Mae R.
Yelp
2 stars go to this joint being super visually appealing, having several fun photo ops, and the employees having positive attitudes. However, the overall experience at Play Playground was incredibly underwhelming to put it lightly. I came to celebrate my birthday with my husband and was totally pumped to be there. There was an option for unlimited play for double the price, but we weren't sure what to expect so we went with the standard option. We paid just over $100 for both of us to play each game once. Cool. We were okay with that and excited.
The games themselves were cool and fun to play. My issue, and were they totally lost me was the instructions only being a brief sentence or two describing the objective of the game. What it doesn't do, is actually show you how to operate the machines themselves. For example, there is a Bop It style game with 6 or 7 different action objects (twist it, plunge it, stomp it, etc). They do not take the time in the instructions to quickly tell you which action phrase is associated with which action object. This means you have to figure it out during your 90ish second gameplay, and you can be eliminated for not doing it quickly enough. Disappointing 90 seconds, huh? Most people likely already know the objective of the games. That is the draw that got people to the door. Knowing how to work the machines to have a chance at succeeding in the game is what is crucial to guests having a good time, feeling valid in their ticket purchase, and wanting to return in the future. I obviously know how to play the games now, but no one should have to spend $100 to essentially take a crash course in Play Playground. I understand they need to get as many people through the games as they can with the time provided, but the lack of direction absolutely sucked the potential for fun out of many of the activities. We played every game in about 30 minutes, and it just felt like a terrible waste of money in the end. We left very disappointed and definitely would not recommend this experience to anyone else visiting Nashville or locals until they make some changes.
Solution suggestions so customers may get the most out of their experience:
-Create 5-10 second videos to go with the existing instructions demonstrating visually how to play each game (enter answers, place tiles, etc.)
-Put demo videos of each game on Play Playground socials or YouTube so people can check them out beforehand.
-Have a team member at each game that explains prior to folks beginning if they haven't played before.