Ryan T.
Yelp
If you don't know what to look for in an escape room, this was a decent experience. The people I went with had never been to an escape room and they quite enjoyed it. That said, as an avid escape room player and critic, this was a pretty awful experience.
Pros:
-Unlimited clues: I rarely need clues personally, however it is nice to know that I can get them if needed.
-Friendly employees
-Relatively few padlocks
Cons:
-"Of course, at Entrap games nothing comes for free.": said in reference to clues, i.e. in order to get a clue, we had to sing a song, do a dance, like their Facebook page, or do some other stupid thing. You're right, nothing comes for free, that's why I paid $100 to take my friends to an escape room! A clue costs you nothing.
-The game master wasn't paying attention: in a good escape room, each game master should monitor only one game. Their entire job is to watch that game and provide assistance as needed. About every 10 minutes, our GM would come on the intercom (baby monitor) and say "How are you guys doing?" You should know how we are doing! You should know if we are stuck or behind pace. You shouldn't have to ask us how we are doing, we have no idea how we are doing! You know the room, you know the clues, you know the pace, not us. Also, when we got stuck we would get questions like "Have you gotten the tiles yet?" Again, he should know that we were messing with the tiles for 5 minutes trying to get them to work. He shouldn't have to ask us about what we have or haven't done, he should have been watching us
-Too many props that didn't work: in place of padlocks, there were a few magnet locks. These are really refreshing in a game but only when they work. On the final clue, we had things in the right spot but nothing happened so we called in a clue. His first clue was the least helpful thing in the world, literally told us what we already knew and what we were already doing. After telling him what we had done (again, he should have known that) and that the pieces were in the right spot, he suggested wiggling them which then triggered something. Really? Wiggle it? Next time make sure to turn it off and back on too, that fixes things right? And to make it worse, most of the issues we had with the clues are pretty easy and inexpensive to fix.
-The manager walked into our room: completely unannounced and uninvited, in the middle of our experience, the manager walks in and starts talking with us. It ended up being helpful because he helped us with another prop that was broken, but seriously, that is an awful practice.
-Poor immersive element: when I go to an escape room, I want to be immersed in the theme. Tell me, what vampire's castle has a flat screen? or a DVD player? or a baby monitor? or random people checking in on me or walking into my room?
Overall, it felt like we were beta testing a room rather than playing one that had been open for over a year. The props were broken and the experience was bad. If I hadn't been with new players I would have complained and demanded my money back. I paid for a high-quality, entertaining experience, not a cheaply made headache.