning on making a trip out to Key to Escape for a good while! Though we intended to go a full year ago, our schedule just didn’t work out, but this year, it was the first spot we put on the docket! After hearing so many folks rave about their rooms, we were sure this was an experience we would not want to miss. Not only that, but this would be my 300th room, which the owners of Key to Escape made even more exciting by presenting me with an Escake!

20200202_1357157614252110421540117.jpg

It was red velvet, for the curious.

High Points:

Under Pressure displays some excellent set design that truly ups the ante for escape room immersion going forward! Though it is housed in a smaller space, everything is used to the fullest, and nothing feels out of place or anachronistic. The speakeasy is extremely well appointed, with so many fantastic props and design touches that evoke the feel of the 1920’s, and the historical building that Key to Escape is housed within is utilized in amazing ways. A myriad of hidden secrets are incorporated into the design, and we were constantly amazed at so many of the reveals. So much practical design work has been done in this room to truly simulate the sound, sights, and intensity of a still that’s about to blow, and it really did keep us under pressure for the full time! Though we didn’t use it, the hint delivery system is completely in theme, as with the rest of the room, and it’s obvious that no corners were cut in the creation of this amazingly designed experience! The soundtrack is a real treat throughout the room, and the awesome into and fantastic climax bookend the adventure perfectly.

The game flow was mostly non-linear, and our team was almost always engaged with one puzzle or another for the full experience. There’s a great mix of mechanical, hand built puzzling and well hidden technical wizardry going on throughout the room, and there are just so many intensely clever enigmas within! One of my favorites takes the usual escape room maze, flips it on it’s head a bit, and tasks players with some deductive reasoning rather than standard, everyday maze solving. There are others that make code breaking feel fresh and new, with some cool twists on the theme. Any included locks feel completely convincing for the in game universe, but the majority of the game forgoes traditional locks for much more interesting interactions and tactile puzzle solving. The story is historically interesting and very well implemented, and though the mission not overly complex, completing it is a fantastic challenge! The difficulty curve is not insurmountable, however, and the cluing and signposting is well implemented in order to prevent frustration. It truly took our whole team working together to solve this one, and there were conundrums to satisfy all types of puzzlers!

Low Points:

Later stages of the game were housed in really cool areas, but unfortunately were a bit smaller, creating a choke point that made it so not all players got to check these awesome areas out. While there were a few teamwork puzzles that got others involved, it did dampen the later stages for some of our team. The soundtrack was awesome, but from time to time, it did get rather loud.

Verdict:

We’ve escaped a few speakeasies in our time, but this room takes (and gives) the cake! With a set design and ultra clever puzzles that are absolutely to die for, Under Pressure absolutely delivers an astounding escape adventure! I highly recommend checking this room out if you’re in the area, as it will give enthusiasts an engaging challenge while still presenting an approachable run of enigmas that will give new players one of the best intros to escape rooms they could ever hope for. Book your time solving the clues while under pressure here! Also, at the time of publication, COVID-19 is shutting down escape rooms everywhere. Key to Escape has created I’m Bored/The Game for at home play, and if you’d like to support them and receive this experience, you can here!

9/10 (Excellent)

Full Disclosure: Key to Escape provided media discounted tickets for this room.

Race City Escapes – Medieval Marauders (Review)

~ EscapeAdventurer ~ Leave a comment

Location: Mooresville, NC

Players: 2-10 (We recommend 2-4)

Price: $25 per person

Time to Escape: 60 minutes

’tis a silly place.

Theme:

From the Race City Escapes website:

The king has died. He cared deeply for his cherished kingdom. He chose a leader from each of the four neighboring factions. Knowing that the lust for power would be a factor he hid the identity of his chosen benefactor inside the room. It is your job to find out who it is, eliminate the other factions to be able to claim the throne, and stop the Crusaders from taking control.

First Impressions:

Race City Escapes was a new (to us) business we visited on our recent annual trip out to Charlotte for a marathon of escapes, and we were hoping to find another diamond in the rough, akin to the glorious Masterpiece Escapes in Indian Trail.

High Points:

Continuing this trip’s trend, Medieval Marauders is a very spacious room, easily capable of physically holding the maximum ten players. It’s strange to have to list that as a high point, but it seems like so many rooms are intent of smushing as many players as possible within a tiny room, so it’s commendable that the room is large enough to fit comfortably within. The room is decorated adequately, and while it isn’t anything mind blowing, there are a few nice large scale props included, and it works for a small scale business. Some of the heftier props gave an excellent tactile feel to some of the puzzles, and a lot of the ideas are, at their base level, clever to build off of. The foreshadowing for some of the main endings of puzzle threads was nicely done, and the climax of the room ends things off in an exciting and fun way.

