Fox In A Box Escape Room Chicago — Attraction in Chicago

I'm giving this place 5 stars on the A+ level of quality of their rooms, but there are still some comments I wanted to leave.

I had a very weird first experience with them. We arrived about 10 minutes early which is a perfectly normal thing to do. After knocking at their door a few times, one of the staff opened the door a few inches and told us to go back upstairs to sign the waivers because I was "20 minutes early". I explained that I wasn't and that I'd just come in and sign the waivers there. He told me I had no option but to go back upstairs.

Upstairs (near the entrance of the building in which they are housed) is a big red stop sign (I hadn't paid attention to it before) with some strong language about how you must not show up at their door and must sign the waivers first and wait to be gotten. The whole phrasing and performative nonsense of this sounded like a holdover from the most insanely scared days of COVID where everyone thought that everyone else was a miniature biohazard factory. It seems consistent as their confirmation and reminder emails still keep urging people to wear masks although, fortunately, they aren't required (I get the feeling that this place religiously enforced it long after the pandemic was in the rear view).

I've been to roughly 60 escape rooms and this vibe of treating their place as some kind of compound that you may only enter when your credentials are checked is bonkers and not like anywhere else I've ever been. The normal approach (taken by 90% of rooms I've ever done) is you walk in 10 or 15 mins before your room and sit in the waiting room. During that time, you can fill out the waivers on their own devices. That ended up being what I did since despite me returning upstairs to fill out the waiver, their system malfunctioned. Not sure why I couldn't have done this all along.

They were also very strict about the 18plus nature of one of the rooms despite the fact that one of their staff members knew I was hoping to come back today do do it with my 12 year old. This led to a misunderstanding which was solved by Germain (I hope I got this name right, my apologies if I didnt) who was a fantastic game master; as was Beck. Beck was our favourite game master.

As mentioned at the outset, the positives shining through at this place is that the rooms are elite and the escape room experience is top tier.

Most places the staff will keep an eye on you roughly 60% of the time and respond to clues after a short delay. Here I got the impression that our "game master" had eyes and ears on us 90-100% of the time and he or she would always respond instantaneously.

The best room is the Prison themed one but we also enjoyed the Bank heist one and the Bunker one. The two latter had an annoying feature where you solved a puzzle giving you a 5-letter word consisting of 5 letters including what is clearly an "O" and not a zero. The use of that solution is to put into a lock however that spells the word with a zero in place of the O. This is not quality solution. Bunker also was odd in that we apparently solved a puzzle that the actions we took were not supposed to result in the solution. Also another puzzle we lacked the tool to solve it but we were able to use another tool from an earlier puzzle to solve it. But doing this out of order led to some confusion and made the room incoherent. This was our least favorite.

Would I recommend this to anyone wanting a good escape room? Yes.

Does the staff (with an attitude I sense that trickles down from ownership) need to loosen up a bit in terms of customer interaction in the front of the...

My son and I did the bunker, and we had a ton of fun! Steven was fantastic, he was literally our favorite game master we've ever had. We've done a lot of escape rooms all over the country (and I've done a Fox in the Box in another country), but this was one of our favorite ones, mostly because of Steven. He was just so nice and fun. The room itself was nicely themed, the clues are challenging but not impossible. There's some cool mechanisms and electronics. Everything was in great condition and worked properly. My son loved it so much he begged me to bring him back again for the prison room, which we're doing tomorrow. Steven even drew us little pictures during the game and gave them to us afterwards, it was such a nice touch and definitely not anything we've ever received at any other escape room! The communication from the team prior to the game was excellent as well. They answered quickly and thoroughly, but almost every question I could have thought of they'd already answered. They gave explicit directions on how to get into the building, then had clear signs telling you what to do when you get there (they come get you from the lobby of the building). It was probably the most organized escape room I've ever done, and it was very appreciated. They also give clues in a clear way, they have a monitor in the room they can show images and typed messages on, so you don't have to just struggle to hear some convoluted clue through a garbled walkie talkie. It was also very clear that Steven was paying attention the whole time we were in there, we never had to explain what we were doing or catch him up to what clues...

This is one of the best escape room franchises we’ve played at! Our group of three people, who have played 40+ rooms, played BANK and ZODIAC on the same day. Here is why FOX IN THE BOX is an absolute MUST if you are in Chicago: (1) the game masters! (Zach, Holly, and Holly’s trainee) they really took the experience to level beyond any other franchise/location! They nudged us along when needed without giving too much away. But if that’s not your style, they can also be less involved. We also got absolutely brilliant doodles of our aliases (our pets as the animals they are and as characters they are based on!) (2) the rooms! BANK has a familiar premise with some unexpected and unique game design elements. ZODIAC has a great narrative, astounding production, and very satisfying reveals! Difficulty-wise we did have a fun time since we did pickup on some escape room tropes, but overall challenging! I wouldn’t advise beginners doing either as their first room! (3) repeat play discount! If you are booking multiple rooms on the same day, text them and you could get a discount. (4) great customer service and communication! The booking process, room recommendations, and communication with staff were all very smooth and welcoming.

Only negative (and it’s really inconsequential) is the location and procedure upon arrival. But there are clear instructions, it’s just different.

We’ll definitely be back to finish all the other rooms and get that...