Torture Chamber – retired

So this room we tried in their beta testing when they first arrived on the scene in Calgary. Having a location already in Edmonton (and actually a second one up there now) we had some good expectations from them. The biggest problem initially, in beta testing at least, was having only three of us. Which is like a minimum, as there are two cell sections when at least one person needs to be in each, as well a center area where one to two people are. The room has a lot of different puzzles, some easier than others, with some more interactive than others. Again, with the use of prop/plastic body parts kinda took away part of the illusion for me, but it was well decorated with nice mechanics. One word puzzle was really difficult for us for some reason (and kinda random). It felt like it would’ve taken quite a bit of time to figure out, as not everyone has an open visible area to see everything, there needed to be heavy communication as it took an element from each area, which kinda slowed things down to “let’s figure out your one puzzle all together”. When we did this for real, we doubled our team number. We kinda blew past most of the stuff we had in beta (despite our new members) and figured out everything after even with a few changes made after beta testing. Now, given the 45 min time limit, which is different for us as most places we’ve done were 60, I don’t think we would’ve initially gotten out if we didn’t do the beta testing and blew past everything.

We’ve done this room twice—once during beta (which we failed miserably) and once after launch. The novelty of this room was something I really enjoyed, even to this day. Your group is essentially separated into threes- there are two different holding cells and depending on how big your group is, one or two members of your group is in between of the holding cells and you must communicate with the person in the middle in order to escape. Also, everyone is handcuffed in one way or another. This aspect of the room I absolutely loved. What I didn’t like about this room were some of the puzzles and to be more specific, the puzzles that were in the holding cells. When we did this in beta, our team was a group of three, so essentially, we each had our own puzzles to do and they were fucking hard. And random. And completely unrelated to the theme.Not only that, this was first time we experienced a room with only 45 minutes to complete, so that was added pressure. Second time around, we maxed out the room capacity and we got out but that’s only because we did the beta. I thought this room had some really cool technology and the room did get better when everyone was out of the handcuffs and holding cells.The décor was really nice, some of the props were kind of cheap, but for me, it didn’t take anything away from the immersion. I’d recommend this room for novelty, but bring a big group if you want to succeed.