Mind Trap Escape Rooms — Attraction in Aurora Township

This place is unreal. We first rolled up, and I thought, well.. I guess we'll at least have fun because friends. The outside of this place is not a looker. It's a totally normal looking strip mall. That's because they saved all of their money for the INSIDE of this place. Serious substance. It's like the saying "never trust a skinny chef.." well, never trust an escape room that spends to much on getting you in the door. Real life engineers, set designers, programmers, etc. built all of this. Top-tier.

I've been to a ton of escape rooms, I'm pretty good at them. But it also means I've gotten used to solving a lot of the same problems/puzzles. This is extremely innovative and has GOD-TIER SET DESIGNS. No cheap-o, basement "just pretend that door is locked" type of stuff. That door is locked, and the only thing that is going to unlock it is that special solution to that puzzle with a number of NFCs that are all... not gonna give anything away. But it's all extremely elaborate. Everything there is there for a reason.

Granted, I've been to extremely elaborate ones too, especially in Canada, that have much more difficult problems. But their sets sucked. And I've been to places with extremely elaborate sets. But their puzzles were childish. This place is a super healthy balance of being good at both.

Our first time was a few weeks ago, and we did the mafia one. We all loved it so much that we immediately asked "so can we do another?" and they were like "well, uh, that's a first, but yeah, someone just cancelled at _." So we did a second. Somehow we succeeded at both! I would have done a third, but our friends needed to go run errands.

Daniel (I think that's his name? Long hair, glasses, punny, super knowledgeable, someone correct me if I'm misremembering, I'm bad with names) was probably the best game master I've ever had. And I get the sense that that's how everyone is at this place. So many cameras, y'all actually know what's going on.

Y'all should make it a lot easier to tip your game masters.

The crazy part is that even when I google "best escape rooms in Aurora" this place doesn't come up on google. That's okay, I'll spread it by word of mouth (and I have been) to everyone I know in Chicago.

P.S. I know that a new room is opening soon, very stoked about it. I will definitely be trying every one of these out, already planning out a group for a few weeks from now. BUT I have a request: Can you one day make a room that costs like $100/head, but is like 4 hours long? Or like, something 2 hours long. I know they exist, but to have one in Chicago's backyard would be AMAZING. Mafia was so much fun, even with a bunch of first time goers as well as some veterans. 75 minutes and just never knowing how much farther...

I was really excited to do a room here even though it was quite a drive. The descriptions sounded awesome and they seemed to have great reviews online. I have done approx 30 escape rooms and honestly I don't think I would return here. From the minute we entered the facility it seemed like we were inconveniencing the staff. But it was late so we didn't think anything of it. The set design was awesome and we figured it was just a grumpy employee. She gave us a typical orientation and told us where our hints would be when we needed them. The room itself we later found had 4 specific areas and only a tv (this showed your hints and time) in the first area so you kept having to run back to that first space to check your time. I think the experience could be improved just by having a secondary screen for this later in the space. The employee never specified we could not ask for a hint so we figured that it was like every other room we have done where you get 3 hints throughout the game as you ask for them (shame on us for assuming i guess...). About half way through the game we decided we wanted a hint, we yelled out we wanted a hint and waved at the cameras multiple times and multiple cameras but no support was provided. As far as i know, they left us in the room and no one was watching. After about 5 minutes of trying to get the person's attention, we just gave up on asking and did our own thing. At times in the beginning they did provide a nudge but not when we asked or even needed it. (i.e the tv buzzed and we were already in the middle of the action they tried to nudge us on...but besides we didn't ask for help at that point...). At one point we figured out how to get out even though we skipped a few clues. We got the exit door open but before we could leave an employee told us even though that was the exit, we hadn't solved all the clues so we had to go back in. At the end, the employee came in and basically showed us to the front door after saying here are all the places you messed up. I feel like every other room I ever done the game master asks if we have any questions or at least converses with us. She acted like she was just going through the motions. I don't care we didn't truly escape. There are rooms I haven't escaped from that I have gone back and done other rooms because the people who worked there actually cared and the rooms were cool. This place had such great promise and premise but in the end was a let down because of the lack of support and buy in by the employees who seemed to only be there to punch a clock. In the end, she also said she wanted to give us prizes, which was a bunch of free stickers to...

Staff were friendly. I have done both Storm Surge and Doctor Death here. Storm Surge I did this escape room with 5 people and it was super fun and just challenging enough we were able to escape and the puzzles were great. I definitely recommend this for families or anyone looking for a fun time. Doctor Death Party Size and Outcome I did this room with 1 other person and we made it about 85% through. It is a lot more difficult with less people although I think we would have been able to do it if we were not scared. Fear Factor I think we did not escape partially because we were really scared and wasted time arguing over who would do a scary part. This room was really scary a lot more than I was expecting. I kinda thought it was a children’s thing since the first one I did here was not scary but I should have read more carefully. I am a graduate student in college and was really scared in this room so I would not recommend for scared children or even adults who don’t want to be scared. I would only do this room if you want to be scared. We low key could not finish partly because we were too scared to be in one of the final unlock-able rooms so we kinda gave up. Downsides Only downside is there were so many doors in the room that we were not sure which were part of the game at times and which not but the guide told us when we asked. I also wish they had a notepad in this room that would have been useful cuz there was a lot of walking back and forth especially on the eye puzzle. Also the rooms in this place are very close to each other so at times I wasn’t sure if a sound was coming from our room or someone else’s room. Guide was Good and Friendly They were good about giving us clues that were not too obvious but steered us in the right direction. Physical Challenges This room has some physical challenges in it which require crawling into small spaces so I wouldn’t recommend if your party is not able to do that. One space was so challenging to go into that I did not realize it was part of the game at first and thought it was there for “creepy effect” and the guide had to tell us to go into it to progress. Also be warned that there are jump-scares in this game even if you do not have a live actor. Conclusion If you are looking for some family fun time this is not the room for you. I know it says 13+ to come in this room but I honestly would not recommend coming in here unless you are 16+ and are looking for more of a horror game type of feel. If you are looking for a thriller and to feel like you are in a creepy scene solving puzzles this is an excellent escape room and the atmosphere really makes...