Captivity

After doing the Forbidden Temple, and unable to complete it due to a mechanical malfunction, we did Captivity. Now, it’s a bit of a scary room. No jump scares or anything but kinda decked out with a big creep factor. Basically, you’re held captive by some guy and he’ll come back and kill you if you don’t escape. Pretty straight forward. Everyone starts off in one of three cells in a room. Now each person has a keypad they can (kinda) reach to open their individual cell. Again, hint button is outside the cell. To ask for a hint we were told to yell “help”. Well, I’ve got a pair of pipes on me that the staff was not expecting, as they came in a little flustered, and maybe with a little pee in their pants. The progression through the room went well. Lots of well laid out furniture and such to decorate the room. Comparable to the Dead Meat room in their NE location in theme, but I think executed better here with their layout. Some issues we had were with some magnet locks, where we’d find something that might’ve been something but didn’t open, but along the line we figure out something that does something but we don’t know what. Until, that is, we go back to look as said things and ‘lo and behold, they’re open now. No sound, no light, no notification of any sort that they were now accessible. Other than that, it was a very well thought out room with, again, a nice decor. [Note: I did this room on the date posted, the rest of the group did it several months later along with several other people, so experiences may vary]

The escape rate (11%) leads you to believe that this room is pretty difficult but when we got out of the room with more than 20 minutes remaining, my team and I were left thinking, “that’s it?” The beginning of this room had your team separated into three different cells and although that was neat, there was not a whole lot to do in those cells. One item found helped one cell find a clue but other than that there was no need for inter-cell collaboration. And there was no order to which cell escaped first because each cell had their own puzzle, and if you solved it, you’re out. After we all got out, the puzzles were all pretty linear and they were quite easy as well. I think after we escaped, we were all a little surprised about how easy it was. There wasn’t a whole lot of puzzles to solve rather they were more physical and spatial, as advertised I guess. There was one very neat physical puzzle that I wish I actually tried. The décor was nice and the props used to represent body parts were pretty good as well. There was a good story and good progression. It was immersive but I think some music would helped as we can hear other people from other rooms talking and yelling and shit. Overall, I just thought this room was a lot easier than we were led to believe. That’s not a bad thing but it almost felt like escaping with more than 20 minutes was too good to be true.

We had seven people in our group, so we started out in three separate cells and had to find our ways out to rejoin the group. Initially we had a quick intro to the room, however, we found out later that we were supposed to be given the option for background music/effects which didn’t happen, so we ended up playing the room with no sounds at all. This caused us to be able to hear everything from the other escape rooms and the lobby which definitely hindered the immersion aspect for me. The decorations were well done and believable and definitely a step up from Dead Meat’s plastic limbs. The puzzles were relatively well done, however, we found that there simply just were not enough of them. My biggest problem with this room was that when we finished it, every single one of our group members was like “wait, that’s it?” There was a total of maybe eight puzzles and it was linear meaning your group had to stick together to solve everything. It was extremely unsatisfying and made me feel a little robbed honestly. There were many really cool aspects to this room and it has the potential to be a great room but really fell short due to there not being enough to do. We also felt a little cramped in the room with seven people at times, we think that a group of five would be more comfortable. All in all, this room may be better for beginners rather than a “moderate” rating. Not a bad room, but definitely not a good one either.

Well this room started off with promise- the theming was nice and pretty well done, lots of gross, unsettling decor… but we had a really slow start, and my immersion was really hindered by being able to hear talking and laughter from outside. Your group starts off separated into three cells, but it was a tedious affair to solve our way out of there and didn’t actually involve much cooperation. The puzzles were just alright for the most part, and pretty easy. There was one really cool physical puzzle that really got me hyped when we solved it, but it kind of went downhill from there and when we ended up getting to the end it was really kind of startling- we were all left with a feeling of ‘wow, is that all?’. Not a great end to the room, no sense of accomplishment. That combined with a rather mediocre start left this as kind of a ‘meh’ experience for me.