Excape Games — Attraction in Clarksville

tl;dr if you have long nails, or like escape rooms that make sense/flow in a logical order, pick a different room. I have only done one room here but I suspect if they’re all designed by the same person you might pick a different location.

For background: I’ve done 15+ escape rooms in about 8 different cities. I couldn’t tell you exactly, but I would say I probably escape just as many as I don’t. I’ve done them in large groups and with just one other person. I did this room with one other person.

This escape room is by far the worst I’ve done - the room is called “Outbreak”. I think with more than two people it would’ve been extremely cramped. The attendant (who was very kind) let us know that people get hung up on things that don’t matter and waste a lot of time. This is the easiest room they offer with a 38% success rate.

There are more “props” and “do not touch” items then there are clues or items that you can use which is very distracting. You are initially barraged by about 7 locks, all in a difficult to navigate area, so ladies if you have long nails just save yourself the frustration. After you get through all the locks, you discover……another set of about 10 locks. So if creative thinking is your reason for doing escape rooms- again, skip this one. It is literally just a find and seek for keys. The reason people get “caught up on things that don’t matter” is because there is literally nothing else in the room to use. Oh and even if it’s a number lock, you won’t use numbers, a calculation, or any sort of decoding to get a number to open the lock - so have fun with that.

Every other room I’ve been to has had a flow. You might find clues out of order, but one unlocking/activity opens up the ability to use other clues and the flow makes logical sense. That’s the fun of the game… This room does not. I’ve never left a room (escape or not) so frustrated by disorganization. I also wouldn’t consider the room “hard”. With an hour to escape, and probably in total over 20 physical locks, you have less than 3 minutes a lock with maybe 4-5 sources of information to decode/open the locks. So it’s over done - not difficult.

My suggestion to the person who designed this room is to removed maybe 5-7 of these locks - preferably the ones with tiny dials for those with any nail length - and instead implement more innovative activities that involve magnets, piecing multiple clues together, etc. The theme could’ve been stuck to better but I didn’t remove any...

Very disappointed in our room. We did the coffee shop/bomb/virus room. There was little variety in the types of puzzles, and it felt like we were just stuck in a cycle of “find code, find lock.” Some of the answers to the puzzles were a STRETCH and at the end we still didn’t know how to get the final answer. There were too many red herrings, codes, and locks, so it was incredibly difficult to keep track of what we had, what we needed, and what we already used—especially since the only thing we had to keep notes was a small sticky note pad. It was difficult to differentiate which code went to which lock, as well.

Additionally, I disliked the method of communication between the GM and players—the typing was slow and at times it felt like they either couldn’t hear us, or weren’t listening. At one point towards the end I asked for another hint and then asked how many hints we had/if we used all of our hints, and didn’t get a response. It was only later where we were given another hint in response to our struggling. Our GM also gave many un-requested hints that were unhelpful, as they were about things we had already done. Like, we would work out a code, but not know what to do with the code—but our GM would give us “hints” about SOLVING the code instead of where to PUT the code, which was redundant.

Our room was apparently the second hardest, but the difficulty felt cheap instead of rewarding. I didn’t once feel a sense of victory or pride in solving any of the puzzles, and I don’t think my family did either—considering their similar responses. (Though, since it was $100+ And an hour of our time, none of them want to openly complain and admit they didn’t like it or...

It would've been nice to know upfront that you'd be sharing a room with strangers. Maybe update your website to remove the COVID info and be honest with your guests instead. Telling guests after they already booked that it's in the FAQ page or that the word "available" translates to the number of people who you stuff into a room doesn't cut it. And then of course the no refunds policy if you decide you don't want to play with strangers. We ended up changing our dinner plans and number of guests to pay more for a room of our own later in the evening. Outbreak rooms were the size of a bathroom. No way 10 people could fit in there and if so 5 people would be doing nothing as the puzzles don't require or even make it possible for 10 people to work together on. There were 5 of us and it was a little tight. Also, two of the puzzles we needed to escape didn't work. The manager/owner came at the end to check a lock and couldn't open it until she yanked on it and it finally worked. We escaped anyway, but the bomb still went off bc the code we used didn't work even though it was correct. If a puzzle doesn't work 100% every time, replace it. Don't set people up to waste time on something that isn't their fault. We had fun anyway and have done escape rooms all over the world, and really sucks when the games don't work properly. Unfortunately, I doubt we'll be...