Low Points:

Race City Escapes has a lot of great ideas within the room but is overall lacking in execution. There were quite a few moments when large logical leaps had to be made, and from time to time we’d accidentally get something right, triggering the next box to open and having no idea how we did so. To quote one of my teammates from this room, there’s just a certain level of ridiculousness in place. If you can start to wrap your head around said ridiculousness, it does become somewhat easier to navigate the room, but this experience is very much akin to those in which you have to be inside the designer’s head to understand what’s going on for the most part. The game flow is very choppy, and this is exacerbated by a couple of issues. First, the game play mostly consists of opening a lot of locked boxes, causing a dearth of variety and never really elevating the experience with an exciting reveal. Even those items opened via some form of tech are never surprising as they are not seamlessly hidden and are obviously panels to be opened from the start. The other issue is that the game play is very linear, and there are many moments at which some players are just going to be casting about, looking for something to do. While the room may hold ten players, I can’t imagine a maxed out group staying engaged for the whole experience; there are just too many choke points along the way. The one thing that could improve the whole game is the introduction of a fair amount of cluing. As it stands, there is a lot of vagary and guess and check involved with the puzzling, which just isn’t an entertaining way to engage and immerse players. While the set design is adequate, a lot could be done to add to the immersion in this regard as well, and we’ve seen even smaller businesses execute a convincing castle before, it just takes a bit of know how and a good carpenter/set designer.

Verdict:

Medieval Marauders isn’t a terrible room, but it overall fails to impress. Alright for a small group itching for an escape, or new players looking for an alright introduction to escape rooms, I still can’t fully recommend it due to the absolute boon of escapes available to Charlotte area residents. If you’ve done everything else, it’ll be an ok hour, but I’d check out other spots first. Book your time claiming the crown here.

6/10 (Alright)

Full Disclosure: Race City Escapes provided media discounted tickets for this room.

The Valcarol Missions – The Hidden Lab Mission (Review)

~ EscapeAdventurer ~ Leave a comment

Location: Concord, NC

Players: 2-8 (We recommend 3-6)

Price: $26 per person

Time to Escape: 60 minutes

I wonder if this lab is overseen by an umbrella corporation?

Theme:

From the Valcarol Missions website:

November of 3049, Dr. Dawking has been working on a vaccine that will allow us all to live with the radiation. He has been experimenting and fallen ill, but is safely confined in a containment box. Help us all by recreating the one vaccine that has been successful. Find the lever to enable the security check point system as soon as you’re in the security area. Pass both the retinal and thumb scans. Begin your search. You don’t want to stay in this biohazard area for more than an hour. You’ll need to figure out how to create the vaccine that works, activate it, and replicate it. Lots of sick people are depending you.

First Impressions:

Last year, we visited The Valcarol missions as one of our final escapes of a long marathon of puzzling, and it was The Crystal Cave Mission was one of the clear best rooms not only of the day, but in the city! We absolutely could not wait to see what was in store for us within their newest mission, but we were sure it would be great!

High Points:

The Hidden Lab starts off with a highly immersive introduction that perfectly sets the stage for the game to come. Some astounding effects and great technical work make this one of the best intros I think I’ve ever seen implemented into an escape game. The main puzzling rooms after this were spacious and well decorated, with some large set pieces integrated well into the puzzling. There’s a fantastic amount of tactile puzzling involved, and the props are appropriately post apocalyptic, with a main centerpiece that not only measures progress well, but reacts spectacularly as it builds. There’s a creepy atmosphere to the whole experience, and the vibe of the room jives well with the overall world of The Valcarol Missions. I really love how the lighting and sound design keep you immersed within their world, and there are few escape rooms in the area that quite match this level of design. There is also a specific surprise I really loved that served as sort of a fake-out for our group, and was a small, creative touch that added to the adventure well.

Puzzle-wise, the enigmas presented by The Hidden Lab are really clever. There were a couple of real standouts that were elegantly simple, but challenging, with great payoffs in the form of truly satisfying moments of revelation. My favorite puzzle in particular made excellent use of some otherwise innocuous props and a small item hidden in plain sight. Once we made the connection between the two, the solve was beautifully intuitive, and most other puzzles within this room follow that same excellent template. The game flow is mostly non-linear, and works well to keep a larger group entertained throughout. Moments at which the puzzle threads come together involve teamwork, ensuring that no players feel left out, and everyone is involved in bringing the team closer to obtaining the elusive vaccine! There are no choke points, or huge leaps of logic, and I can easily say that the room presents a great challenge while employing fantastic signposting to keep things running intuitively.

