Escape Chambers Des Moines — Attraction in Des Moines

This place was a real blast! When you first arrive, you wonder if this is the right place but sure enough it is! The one thing we found challenging was parking. ALL the street parking was taken and there were reserved parking signs EVERYWHERE! We finally found a spot but I'm pretty sure we weren't supposed to park there. Anyway, once entering the check-in process was very simple, since we did as asked online and everyone completed our waivers online! We have our names and went to the waiting area. The waiting area was very nice, coffee shop type of feel with glass windows that allowed us to see into the area where we would play. Once being herded into the staging area we dropped everything we didn't want to take on the course with us (sweatshirts, hats, phone, keys, etc.) on what could be best described as a small wooden patio and then we got to watch a cheesy instructional video, but it was informative. After that we got a good bit of instruction for a young gentleman that was very no nonsense. While he was talking you got s good look around but there was SO much of the structure hidden that you could feel the excitement mounting! After instructions were complete we walked around through some of the course doorways to walk past a counter and get our laser rifles and head bands. I was glad to see they were wirelessly connected allowing full and free movement! Though the rifles were plastic, it was NOT a cheap feeling plastic! They have a nice digital display on the side to give you round and magazine information. They make a realistic firing sound every time the trigger is pulled and some of the guns even had simulated recoil! So we headed to our base which was in a corner on the top level, OH YEA, did I mention it's two stories! Anyway, your base has a small black box that when you get killed, if the game allows, you can respawn there by simply walking near the box. While heading to our base the official tells us we cannot use the stairs to get between floors! We have to use these strange 4 foot drop steps with a padded 2x4 grab bar above to move between levels. This sounded weird to me but strangely it worked very well. And there was absolutely no running allowed. This felt like it would be a hard rule to follow but everything was so tight that it didn't seem hard AND there were several times I turned a blind corner and was glad to be moving slow, otherwise me or a fellow player probably would have gotten an accident broken noes. They had several games for us to play: team slayer, snipers, king of the hill. We only got 4 games in in our 1 hour allotment. But they were fun, action packed and fast paced! They were very nice and let us take ample pictures of our group once we were done playing. I would rate this as my best laser tag experience by far. Though it seems a bit pricy, it is well worth the additional cost! AND FILL YOU WAIVER OUT ONLINE BEFORE ARRIVING! Save both their staff and yourself a bunch...

I hate to give a one star rating, but... My husband and I have been to several other escape rooms and this was by far our worst experience.

The biggest issue was the game master. Although he was really nice, it was clear that when he left the room, he was not listening or watching us. We asked for hints over and over again, and he would take several minutes to answer and sometimes, he didn’t answer at all. We tried all kinds of things, including covering the camera and yelling that we needed a hint but clearly he wasn’t watching. (Also... all they had for communication was a baby monitor... It was difficult to understand anything he said when he did respond)

The room itself was, well, boring and minimal. The props were plain, there was only one mechanical gizmo and two keypads. No lockboxes, secret buttons, hands-on interactive stuff. The one secret door they did have didn’t work well. I don’t know how to describe it without giving hints to the room, but I’ll just say that every single thing you actually needed to get thru the rooms was on paper (not using objects or interacting with the space, like every other escape room we’ve been to).

On top of all that, there was an INCREDIBLE amount of useless information to distract you from actually getting through the rooms. All escape rooms have some “false hints” to add interest, but this room was mostly false hints. There was little to no indication of which information you needed in the mountain of words, colors, patterns, and number combinations that were scattered throughout the rooms. Much of the time, there were 3-5+ ways to use the information you were given. (Also there was a number that we HAD to have in order to finish, and it was rubbed off and illegible.) Without having a game master to guide or give hints when we were completely lost, most of our time was spent arranging and rearranging the useless information.

We have been to other escape rooms that we didn’t escape from, but they were still super fun! This one was just stressful and irritating to all of us 😕 Maybe escape chamber has other rooms that are...

More like 2.5 stars. I'll start by saying I'm from Kansas City and have done the 4 rooms available at BreakoutKC, broke out of two, and loved every room. I have family in DSM that wanted to do this so my other half and I drove up to experience another city's version. I was pretty excited since this is a chain and figured between all the other locations getting feedback, they'd really be on point.

The pros: The building is really nice! We were really impressed with that. Sat in a room beforehand that I think will be a future bar area was furthering my high hopes. We did the Cellar room and the storyline was a cool touch to get your head in the game.

The cons: Unfortunately, this list is a bit longer. The very first clue we needed was barely visible even after the intercom gamemaster pointed it out and we took 35 min of our time trying to figure it out before we were told. That was pretty frustrating. Once we had the clue, the lock it applied to was very hard to read in the lighting and only furthered my frustration. I can't imagine someone doing it that had even mildly poor eyesight. After that we cruised along quite well, though, we never broke out (which is fine). The room wasn't near the level of thought or riddle/game we were used to from the other place. It wasn't very well thought out at all. I want to solve riddles, look for clues and "connect the dots" to get out. This room failed miserably in that area. The intercom was also a fail. When you have 10 people in a room trying to talk and figure things out, it doesn't work. Try putting a tv in the room and type clues. You could also see your remaining time (as with breakoutkc).

Also, the pictures they take after....there's no signage in them to advertise the place and there's no way to know what room you did or if you got out. White board? Signs? Something. Make the pictures fun!

Overall: Very nice building, great set-up,...