Ryptic Room Escape
Mountain View, California
Escape from the Madhatter: We found ourselves caught in the Madhatter's twisted game to keep us trapped in Wonderland.
Pros: Escape from the Madhatter introduced us to a whole new approach to the escape room concept. Our team could compete against up to three other teams in this intense intellectual exercise that had us scurrying from one room to the next every five minutes. Our goal was essentially to successfully solve four individual puzzles in each of the four rooms before the other teams completed the same four puzzles. The trick was that we had to rotate from one puzzle to the next every five minutes and avoid leaving hints for other teams to pick up on. Sounded like a great idea in theory, right?
Cons: The problem was with the reality. We loved the concept, but found the process extremely frustrating. Essentially it was like working on a multilinear room with multiple puzzles at once but being interrupted and forced to move to another puzzle and then back again every few minutes. This was challenging for the brain and frankly mostly ridiculous at times. The process was even further complicated by the game master who interrupted frequently to give us answers and hurry us along. We found ourselves rushed, distracted, confused, and angry especially by the end of the game. We "successfully" escaped but felt it was more a result of the free answers provided by the game master than by any success on our part. As the primary puzzle solver in each of the four rooms, I left feeling like my brain was in complete meltdown mode as a result of overuse. This was one of those rooms that had us shouting to escape room owners again: "Enough with the gimmicks already! Just focus on creating good, logical puzzles and we promise we will have a great time!" Time to take the madness out of this Madhatter game.
