The Curse of the Evil Genie

Our first room at this location, and wasn’t sure what to expect. Was pleasantly surprised. The room is decorated well with puzzles ranging in difficulty and type. Lots of “lock boxes”, but had a variety of different locks so it didn’t feel too stagnant, despite no direct connection between clues to lock box. That said, it still wasn’t difficult to correlate between the answers we found to which box. I say “box” loosely as it’s not a rectangular box, but a container that’s also themed. There’s a lot of interesting interactive puzzles in there too. Lots of variety! Pretty impressed with it and definitely a fun room. The flow and progression of the room was really well done as well. None of the puzzles were “hard” or convoluted so bad that the answer was an out of the box stretch. They all made sense, weren’t random and actually played upon different strengths of different types of players. Plus there were a lot of them (there was a smelling puzzle!). So everyone was able to split off and work on separate things and come back and then more. The props used for the victory photo are also themed to each room! Will for sure go back to this place.

Going into this room with no expectations, I must say- this room was exceptional. This would be our first room at Escape Hour, so the host gave us a little back story about their company and their vision for their escape rooms. After exchanging pleasantries, we were given the pregame setup with a video that clearly identified the backstory, theme and objective of this room. The room itself was nicely decorated to its theme and the ambience immediately immerses you into the setting. Your clock is a TV screen which also serves as the game master’s way of communicating to you; similar to Confined Escape. This was more of a non-linear room as you’re collecting pieces towards your main objective and all the locks you needed to solve were pretty much right in front of you. Clues were hidden but nowhere stupid. Being a non-linear room, our team was able to breakup and solve different puzzles which was great as we weren’t floating around waiting for one puzzle to be completed at a time. Each puzzle incorporated different mechanics and technology and I think it complimented us very well. There were a couple minor issues- first, some puzzles could be done by just guessing rather than figuring out a clue and/or on the contrary, if you’ve figured out the clue, the lock that clue applied to wasn’t apparent which then led to guessing. Secondly, if you don’t have a strong sense of smell, a hint could be burned (this was not an issue for us but I can see where it can be). There were no real time wasters and everything that was presented in this room were relevant to theme and puzzles. The game master was useful when he needed to be and no puzzle were overly difficult or easy. Overall, this room comes highly recommended.

Our first room at Escape Hour and we started off with a bang. This room is their second easiest, and definitely provided some unique puzzles I haven’t seen anywhere else that had us thinking “can I actually do this?”. The answer is probably yes. And keep in mind you should be using almost all your senses in this room. Like other Escape Hour rooms, the puzzles are non linear and allow your group to split up and tackle multiple puzzles at the same time. The decorations in this room are decent, some parts I thought were a little hokey but by no means was it bad. There is just room for improvement here in to make this room just that much more immersive. I definitely recommend this room to anyone, experienced escapers and newbies alike.

This was our first room at Escape Hour and it definitely was a breath of fresh air! The puzzles were very well designed, and while the playing format is super non-linear with no real instruction, the room is arranged in a way that it helps guide you where you need to go to find clues and solve things. There’s a huge variety in puzzles in this room too, including some very unique ones that involve using your senses! The room itself was decorated pretty nicely, all within theme, with a good atmosphere. You still know you’re in an office building, but hey, the effort is there and I appreciate the floor to ceiling decor. Overall a great experience, I highly recommend it.