PvP

This is the first head to head room I’ve played and what a fun experience it was. We had a group of eight, so we split into two teams of four and were told the rules. Each team had three rooms, a sabotage room, a puzzle room and a key room. The puzzle room consisted of the same five puzzles in each room, upon completing each one a key card would drop, which you would take to the key room and place it in the correct slot. The goal was to collect all five which would give you access to the one key between the two groups to allow your group to escape. Random cards would cause a sabotage, which would cause the other groups room to go completely dark until they completed a sabotage in the other room which consisted of a simple puzzle like doing jumping jacks or playing Simon Says. In theory, this room sounded super fun with the potential for having lots of laughs with the sabotaging. In reality, only one group got sabotaged the entire time. We were told that only certain cards cause sabotages but even with getting all five cards the other team still wasn’t sabotaged, making me wonder if there were some technical errors in the room. In any case, the puzzles were challenging but satisfying to complete. There is no story to this room and it is purely a stage to battle your friends on. It was fun, and definitely a cool and different experience if you’re tired of the general escape room layout lately.

Back in Edmonton for another round of Escape Rooms and our first stop sees a return to Breakout East. This time, we bring along a group of eight people in a Player Vs Player escape room challenge. This room is different than the traditional escape room- there’s no theme, no story, no hints and no scavenging. The room kind of felt like you were on one of those kid game shows. It was neat. Essentially, each room is the same and the puzzles you solve are exactly the same. There’s about six puzzles you have to solve and each puzzle solved will release a card key you need to collect in order to win. There’s a key room where all the card keys are placed- you’re also able to see the other team’s progress as it’s a race to collect all the card keys in order to unlock the one key to escape the room. The puzzles were simple yet challenging. This room is non-linear so people can break up and do different puzzles. This room also incorporated a ‘sabotage’- essentially, whenever you unlock a card key by random, it would send an alarm to the other team to complete a task in the common room area. Unfortunately (or fortunately), only one team got fucked with this sabotage during my experience. My team did not have to do a single sabotage task… which is good I guess? I’m not sure if the system was broken but the other team had solved about five puzzles before the end and we haven’t had to complete a single sabotage. That kind of ruined the experience even if it’s not something you want to do. There were no hints allowed unless both teams unanimously agreed on a puzzle that needed a hint. This room is definitely different and I’d recommend it if you’re into a little friendly competition.