Vociferous

Mediocre design; smoke machine that triggered trauma in one of our players

Let's start with the really bad: There's a part of this experience where you are locked in a very tiny room and a smoke machine delivers so much smoke that it's difficult to breathe. One of our players had an allergic reaction and stood in the corner trying to block her face. We asked for the machine to be stopped and nothing happened. Our player was understandably distraught.

Puzzle design is hindered by quite a few things being in poor maintenance or by poor UX design. One puzzle we had solved, but wasted five minutes because we simply hadn't pushed hard enough on the pieces of the puzzle. Another required us to intuit that there was more than one item hidden in a hidden compartment just large enough to fit an arm in, but not large enough to see in. Yet another was solved, but not "solved" because we had to keep applying pressure for even more time than we had -- nothing in the game indicated that we just needed to keep pushing.

What's especially frustrating about the design of this room is that the puzzles that take the longest amount of time are the ones that can only be done by one person. My team attacked a number of puzzles in parallel, and then had to stop because these puzzles converged on one very large puzzle that only one person could operate at a time. So the rest of the team stood around for minutes waiting.

Wonderfully run

From the moment you walk in to the end, the room is run flawlessly, which is impressive because of how many complex things are happening to pull it off. The puzzles all fit thematically and build upon previous puzzles. Nothing feels unfair or silly. From beginning to end one of the best escape rooms I've ever done.

Response by AdventurEscape Utrecht

2023 February 09

Thank you so much for the wonderful review! I've passed it on to our hosts, I'm super pleased that they're doing such an amazing job! Hope to see you in The Spear of Destiny once that's finished! Kind regards, Marc van Hasselt