Low Points:

The Crystal Cave Mission set an incredible standard for set design as a whole, and while The Hidden Lab does have a pretty cool set, it isn’t quite as drop dead awesome as that aforementioned masterpiece. The layout overall of the set also felt very similar to Valcarol’s previous game, so overall, we didn’t feel quite as surprised by certain elements. However, compared to escape rooms as a whole, the set is still top tier. The set up for the story was amazing, but there was not a whole lot of evolution through to the climax; it would’ve been great to see more clear narrative integration carry through to the end.

Verdict:

Overall, The Hidden Lab Mission is another great success for The Valcarol Missions! Though I think The Crystal Cave Mission does remain my favorite here by a small margin, this is still one of the best games in the Charlotte area, and should be on any enthusiast’s must play list for when they visit the area. Providing a beautiful game flow, clever puzzling, and a no lock experience that will entertain veterans and newcomers alike, this is one mission I absolutely recommend you accept! Check out the biohazardous Hidden Lab here!

8.5/10 (Great)

Full Disclosure: The Valcarol Missions comped our tickets for this room.

Speedway Escapes – Sorcerer’s Quest (Review)

~ EscapeAdventurer ~ Leave a comment

Location: Harrisburg, NC

Players: 2-8 (We recommend 3-5)

Price: $27 per person

Time to Escape: 60 minutes

Merlin, who?

Theme:

From the Speedway Escapes website:

Your team of adventurers will enter the mystical chambers of a powerful warlock. Your quest is to find the sacred crystal of the Ancients by solving clues and combing your Magick. There is only one hour to locate and return the crystal to its rightful owner and keep it from being used to cast a spell extinguishing the sun and plunging our world into darkness. Can you save the world from eternal darkness? Remember in Sorcerer’s Quest You control the Magick!

First Impressions:

Speedway Escapes was a new spot we’d heard good things about, and not too far away from our usual haunts in Charlotte, NC, so we made the trek out to try their two rooms. Boasting set designs inspired by haunt attractions, I was very excited to see how they stacked up! A good set alone does not a great escape room make, but luckily, it seemed their puzzles would be up to the task as well.

High Points:

Upon stepping into the room, the first thing I noticed was how incredibly spacious Sorcerer’s Quest was. I’ve been in rooms that boasted a 14 player maximum that were nowhere near the size of this one, and even though most puzzles took place on the periphery, the experience never felt sparse, nor the room empty. I absolutely commend Speedway Escapes for building a large, comfortable space to puzzle in while still limiting the player groups to a maximum size that conforms to the limits of the game flow, rather than the size of the room. Set design was, as we suspected, lovely, and gave off the feel of a huge, ancient castle perfectly, and the lighting effects and soundtrack added excellently to the whole immersion of the experience. This shone through best via the responsiveness of puzzles, making it easy to know when we were on the right track, and when a solution was correct, the trigger was immediate and noticeable. Most of these puzzles were well integrated into the theme, and minus a physical lock or two, (all of which fit within the world of the room,) everything is a magical, tech based experience.

The game flow within the room is very accommodating to larger groups, with a non-linear run of tasks that allowed all six of us to become fully engrossed with the experience. Never did it feel as if we were standing around, waiting for the next part of the room to open up, and I think the maximum of eight players will be more than comfortable in the bounds of the game. Many of the enigmas within Sorcerer’s Quest were eminently creative, and a couple were ones I’d not seen before, or classic conundrums that were twisted in original ways to present something fresh. Several were in the running for my favorite until we reached the final puzzle, which was a logical interaction that was enormously satisfying to solve. The climax of the room is fantastic; finishing up with a great reveal and just enough fanfare to have us all smiling and ready for more!

Low Points:

Audio tracks for spoken lines were somewhat spotty, which was more noticeable in contrast to the great soundtrack. While that came through very crisply, voices could come across as crackly or muted, when a more booming, magical presence was called for. Some props in the room have started to become worn, and could use a touch up or two to ensure everything still looks fresh. Finally, a particular addition to the room was a cute idea that added a small surprise here and there, but was too close to being a puzzle, and created a red herring for us.

