Grim Stacks

Overall:

Very enjoyable experience. The puzzles were clever and immersive. The rooms are well-designed and visually appropriate for their themes. Additionally, the rooms are quite large, the largest I have seen in escape rooms. The employees are enthusiastic and really good at providing clues appropriately - they have an "immersive cluing" system where they send you clues as they think you need them, without you having to ask. That's very helpful when you aren't sure how fast you should be progressing, as it can be hard to figure out how much content is left in a room. Our game master, Zay, was quite good at judging whether we needed a little nudge or if we just needed to figure it out ourselves. They also allow overtime, so you don't need to worry about not finishing and missing out on room content.

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Our Puzzle - Grim Stacks:

Puzzles (No Spoilers):

The puzzle we tried was Grim Stacks. Our game master was Zay. The puzzles were quite good, very complex and well-designed. I particularly enjoyed a puzzle that involved listening for sounds to find a pattern. I did think that one of the puzzles could have used a bit better signalling in the puzzle - there's an obscure connection you have to make from a list to books to colors that wasn't intuitive. However, the "immersive cluing" that they do kept us from getting frustrated without just solving the puzzle for us, so even that was still a good experience.

While many of the puzzles did involve finding codes for locks, they all had multiple stages and were quite complex. No finding codes on the wall and entering them blindly in this room!

Recommended Tools:

Definitely would recommend a notebook for this one. A flashlight was helpful for our group because of eyesight issues, but many people would be just fine without one, as the room was very well-lit. No puzzles that were only hard because the room was dim here!

Accessibility:

At least one person in your group should be able to ascend 3 steps up and 3 steps down to access a new room, but everyone else can use a normal door with no steps. (They could probably accommodate by having the game master open when appropriate; they seemed very flexible.) As it says on their website, if you have people who cannot stand for long periods, chairs are either in the room already as props or will be brought in on request. Almost all rooms are fully wheelchair accessible and solvable - check their FAQ for an up-to-date list.

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Other Games Overview:

As a bonus, probably because we came on a slow day and nobody was booked after us, we were allowed to do a brief tour of some other rooms. Every one looked gorgeous (and large), particularly the Curse on the Emerald Seas room (pirate theme) and the The Path room (Zen/Japanese theme). We were told that The Path actually has no locks at all, which sounds like an amazing experience, though it was the smallest room physically. Also, every room has easter eggs related to the room designer or Puzzle Effect employees. They design their own rooms in-house, which I feel really shines through in the quality of the rooms and the enthusiasm they have for running the games.

JeffSeptember 14, 2023

This is one of the most high end escape room companies in Denver, and it shows in this room. I played it with 2 players on a date, but I think it would scale well to 4 or 5. Nice set design with some magic shop feel to it, good budget and good design applied to the puzzles. Recommended.

RNFebruary 3, 2021

Staff are super friendly and helpful. The overall theme/feel of the room was wonderful that fit the back story provided well. The puzzles were well designed and all very interesting while still providing a certain level of difficulty. There weren't any red herring puzzles/clues so that's always a plus in my book. This is the second room i've done with them and will be back for The Path.

ChrisNovember 2, 2018

This room is BEAUTIFUL.’one of the best looking rooms in Denver. Our group of 6 got out with 14 MINUTES to spare

BrookeOctober 13, 2018

Absolutely loved it! The staff were hospital and kind, the place gave the right amount of hints to help and made everything solvable. We did the Grim Stacks room. I loved that you could really throw yourself into the theme of the room. 5 stars easily for the price we paid for.

JonDecember 26, 2017

Grim Stacks room was awesomeI Great immersion, and the puzzles were a great level of though. We got out, but we really had to work it. We all thoroughly enjoyed it!

PamelaApril 28, 2017

I went with my mom and my aunt, and we had a blast. We will definitely be returning, though hopefully we'll have better luck in the next room. We did Grim Stacks and ended up getting and lot of clues from the employees (but they were awesome sports about it), and didn't finish it in the 1-hour time frame, but it was still a lot of fun!

MeganApril 28, 2017