Escape Thrill — Attraction in Clearwater

"Thrill" may be a stretch.

We enjoyed Skinned Alive as a warm-up to our day of escape rooms at other locations. It is a fun suspenseful room with a few surprises. More details below for escape room enthusiasts.

𝗣𝘂𝘇𝘇𝗹𝗲𝘀 Skinned Alive doesn't have any true puzzles, just things for you to find and notice and instructions to collow. Even its riddles, which are a huge part of the story, are actually just references for you to connect to other items in the room. There's nothing in the room to be solved.

𝗣𝗮𝗰𝗶𝗻𝗴 The space is small and there are no additional rooms to unveil in order to establish a pace. It's difficult to know where in the puzzle flow you are until you're done. It only took our group of five 28 minutes to complete the room if that gives you any idea of the amount to be accomplished.

𝗜𝗺𝗺𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 The overall room design is commendable for a small location. Most props were well themed and, despite some being budget solutions to much grander ideas, I still felt pretty immersed. The only major immersion breaker was the Ring doorbell camera for communication with the gamemaster. I appreciate the OG Breakout inspired gimmick of marching groups in with masks over their eyes, but the payoff isn't there for this room.

𝗚𝗮𝗺𝗲 𝗠𝗮𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗿 Unfortunately, our GM does drag my rating down quite a bit. She didn't at any point introduce herself, and the clues she gave when we needed a nudge were a) delayed and b) amounted to her repeating instructions or clues already provided in the game without giving any...

EDIT: I was contacted by the owner of this escape room. She was very nice and assured me that this was an abnormal experience. She stated that the unfortunate mishap with the lock/latch caused me to miss out of some of the more advanced features. She has invited me back to make sure I receive the experience that they want to provide. I am very impressed with their customer service and drive to make sure the player has the best, most immersive experience possible. I am not sure when I will be able to return (from out of town), but definitely will soon. I have changed the review to 5 stars, for sheer above and beyond customer service. I'm sure based on the owner's enthusiasm for the business, I won't be disappointed as I am sure you won't either.

The staff was nice. The tech and puzzles were middle of the road. There wasn't much technological integration in the room, mostly just combination locks. There was a tablet by the door, that I'm still really not sure how it works into the game, other than obtaining clues. In the room I played(The Wild West), one of the most important locks was left unlocked when the room was reset, which lead to the room being cut short pretty tremendously (20+ mins left on the clock). All and all not terrible, I would give it a 5 out of 10. I found it to be a little pricey for the quality. I have played escape rooms in Florida, Georgia and Mississippi and this one was just about middle...

Completed their Skinned Alive room tonight and we were very impressed. We went with a group of 5 (2 of which had never done an escape room before) and we have nothing but good things to say about it. Not going to give any spoilers or particulars to ruin the experience but each puzzle flowed in a sensible manner with some taking a decent amount of thought. We did get stuck on one puzzle in particular (the main puzzle) but that was a product of us not being thorough enough in the first place. This room has the lowest success rate out of the all of their rooms, and while we did escape, I can see why. For the 3 of us that have done escape games before, I would rank this in the top 5 for difficulty out of the ~17-20 we have done so far and we are happy that our friends first experience was here.

This has definitely been one of my top 3 favorite rooms locally that I've done and we are looking forward to returning to try their other rooms. If I had any complaints, it wouldn't be about the game but about the room itself. It was a bit hot in the room and we found ourselves being a tad uncomfortable towards the end. I would also say that the size of the room seems ideal for 3-4 players despite listing up to 6.

Regardless, definitely a 5/5 experience and we will be recommending this room and this place to friends and family...