Ancient Pyramid

It was a long wait for Trapped to be open since it was located a couple blocks from my work place and walking by it constantly for the last half a year! Eager to get started we had a booking for a friend’s birthday on their opening night. Firstly, we’re blindfolded before we’re taken into the room (not the first time I’ve had that done) but the first thing past the door is two steps down. Now, that seems a little dangerous to me, plus the payoff wasn’t as hopeful as they made it sound because they told you everything to expect before entering the room. The doors weren’t on a strong magnet as a push (or good lean) can open them before they’re meant to. We made it to the final puzzles with more than 30 mins left… and we didn’t get it. Even when we asked for a hint, it was kinda misdirected with an inaccurate account of how the puzzle worked. Even after the timer stopped it took three staff members to finally tell us how to solve the final puzzle. After signing up for the membership cards, it was uncertain how, or when, we’d get them as we were never told or followed up with after our room. Being the opening day everyone seemed bit flustered and a bit ill-prepared, and as such, we decided we’d wait awhile before jumping on any of their other rooms.

We had been waiting for this location to open for what seems like forever. They finally opened right around A’s birthday, so we figured we would try one of their rooms opening night. First off, they blindfold you before bringing you into the room. There isn’t a practical reason for this other than to ‘help with immersion’. Our game master was pretty excited about it, but it didn’t really add anything for me. I might have felt better about it if we didn’t have to walk down a couple steps and avoid a table on our way into the room. We had a pretty good start and felt like we were making good time, but we used a hint for the first room. We figured we got the puzzle right because we were able to push open the door. *Note* A rule for every room we’ve ever done is don’t use excessive force to open anything, so we didn’t push hard, but probably as hard as you would have to push a door if there was a sock in the way. The final room was going well until the 3rd last puzzle. We worked on it for a good half an hour including asking for a hint (which used up the remaining time we had left). At one point someone leaned against the door and it opened and we were confused, did we win? Is it broken? We ended up calling the staff to check it out for us, and apparently we were ‘pushing it too hard’. That makes me wonder if we actually figured any of the puzzles that opened doors. Once our time ran out and we knew we didn’t escape we asked for them to show us how the puzzle should have been solved. It took three employees 15 minutes to figure it out and then explain it to us. I personally think that if the staff don’t even understand how the puzzle works, it’s too complicated. Overall I was a little disappointed. We had high hopes for this company, and thought that because it is a chain that they would have their bugs fixed and staff trained. Hopefully it was just first day problems and not a recurring theme for the rest of their rooms.

This room opened only a couple days after my birthday (Bonus Free Play!) so we decided to try one of their rooms on the grand opening. Upon entering the building you could tell they were still building everything and probably could use a couple more weeks to really polish up the space. The front counter staff seemed to be overwhelmed that our group of seven showed up on time, and they ran out of forms for us to sign up for memberships. Which we still haven’t received or heard anything in terms of it. The room we picked was Egypt, our Gamemaster told us we were to go in blindfolded into the room to build the immersion. It’s a neat concept, but if you have any type of obstacle in the way IE. STAIRS; do not blindfold your patrons. I’m sure it was just first night bugs but the door opened with a slight push which confused us at the end, which got us thinking did we push the first door too “hard” which was about the force of a toddler pushing a door. Hopefully they fixed it or at least made the doors a bit stronger so you can’t force the maglocks open… Anyways my biggest complaint is the second room: It literally was just a space to house one single item that will open the door. Seems like a waste since we did about seven puzzles in total for a fairly big room.