TOKYO MYSTERY CIRCUS — Attraction in Tokyo

What a miserable experience. We started off well and excited for the Sadako puzzle. We were group 2 of 3 running that night. They had one group go in before us, then we went in, and one other group after us. We solved the first puzzle well. When we put the answers into the supplied tablet, the answers weren't submitting. We kept trying in capitals, in other orders and so on. Tried asking for help and wouldn't get it. We asked the other group how we submit the answers and when they told us, the game master came in and chastised us for talking to others. This immediately bothered me because it wasn't clear how to submit the answers. This problem we encountered allowed for group 3 to come in, surpass us and when we caught back up to them, we were again approached by the game master to get out of a room that group 3 was in as our timer was counting down. Eventually, we got to a room that claimed it could be a 20+ wait to move forward, which I was rolling my eyes at. Group 3 was messing around in another room in and out of that we needed to do. I stood there, waiting for them to finish their puzzle so we could try it. The game master again, came in and told us to just go into the next room regardless if they were in there or not. The room light was red even, INDICATING US NOT TO GO IN THERE AT THE TIME.

This was a terribly put-together escape room. If you fall behind the group behind you for some stupid input issue, you'll be wasting massive loads of time.

I really wanted to enjoy this. The lack of help when we needed it, and the chastising at the most ridiculous times made me almost walk out of the experience. It just felt like it was purposely trying to kill time so we'd have to buy extensions on time or something....

We made a time reservation for 16:00, but were made to wait for over an hour (despite being given a card that said 30-45 min as well).

When we approached the receptionist to ask for an update, they shoved us into the first room to receive instructions, upon which we had to wait for another 5 minutes or so (which by that point felt like an eternity). As a result of the incredible delay, we were unable to finish the puzzle we had paid for (we only finished 3 rooms) as we had engagements scheduled after the time the event was supposed to have ended (even after accounting for some buffer time).

What’s the point of making a timed reservation if there’s no way to stick to it?

You charge ¥1000 per person to extend the game at the end by 10 minutes - ironic then that you’re so casually wasting our time (amounting to at least ¥18000 for 3 people waiting an hour ++) with neither apology nor recompense.

It’s impossible to recommend this when the professionalism & service is non-existent, & it’s clear that profits are made on the back of a lack of logistical organisation & the callous waste of paying customers’ time.

If anybody were to ask me about this place, I’d say avoid it like the plague if they value their...

TLDR: IRL micro transaction games. Don't go here, some of their rooms have seemingly intentional bad game design to allow them to extract more money from you.

Their big escape rooms consisting of 9 smaller rooms are not good and are actively trying to extract more money from you. They have a 50 minute time limit but have a paying "continue" option that adds 10min to your time. Basically this incentive makes it so that they have an active interest in making people run out of time and it shows. Many of their riddles are confusing with no clear solution until the hint is given and leave you with a feeling of "How was I supposed to figure that out?" rather than the feeling of "How did I not figure that out?" a good riddle should create.

To give them credit, some of the riddles are very smart but it only takes a few badly designed riddles to waste your time as you wait for hints. The hints only come on a timer. You can get them earlier by "paying" with the time remaining before the hint would naturally show up but their "continue" structure basically makes it so that the time payment is money.

All in all this feels like an in real life micro...