Escape the Mystery Room — Attraction in Duluth

I usually don’t leave reviews but wanted to leave this one to warn other escape room fans! We saw great ratings here and impulsively walked in and booked a room. We should have done more research. This location has been here for YEARS so we asked what the newest room was and were told they’re all the same (some have newer stories), but that should have been our first red flag.

We did the Alcatraz room and it was like 90% just number or letter locks and laminated hints. It was in one lackluster room and you could hear all other neighboring rooms/games during it (there are no ceilings in the room and claiming it is for claustrophobia feels like a weak excuse), which made it hard to focus at times. I cannot imagine having more than two people in this single room. The props and decoration were boring. Nothing felt immersive. None of the “puzzles” felt satisfying to solve. Just boxes with locks inside of bigger boxes with locks. Most solutions were extremely literal while others were solved by guessing because there was no reason for you to expect that to be the answer. To “beat” the game, you needed to enter a 4 digit code on an ipad… I am not even sure if I could tell you the plot.

The completion percentages are NOT a reflection of the difficulty or quality of a room vs. the number of people that likely got bored and gave up or got stuck on a single puzzle that had an unclear clue. There is no game master, watching the room as you go, only a button on the wall that you can press for someone to walk over to the room and ask what you need help with. We thought about walking out multiple times. At the end, you either get a simple congratulations or “you did not pass, please leave” from the ipad. We were then immediately told that they needed to clean up the room, asked to leave, and offered a picture — which is not to say that the staff were not nice (they were!), but it was definitely not the standard “here’s a recap of the room and puzzles, any questions?” you get when you finish a good room! We do escape rooms semi frequently across many cities and can confidently say this is not worth the price or time,...

I give 2 stars instead of 1 because the staff was friendly.

I am not sure how the reviews are at 4.9 for this escape room because it clearly does not live to its expectations. We did the Sherlock room with a couple of friends and it was one of the most disappointed experience ever. First, the room is not sound proof so you never get into the story because you hear other groups playing their own rooms. It’s also just a one small room with no secret locations or anything. The clues and story did not make any sense at all, they just printed a bunch of paper and you have to figure out which random words you need to put in one of the random chests. For example, I tried every word on one of a paper that has the good number of characters for a lock to open it. There’s also no game master as there’s no screen so they don’t monitor anything. You have to push a button that rings a bell for their staff. Then they come by opening the door (!!), ask you what you are stuck on and give you a hint.

Basically they cheaped out on every aspect of the escape room to try to squeeze as much money as they can, I am assuming each room they have is a small room so they can optimize the number of rooms they can have at this location.

Just don’t go there there’s way better escape rooms in the Atlanta region where they actually put effort in creating a nice story...

We had our daughter's 13th birthday party at this location earlier this month and overall, we were very pleased with how it all turned out. I initially reached out to inquire about the birthday party packages and Michael from the Escape Room was very helpful from start to finish! He helped organize the food (pizza and cake were fabulous!!) and the price of the party package was very reasonable. My daughter and a few of her friends did the movie star themed escape room. The room was clean and organized and Michael and his staff were available to assist in giving clues if the girls got stuck-- you have to ring the bell on the door if you are requesting clues. Obviously not everyone wants this assistance but the staff are available if you do get stuck which is really nice so you can try to solve the room within the time allotted and not get held up on one clue the entire time. Regardless if you solve the room or not, you get a photo with some props as a keepsake. If you are looking to hold a birthday party here I would recommend it for a smaller group-- we had seven total people and it worked out very nicely and was reasonably priced for a lot of fun. Thanks Michael and staff for...