Prohibition – The Lucky Duck

Now, the game master had told us previously that this was his favourite of the four rooms here. And from what we’ve seen so far, it does feel more accomplished than the previous two rooms we’ve done. Immersion is higher, but if anything it’s because it’s not trying to be anything other than a room, so that worked in its advantage. We all had props to wear into the room being the Detectives that we were (despite being Locksmiths to break into combinations using processes of elimination rather than finding the proper clues) to help get into the feel of it. The cool thing about this: they used a lot of real history in Calgary (we used to have a speakeasy in Sunnyside, I knew this previously) and it’s referenced a few times being local rather than a generic city. They also had a lot of furniture that was acquired from around the 1920’s to make it feel more authentic. The puzzles were interesting and had a lot of variety to them (ended up skipping one and coming back to it later even though we didn’t need to) and again was fairly non-linear to allow for multiple puzzles to be worked on at the same time. Each puzzle (just like the previous rooms) were all thematic to the room and story, not having any random or disjointed clues/solutions. Had a heck of a time on the final puzzle, but was probably our fault again for overthinking things and not paying close enough attention to it.

After completing two of Escape Hours easiest rooms, we finally take on the highly touted Speakeasy room. This room continues the trend and standards set by Escape Hour- great back story, clear objectives, well thought out puzzles and non linear gameplay. Before entering the room, we were given props to wear which I thought was a nice touch. The décor worked well for the Prohibition time era and in comparison to their Zanzibar room, much more immersive. They were able to incorporate historical events into their story and puzzles and it worked extremely well. The puzzles were not that hard and some of the puzzles can be solved without actually finding and solving the clues for it. Being a nonlinear room, if different puzzles and locks were solved before finding the clue, it could leave you scrambling at the end with unsolved clues for puzzles you unknowingly solved. That could end up wasting some time or just throw you off on a different unrelated puzzle. Other than that, this room was really well done. You can tell a great deal of research was done into making things relate to the prohibition and overall another great room by Escape Hour.

This is now our 3rd room with Escape Hour and we had been told it was a favorite of the company. I can definitely see why. They integrated real life history from Calgary during the prohibition era into the room, as well as legitimate antiques, really upping the immersion factor for this room. Compared to the other rooms Escape Hour has, I thought the decorations were well done in this room. This was also one of the only other rooms (besides The Hex in Anaheim) that gave you costumes to wear as you did the room. We all got prohibition era fedoras and the like, and a few of us vests to further immerse us in the time period. Once again, the puzzles were non-linear and all made sense. We got stumped on one puzzle at the end, but that was just us being silly. The other difference was this room was an investigative factor added in. You needed to identify and name all the members of the gang as well as finding out who the big boss was in addition to escaping before you all “died”. I know our group tends to speed through rooms sometimes, but I really did appreciate the history and research that went into creating this room. This is another really strong room from Escape Hour.

Another great room from Escape hour. Loved the theme and that the story involves events in Calgary! Very nice touch. I liked the integration of the hint system for this room too- hints at this location are all done via a TV screen with text, visual and audio clues. The game-master types in character, which helps keep the immersion up- whenever he thought we needed a hint, he would type something about ‘interrogating a gangster’ for us and such. Points for enthusiasm and effort, the staff here are great. As for the room itself, very well put together. Puzzles were well done and in a non-linear format as is usual with this location. Even with the large amount of puzzles and the sheer variety they use, there’s always something unique to each theme. I really liked the surprise in this one.