I would give this room 0 stars if I could.
Our Getout Pass gave us free admission to one of the rooms at Escape Key. We played the CSI:SLC room, and it was horrible. It was so bad that I seriously considered leaving half-way through the game. The whole way home, we made a list of all the reasons we hated our experience. As a disclaimer, we did escape with 4 minutes to spare, so we aren't upset at losing. I'll try not to give any specific puzzles away. Here's the list:
Game pacing was way off. We had tons of down time where only one person or no one was doing anything. But then at the end we had to get a ton of clues so we could escape.
There was an intro video that you were supposed to watch and take notes on a whiteboard, but the timer had already started, so it competed for attention with room discovery.
A puzzle with a 4-digit answer opened a 5-digit lock. Could they not afford a 4-digit lock?
A puzzle with a 5-letter answer opened a directional lock. We had the answer but couldn't figure where to input the answer. It took us 21 minutes of standing around doing nothing before we found the labels with the letters on the back of the directional lock. The game master was either not paying attention or wasn't properly trained on how to give timely instructions when a group was stuck. But besides all that, why should the room designer expect a group to look on the back of the lock for labels? How does that give players a good experience? And why would any logical person think that a 5-letter answer should go with a directional lock?
Speaking of locks, why are there 20 locked cabinets scattered around the room? It seems like they stuck locks on everything, even things that had no business being locked. Can the designers not think of any puzzles that don't involve locks?
There was an audio clue, but the recording was really quiet and had lots of static, and the ambience music in the room made it too hard to understand what was on the recorder. We had to ask the game master to turn down the room volume so we could understand the clue.
There were tons (not an exaggeration) of small containers with keys that contained a clue and another key. We had to open so many locks that is was incredibly annoying. At least they had colored keychains that let you know which lock the key went to. The designers did something right!
For one of the puzzles, you have to search the whole room for little messages written in blacklight paint, but you're only given a tiny $1 blacklight flashlight to do it. How annoying! Not to mention the other people standing around doing nothing while the one person searches.
The room was hot. They provided a fan, but it wasn't adequate.
Everything was stuck behind a lock in a very linear fashion, so there were lots of people who weren't doing anything for most of the game.
They had a million locks which were not very fun and didn't give very much of a sense of satisfaction.
The clues did not lead you to locks or have any connection to any locks.
The poker table in the middle was really cool with cards and lighting and seat numbers.
The electronic switch answer board was falling off the wall. Instead of fixing the prop, they had a sign saying "don't pull on the box". Well, this sign made it so you couldn't find something that was attached to the box.
Metapuzzle at the end was really fun with all of the clues and figuring out who sat where.
It was a little bit confusing because some of the clues could have been interpreted more than one way.
It was hard to keep track of which people could go to each seats because there was no way to record that information.
Jeremy Dye
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