Cabin Fever

A really fun room. Initially your group is split into two separate cabins and have to communicate through walkie-talkies. Like with most rooms that have your group split, there are elements in the opposing room that are key to helping solve puzzles in yours. There is a certain element in one of the cabins that is a bit of a time waster. You know you have to get point A to point B, but you just need to be able to do it physically. We were given the option to bypass it if we used a hint (but we didn’t). The cabins (formerly safety deposit rooms!)  were decorated to looks like a quaint little forest dwelling. Lots of innovative uses of gadgets and tech in this room and was very impressed by it. Reminded us of a room we did a few days prior when we were in California more than any of the other rooms in Calgary. One particular puzzle had the other cabin stumped for quite a bit which stopped our combined progress. The game-master, watching through cameras and listening in, dropped us hints and clues due to the escalating anger issues on the other side. The use of the walkie-talkies hindered us a bit, as we’re use to yelling at each other directly. And forgetting to say “over” and wait for a reply that never comes.

This room quickly made it into my top five favorite rooms I’ve ever done despite having a few flaws. You feel immersed from the start, the décor of each cabin is well done and complete from floor to ceiling. The puzzles were a good level of challenging and requires EXTREMELY good communication skills from your team as your only form of communication between the two rooms is through a walkie talkie. This room has plenty of jump scares, so be warned if you aren’t the biggest fan of them. My only problem with this room was one particular time waster puzzle. Without spoiling too much, it was a physical puzzle that required extreme concentration and a steady hand with near surgical precision to get through. It was required to complete this puzzle in order to continue, however if you were unable to physically do so, you needed to use a hint to bypass it. After 15-20 minutes of working on it (with a lot of swearing) I was able to pass it but I definitely know that not everyone that does this room will be able to do the same which I find to be slightly unfair. Despite this, the creativity and ingenuity of the puzzles more than made up for it.

If it wasn’t for one lapse of idiocy that forever tainted my experience with this room, it would have easily been one of my favorites. Our group was broken off into two groups and placed in two different ‘cabins.’ In reality, they’re actually refurnished bank vaults and if they didn’t tell us that, we probably would have never guessed- the décor was that good. We were given radios to communicate with the other team because even if you try yelling at the top of your lungs, there’s no way sound is escaping those ‘cabins.’ Communication is really key in this room. We were stuck a bit in the beginning because they had a clue in their room for us to progress, yet for some fucking reason, we didn’t seem grasp it until finally, something blatantly obvious revealed itself. It also didn’t help that only one room had the game master screen in it… There were a good level of jump scares and contraptions that make you question whether it should be used or not, but I thought it they were really neat. The story was something revealed throughout progression in the room which was interesting. Besides that one hiccup, our room didn’t seem nearly as hard as the other room and once we all got out and came together, everything else started flowing nicely. Objectively speaking, this room was really good. Go check it out.

Alright, so we had an oversight right in the beginning of this room that really tripped us up and sort of tainted my experience with this one, unfortunately. Not really the fault of the room so much as us being oblivious… and I’m still a little salty about that. But man, this was a really good room and once we got over that stumble we had a great time! Decor was on point- it really feels like you’re in a cabin. Great theming, one of the best in Calgary in my opinion. And there’s some really cool puzzles in here, lots of variety and interesting effects. In regards to the story, well, unlike other escape rooms, they sort of just separate and throw your teams into their respective cabins without much of a preamble. The story unveils itself as you go, which I thought was a pretty nice touch. Really well done and just a great room overall, definitely check this one out. Just make sure you use those walkie talkies!