Brainstorm Escapes — Attraction in Champaign

Let me start by saying that this review is based off of only one room: abstract larceny. I haven't played any of the others here. I have played probably about 20 other escape rooms though.

First off, stars were lost because of the online booking platform. It wouldn't let me pay for all the tickets at once, instead insisting on me paying some now and some when I arrived. (Then it sent me annoying reminders to pay the rest for the next two days. -_-) After I checked out, I was told my cart still had the room in it, so I almost paid twice. Thank goodness for confirmation emails.

When I arrived, there were some fun puzzles in the waiting area. Indeed, they're the only reason why I'm not giving it one star. We were told that we got an extra clue for every box solved, which is also a fun mechanic.

The room itself was sadly disappointing. Most of the time was spent searching rather than puzzling, which is always a mechanic I hate; I feel it shows a lack of innovation if the longest part of the room is just looking for things. The puzzles themselves were too easy and required very little effort to solve. The room as a whole took about 25 minutes, which is about half the time I've come to expect from a well designed room.

Needless to say, I'm not planning on going back and playing the rest of...

I first reached out to Brainstorm Escape Room with the idea of using one of their rooms to propose to my long-time girlfriend, who I met in Champaign. From the moment I reached out, Ursulla, and the entire crew, were all in. They were incredible throughout the process from the months of planning to the actual day of the event. Not only were they responsive from the moment I reached out with my idea, but they even offered suggestions on how to customize the game to make it unique to us. Ursulla spent her individual time to create an entire side game within the larger escape room related to “finding hidden gems/diamonds” with the last one being the ring. She also printed out new material that was specific to us (important dates/events, pictures of places we had visited, etc.) and found a way to make it part of the escape room. I thought it was enough asking them if I could do the proposal and throw in a couple of my own ideas. You can imagine how blow-away I was when I was met with the level of enthusiasm, engagement, and creativity the people at Brainstorm offered. I had the initial idea of proposing at the escape room, but the ideas from the people at Brainstorm Escape Room made it memorable. Thank you all for everything you’ve...

We have done several of the escape rooms in town, but the Zombie Pets room at Brainstorm Escapes was definitely one of the most difficult! We made it out with just over a minute to spare. It was a lot of fun and our employee guide was very helpful with the official hints and unofficial ones. The only thing that bothers me about this place is their policy on private rooms. If you want a private room at C-U Adventures in Time and Space, you just ask. Brainstorm Escapes requires you to pay for the cost of the most number of players allowed minus one person. Thus, for Zombie Pets, since they allow 4 - 10 players in the room, I would have had to pay a total of $225 just to have the room limited to our group. I understand that they need to maximize the $$ for time, but this is ridiculous. We ended up just leaving it open and hoping that no one joined us (which they didn't, thank God). It would have felt REALLY weird being handcuffed together with someone I...