Verdict:

Sorcerer’s Quest is Speedway Escape’s first room, and it’s a knockout! Despite a few minor issues, it’s an amazing time, with some cleverly original challenges and a highly immersive set design to boot. Enthusiasts will have a great time dividing and conquering the adventure’s non-linear game flow, and new players will find the experience immediately approachable. Book your time holding back the darkness here!

8.5/10 (Great)

Full Disclosure: Timed Out provided comped tickets for our group.

Timed Out – Depth (Review)

~ EscapeAdventurer ~ 2 Comments

Location: Charlotte, NC

Players: 4-8 (We recommend 4-5)

Price: $28 per person

Time to Escape: 60 minutes

Under the Sea

Theme:

From the Timed Out website:

One thousand miles off the African Somali coast, research station Sumundra sits on the ocean floor. Here scientists study the undersea ecosystem. But the station has gone dark, and the team is not responding to communications. The condition of the Sumundra and its inhabitants is unknown. Your team must descend 1,000 feet to the Sumundra, assess its condition and retrieve all records and research to prevent yet another mystery of the deep ocean.

First Impressions:

Last year, we were highly impressed with Timed Out’s three rooms, but unfortunately, we weren’t able to try out their newest experience, Depth, as it hadn’t yet come out. It was a must visit for our next trip out, and was absolutely one of the most highly anticipated experiences for this trip. I’m happy to say it did not disappoint!

High Points:

Depth is an absolutely beautiful experience, with an awesome set that immediately wowed us. I love how Timed Out designs their sets, and the way Depth is laid out is immediately immersive. Lighting and sound design work perfectly in tandem to create a really awesome environment to puzzle within, and all the elements combine to create a truly elevated experience. Puzzles are well themed, and all tie into the mission seamlessly, with an opening that tasks the separated players with getting the power on, and a progressive meta puzzle later that utilizes a big set piece fantastically. In fact, all of the set pieces within the room are beautifully integrated into the puzzling, and every item feels like an important piece of the Sumundra. Many of the props were custom 3D printed, ensuring they are highly original and look fantastic within the context of the room. These props lend a tactile feel to the experience as well, upping the immersion to help us feel like we are actually performing the scientific tasks required to complete our mission.

The game design is great as well, with an almost completely non-linear flow once the game gets going, and multiple teamwork puzzles that kept our group of six fully engaged for the most part. Though we began the game separated, both of the initial rooms feel like they have enough to keep everyone engaged, and there’s no “curse of the less interesting room” to be found here, as both had really fun puzzles to solve. One early stage teamwork puzzle is very clever, and though we somehow glitched past it due to our weird ability to accidentally open stuff, it is very well designed and was only glitchable due to the powerful aura of chaos that seems to surround our team, (with apologies to the no less than three businesses that have experienced freak power outages on days we visit.) During the most open ended parts of the room, we split into teams of two or three, flitting about between some of the coolest puzzles we’ve seen, racking up loads of satisfying ah ha moments as we discovered the hidden meanings behind the room’s many ciphers and clues. Most all of these puzzles involved a large, well designed set piece, adding to the cool, science-y feel of the whole game. In fact, it’s very hard to pick a favorite puzzle here, as all of them were so engaging and interactive.

Low Points:

The penultimate puzzle caused some severe frustration with our group. It is a teamwork puzzle, but is only for four players, so any additional players may be a little left out, especially if one of the tasks doesn’t appeal to their skill set. There was also a small technical glitch with my personal task that made things a lot more difficult. Overall, though, this is a fairly intense interaction that relies on a lot of dexterity and time pressure that did not translate well for our group, especially when we were milliseconds from victory but were forced to restart due to a minor error. Luckily, our GM sensed our frustration, (it wasn’t well disguised, sorry!) and overrode the puzzle for us, a pity move we highly appreciate and embrace with open arms. Though the room was definitely a lab, and was themed aquatically, we would’ve loved if there had been a little more to get across the feeling of being under water.

Verdict:

Depth is an astoundingly good game that kept us all frantically puzzling from start to finish, and minus a highly frustrating experience with a dexterity based puzzle that kept us fully under pressure, we had a wonderful time in this room! It’s certainly one of the most challenging experiences in Charlotte, so I’d recommend having a few rooms under your belt before taking it on, but enthusiasts will have a great time working out the challenges within, and newer players will still enjoy the experience as long as they are open to taking a hint or two as needed. Book your time cracking the mystery of the Sumundra here!

8/10 (Great)

Full Disclosure: Timed Out provided comped tickets for our group.