Epic Escape Game — Attraction in Denver

OVERALL TLDR OF MY REVIEW: My friends and I have tried two of Epic Escape Game's REMOTE Options for Escape Rooms during Quarantine. Short summary is that I loved them and can't wait to do our next one! They seemed to be shorter than I expected them to be, but they had the right feel, and we definitely got our money's worth! I want to offer more detail for those who want it, so that's below, but I hope that this helps for those who are skimming along. ;)

Full review: My friends and I love escape rooms, so the "stay-at-home" orders have really put a damper on our fun. However Epic Escape has started releasing remote options for escape rooms. I was very skeptical at first since escape rooms are usually so tactile and visual things... and I wasn't sure how well we could work as a team via video chat.

So now I've done TWO of their remote escape rooms. I'll give the name of each room, a basic "Too long, didn't read (TLDR)" Summary, and a detailed review for each. I hope this helps someone! As a note: we were given 90 minutes for each one. This is likely because while escape rooms are typically 60 minutes, in a remote setting you also have to give time for the gamemaster to describe what you see/find. With this in mind, at least for our groups, we still were able to solve everything in less than 45 minutes. I'm not sure yet if that's because our team is strong, if the rooms were easy, a combination of those, or something else entirely,... but it was worth noting.

The Witch's Tower! TLDR Summary: This was a really fun room! It seemed somewhat linear at times, but it was a great story and we had fun. I would say this is "Easy" if you're a veteran escape room team.

Full Review: Some of the puzzles were more obvious about "this key goes into this hole" than I usually expect, so I would consider this "easy" if you're a seasoned escape room person/team. They had some visual aids which helped for specific puzzles, but it felt more like a short D&D session where we had to solve a problem versus what I usually expect for an escape room (i.e. "you need to solve this in an hour or x will happen"). But overall it was fun, it was easy to work as a team and we felt proud of ourselves at the end.

The Assassin TLDR Summary: It had some puzzles reminiscent of puzzles I typically love in escape rooms, offered more challenge, and really gave me the "I'm in an escape room" feel. I also loved that the visual aids included top-view photos of the rooms we were in.

Full Review: This one, of the two so far, was my favorite! While the premise was still a little different than I was used to (in this case we needed to solve the puzzles and make sure we did things to be able to "catch someone in the act" to prevent it from happening again (don't worry, that's not a spoiler for the puzzle, it's in the puzzle's description on their website lol)...), but it really had that escape room feel! We had puzzles which required us to think in different ways, we had to not only solve the puzzles but also figure out on our own how the answers to the puzzles actually solved the situation we were in, and we had to work as a team! There were ciphers, directional challenges, combo locks to find key codes for, and out-of-the-box thinking requirements that are part of what I typically love about escape rooms. It really gave me the feel of "I'm in an escape room with friends, and that was great. Also, I loved the use of visual aids in this, including aerial views of the rooms we were in, so that we could point at what we wanted to look at, and not just focus on "did you remember everything from the game-master's descriptions?". Well done.

Can't wait to go back...

For me this was a middle of the road escape room out of the 20 or so I've gone to. I think our guide was super kind and respectful, so I appreciated that.

Unfortunately, the Sherlock Holodeck Murder Mystery didn't really do it for me puzzle wise, but I had a good time and I think most people would too.

Here are the things I liked:

generally fun atmosphere multiple rooms one or two pretty fun mechanics (inserting a clue somewhere, something cool happens) puzzle master held out the clock for a minute so we could finish the room, which is always appreciated

Here are my main tiffs with the room:

there are several objects that seemed important because you could touch them, but they ended up being irrelevant to the case. I'm mostly not a fan of red herring objects like this, so I didn't enjoy it.

there are a few electronic puzzles that are confusing. One of them didn't have enough clues to be easily solved, and the other didn't provide clear instructions all of the time.

the puzzles just didn't feel very thoughtful to me. When my Dad and I struggled with a puzzle, it wasn't because the puzzle was clever. Usually, it was because we overthought a simple solution, we were using a red herring clue, or the solution to the puzzle was under an object. (It was under an object two separate times, so if you're stumped by a puzzle in this escape room, you probably just need to look under some things.)

Overall, I enjoyed myself, but I think that's more because I was with my Dad, and less because of the escape room.

Thanks for the experience though! I did appreciate the time I got with my Dad and I thank you for that. I wish your business the...

A friend and I did a couple of the escape games here as a pair, and we found them a pretty great intro to newbies or people looking to try things out! Overall, Epic Escape Games delivers a fairly traditional experience with their themed rooms - they're very specifically one story genre or another, but definitely pay attention to the difficulty ratings here because we found them pretty accurate.

Wizard’s Academy is by far the one we enjoyed most - it's got some very creative puzzles that require working together, and the puzzle design is pretty well integrated into the overall theme. If you're a Harry Potter fan in any way, then you'll definitely get a kick out of this ersatz Magic School escape game! I particularly did like that instead of the typical 'you leave, that's it, back to the real world' conclusions, it had a cute little element where our choices throughout the game gave us one of several possible results.

Dorm of the Dead, on the other hand, is definitely one for the horror fans - it's pretty much exactly what it says on the descriptions, and has a couple of pretty fun 'eurgh' moments. It's probably kid friendly (I can imagine some children would get a huge kick out of the whole thing). The puzzles and tasks to complete were much less directly connected to or integrated with the story, though, so the overall flow didn't feel quite as smooth - for that reason I'd wouldn't rec it for total newbies, as it'd be better to have a bit of prior escape room experience to recognise what you have to...