ConTRAPtions Escape Rooms — Attraction in Fort Collins

Yesterday on Friday night, myself and my partner and another couple that invited us to join them for the 2 part Margo escape room started with the intention of a fun night. Myself and my partner have never been to any of the escape rooms in Fort Collins but have had several experiences in other areas.

We arrived on time and were greeted by our friends and a friendly employee named Dunkin. Upon instructions and entering the first part/room, the initial response of the setup and design give a retro Star Trek vibe. For these two reasons, 2 stars are given. Beyond this, I am disappointed, confused, and concerned about the business practices of this establishment.

Supporting small businesses and game makers has always been an integral part for me, but an expensive experience like last night leaves me wondering why? Since our friends spoke highly of this place and had positive experiences with other rooms, we opted to with little info or research and attempted to let the experience unfold. I was initially surprised by the sticker price- for $150 for myself and my partner and $300 for our group of 4. To which I searched for a Groupon or coupon as found Contraptions offers 10 discount (or so their website says).

My partner got 10% because he brought his student id, and I opted to check in on yelp for mine once I didn’t have my school id with me. The employee informed that the yelp discount was no longer honored and that the website needs to be updated by the owner. He then said he as able to give me a student discount instead. He also said the retroactive discount would take a few days- so time will tell if that is the case. Strike 1: their website is not updated (since10/2017) & they did not offer what is advertised. This was a signal that I normally would ask for a full refund and leave if I were solo.

Being in a group meant I was willing to let it slide on a Friday night and the employee’s attempt to remedy this. Beyond this the escape room had multiple; yes multiple malfunctioning components that stalled our game’s progress, and required Dunkin to enter the game and apologize for malfunctions- one being that a clue we solved “was not registering in the escape room for the battery voltage and was showing fine on the main control” for the employee; secondly a key from face B was not functioning/or possibly “placed in the wrong spot during a reset after a previous group” both stalled our game play due to no fault of our group, and with the benefit of the doubt given that Dunkin might no have been the one to reset the game. These major malfunctioning components soured the entire experience for myself and group that was celebrating a special occasion. Upon exiting the room having been stunted repeatedly, I withheld my opinions until I was able to reflect on the experience as a whole.

Having slept on it, I find that this establishment may lack a reset quality assurance check after being prepped for each new group/game. I found that there is a lack of value for this experience considering it’s various malfunctioning components of both part 1 as part 2 of this specific”Margo” room. Sadly I also believe there might be business practices that are questionable that might require further discussion with other business agencies after exploring fraudulent claims on Contraptions’s website, a pattern of malfunctioning (see photos), and a sense that the cost to benefit of this escape room is astoundingly high compared to other escape rooms that function as designed.

I would advise against the Margo escape room, I will not be returning to this establishment and believe the management or owner lack any actual consideration for patrons’ satisfaction, hard earned dollars, or the actual scientific methods for gam design.

As noted, I entered into the experience on good faith and upon looking at reviews, I noticed another group had a similar experience to ours about 5 months ago, and the business offered a delayed response 3 months after that review with a bandaid discount on a future game.

Once might be a mistake, twice...

I've done over 100 escape rooms across California, New Orleans, Seattle, and Denver, and actively travel the US seeking the best escape rooms in the country. This review is catered primarily to jaded enthusiasts who have done a ton of rooms and are looking for something different from standard escape rooms.

Plight of the Margo - 4/5 (A good room that we'd happily recommend to enthusiasts but..., rank 19 out 126).

Plight of the Margo is like a majestic wild animal. It's incredible but extremely rough around the edges and an exhausting game. This room has the potential to be one of the best games in the United States given how high the ambition and scope of the game is, but it currently suffers a lot from polish and game flow issues. The owners should really look at trying to simplify the more tedious parts of the game and make it just a bit more accessible to everyone. In its current implementation, this is a room that I think enthusiasts will love as it's one of a kind and has ridiculous amounts of ambition despite its flaws. However, I can't recommend this to beginners at all, as they'd likely just spend the entire 1.5 hours lost. For beginners, I'd recommend doing some other rooms and getting some experience under your belt before attempting this.

