Vampire Empire – retired

The room we did as a double feature along with Escape the Camp 22 Prison (my second time with a different group). While certain things were interesting in there, being only the second escape room I’ve done, the puzzles were very disjointed. Like, what do any of these elements have to do with being captured by a vampire? An inflatable floatie in the shape of a coffin? A hammer and steak and cloves of garlic? I understand the relation but why would a vampire have that? The first part is math. Algebra to be exact. We had to decipher the combination by going off of symbols and formulas on the side of the cabinet to find out the answer. The novelty of all the “new” things that happened in the room wore off after doing other rooms at other locations. Summer of 2016, this room was restructured to become the Red Magician. Based on the image used, it looks like the exact same layout but different puzzles.

You never forget your first time…. Is it safe to say this room tainted my first experience with Escape Rooms? Yes and no. There was a small amount of good that came out of this room- 1) Certain elements of this room were very intriguing and it did serve as a half decent beginner’s room (but that’s dependent on how tainted your experience is afterwards) 2) The puzzles and locks stack a unique learning curve for said beginners (but they were fucking hard and had absolutely no relevance to the theme or story) 3) It can’t get any worse (but it did in the form of a Red Cabin) and 4) Even Escape2gether thought that was an abomination to society, so it no longer exists (Thank God). The bad? 1) Well this room was terribly decorated- there was fucking puzzles crayoned to the wall with fucking clues and gibberish everywhere 2) There was no sense of direction and it felt like this room probably required more time than the allotted hour 3) There was no immersion and even to this day I still don’t know what the fuck I was supposed to be in and 4) The room that replaced it, The Red Magician, doesn’t look any better. If someone can time travel back in time and erase this room from historical existence, I’d greatly appreciate it. Thanks.