Great Room Escape
Denver, Colorado
The Cabin: Fleeing a crazed serial killer, our group stumbled upon a cabin in the woods. The door locked behind us and we discovered that we were now in a real-life horror movie.
Zombie: A zombie is chained to the wall and with each passing minute it inches closer to us. Our group must find a way to escape before the zombie munches on our brains for lunch.
Pros: We must start by saying that we LOVED the Cabin. It was an absolutely terrifying and completely immersive room escape experience. The set design was exceptionally detailed adding to the horror theme vibe. The element of fear made the challenge of escaping even more difficult and the actors added to the fear factor. The storylines were clear and engaging. We found all of the puzzles enjoyable, logical and, most importantly, solvable.
Cons: Despite our LOVE for this place, we had a few concerns. The Cabin was GREAT but we could have used a few more flashlights to avoid unnecessary frustration. Solving puzzles could have been much more enjoyable with a bit of additional light. The fear factor would still exist. Headlamps might even work better since we would have hands free to work on mechanical puzzles and hold the flashlights.
Now to digress on a tangent about our experience in the Zombie Room. This is a message to escape room owners generally. It's time we had a talk. Despite what you say, more people in a room is not always a good thing. In our experience, four people is the optimal group size. More than that and half the group misses half the action. Twelve people in a room (cough, cough, Zombie Room) is WAY TOO MANY. Every room escape experience we have had with 10-12 people has been an utter disaster. People are completely confused. People are angry. People are yelling. People are stepping (literally) on other people. And that was just me. The game master is stressed, frustrated, and often down-right rude as he/she is overcome with Annoying People Overload Syndrome (APOD). APOD is our term for what occurs in your brain when you are surrounded by annoying people. Your anxiety increases, your voice gets louder in order to be heard. Your anger level rises. You get territorial about clues and information and eventually all collaboration and communication breaks down. APOD can occur in smaller group sizes, but the symptoms are usually more manageable and rarely spread to infect others in the group. However, in large groups the infection spreads rapidly and the symptoms become unbearable. The voice in your head screams: "all of these people need to SHUT UP so I can think." Eventually, you just want the game to be over. When the game finally ends, you walk out dazed and confused having lost the ability to speak coherently or make even the slightest polite eye contact. The sudden flash of the game master's camera startles you out of your stupor as he tells you: "We hope you enjoyed your escape room experience." But you are at a complete loss for words and continue staring blankly at the wall trying to remember what just happened and trying desperately to remember your name. Then some schmuck who was completely clueless for the entire game, never attempting to solve a single puzzle, cracking lame inappropriate jokes with no awareness at all that he (or others) were even playing a game, shouts out: "BEST TIME EVERRRRRRR!" To which the other dazed and confused players at first grunt in hesitant agreement but quickly catch the infectious optimistic fever and similarly shout in glee "OMG we LOVEEEED IT!" You look around in shock and confusion because clearly they DID NOT love it at all. But memory has a funny way of repainting the past so anger becomes joy, enemies become friends, and bygones become bygones. Everyone puts their arms around each other smiling gleefully with the "We Failed" and "Maybe Next Time?" signs prominently in hand. They leave happy and contented. Except for a few lone escape room addicts who walk away refusing to fall for the trick of memory and recall it for exactly what it was: chaos and anarchy culminating in an utterly inescapable escape room experience.
But we would probably play it again...
Thanks Great Room Escape for all the heart you put into your games!
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