Set - The set was probably the most immersive spaceship set I've ever played, not only because of the general decor and props, but because of how interactive and physical the components felt. A ton of stuff in this room felt like a mechanical engineer decided "i have this idea for an amazing prop, and i'm going to build this no matter what, cost/practicality be damned", which is exactly the type of attitude that I as an enthusiast want to see in my escape rooms! This ended up being a double edged sword, since while plugging stuff in (and doing other mechanical tasks) to power stuff up was extremely cool, there were certain aspects of it that could have been made less tedious. There were also some components that felt like they were a bit too much and not worth the logistical issues that came along with it. If your intro video has to explain and stress 5 times how to handle a particular prop, maybe that prop isn't worth it.

Puzzles - The puzzles were overall good, but had some super cool standouts that interacted with the cooler components of the set in great ways. The difficulty and game flow here was a bit too variable for my liking - you were presented with way too many options at the beginning of the game so it was very hard to orient yourself about what you're actually trying to do. This got easier over time but the first 25 minutes were brutal and we were fairly lost. It was also sometimes hard to figure out which components you are able to use at a given point in time, or if it was meant to be saved for later.

Story - The room had a lot of neat lore and story elements attached, but the story felt a bit too much like it was telling you what to do rather than actually try to tell a narrative. It would have been more compelling if the sequences with the main character in the room actually made you feel some emotions for the character, rather than that character just telling you what to do. Still more story than what I'd expect in a normal room, but it could have maybe been improved with some more story sequences in the room and more narrative driven dialogue.

Player Recs - This is a 3 hour room (split up into 2 parts) that is very involved - while I normally try to go below or at the minimum number of players, playing this game with 4 was exhausting, and you probably want at least 5 or 6 in a group of enthusiasts. It's really hard for me to recommend this game to beginners given the nature of the game, but you should probably bring closer to the max number of players.

Personal Stats - Barely escaped in the 3 hours allotted in a group of 4...

Not bad, but some of the puzzles could use improvement. My group did the Tiger’s Eye room, and the theme and tech was definitely impressive. Overall, we had a good time, but our experience was dampened in some ways.

-A key we found broke in my hand as soon as I tried to use it. It broke so easily that we spent a few minutes trying to figure out if it was intentional or not. Eventually staff came in and replaced it with a screw driver for us to use in a pinch, but they didn’t offer us any additional time, even though we lost several minutes through no fault of our own.

-One part of the room required us to use a fingerprint scanner. We thought we had the solution but the scanner didn’t work after trying about five times. We asked for a hint, which simply told us to try to “wipe off” and “finesse” the scanner. After several more minutes, the staff had to override the mechanism because it wouldn’t work, even though we had the correct solution, which was kind of frustrating. After the game, the staff explained that they use a real fingerprint scanner and it’s very touchy. She went to demonstrate how to use it correctly, but when she did that, it didn’t accept what she was doing either. She had to attempt to scan the fingerprint at least ten times before she could get it to work. I appreciate the dedication to using real technology, but if it doesn’t work reliably and makes you lose several minutes even when you have the correct solution, I would rather it was just a fake scanner that someone manually controlled.

-The last puzzle mechanism involved standing on a scale and adding weight to a specific amount, and at this point our team was very low on time. Admittedly, our solution wasn’t as elegant as it could have been, and we probably wasted some time on this. When we ran out of time, the staff explained that the scale is so sensitive that even shifting your weight can throw it off, and you have to hold it at the correct weight for 20 seconds. She also suggested that the placement of the weight on the scale could have been throwing the equipment off. These are factors that it doesn’t feel like the players should be expected to account for. There was no indication that we had to hold the weight for 20 seconds, so when we had the correct weight but nothing was happening, we kept adjusting. Again, I appreciate the real tech, but it felt like at least a quarter of our time was spent trying to finesse the equipment into working instead of solving puzzles.

I do wish they would have offered us a few extra minutes when the key broke, because that was time lost through literally no fault of our own, and we lost by maybe one minute.

I do still recommend this place and we had a fun time. The mishaps in the room could definitely have been a rare occurrence that isn’t indicative of an average...