Mystical escape rooms in Madison

We were excited for an Escape Room explicitly designed around the 7 Sins, but despite the cool theming concept the narrative barely mentioned them and they did not play into the design in any meaningful way. Instead, the writing was unfocused, throwing in a hodgepodge of generalized church, cult, and curse tropes.

Several of the puzzles contain one too many steps and require players to make a number of logical leaps in their clue interpretation that border on unfair. And the theming is so vague that it's often unclear which puzzles are drawing upon which clues. There are a couple of fun ideas, but bad puzzle design, questionable clue introduction, and in one case faulty tech which had us stalled for several minutes while the game host kept messaging us to "try it again" ruined any chance of achieving a satisfying solve flow. It would not have been quite as souring if the theming was actually engaging, like if each of the 7 puzzles were each actually related to a different sin, or if the puzzles were more inspired themselves. Unfortunately, despite escaping with a few minutes to spare, our group was left feeling frustrated with the intended solve path and disappointed in the room's failure to incorporate its own concept.

AdamFebruary 5, 2025

7 Deadly Sins

Madison