Escapology Escape Rooms Garwood — Attraction in Garwood

Having done several escape rooms prior to this I always try to go into events with an open mind. The theming and set design of the three rooms were fun and emersive. The three rooms were the Budapest Express, the Mansion Murder, and Under Pressure. The first room had a broken puzzle component, rendering it impossible to solve without directly getting the solution from the game master. This also burns valuable time from your hour. At this point we are a bit frustrated. The second room went well enough, that is until we came across another broken puzzle element which you are unable to solve the intended way, once again frustrating the group and burning up your limited time. Furthermore there are puzzle elements which require one to identify colors, but due to the lack of lighting. It makes it extremely difficult to discern colors. If it was not for my Keychain flashlight we would have been lost in the weeds on that particular element. Now at this point we are officially disappointed. Going into the third room we successfully navigated the puzzles; with the help of my flashlight Keychain. Once again there is a particular room that relays color based information. With the rooms lighting it is nearly impossible to see any discernable details without the use of a flashlight.

Even though we were successful in the room we felt defeated from the overall experience.

I Definately feel there are several ways to improve the experience. First would be to furnish the players with some flashlights. This is something small that helps the player feel emersed and engage with the environment. This would also solve the issue of difficult to discern puzzle elements without having to redesign the entire rooms lighting elements. Even something as simple as a small Keychain light would suffice. Relatively low overhead cost for the location and helps to improve the overall experience. Second would be geared for the staff resetting the rooms. In the process of the reset. Testing the puzzle elements and clues to make sure they are consistent is a standard practice for many locations. Especially for puzzle elements which could possibly be tampered with by other parties through the course of the day. This can take a few more minutes per reset but it ensures that there is a consistent experience for the players. The Third way I could think to improve the experience is relatively minor compared to the last two. When the cluemaster furnished you with a clue it is either through a callbox on the wall or displayed on a screen, and when the clue comes on the screen, after a few moments time it dissapears. Some members want to review their clue information but are unable to do so because it is no longer displayed. A possible fix would be to have a dedicated area of the display for clues and have the clue stay onscreen until the next clue is called for. Granted this change would cost a bit in terms of a graphic designer and some programming changes but it would be a good quality of life change nonetheless. I don't feel bad when I fail a puzzle. But I do feel bad when what I'm doing is not a puzzle. Once an element of a game is broken. It's no longer a puzzle game. The emersion is halted and it now becomes an exercise in frustration.

It is the equivalent of giving you a yo-yo to play with but taking away the string.

I love puzzle/escape rooms. It is something I am very passionate about. It is also very clear that this is a business that relies on word of mouth. Let me be clear that my intention is not to hurt a business or damage my reputation. In fact I hope Escapology of Garwood and other escapes like it continue to do well and flourish. My intention is to inform players of what to expect at this location in the current status as of March 27th, 2022 and to help the business improve. That being the case. Even though my party had a negative experience. I still hopefully for positive experience for others who may go...

At this time I have done 6 rooms at Escapology (13 rooms total)

TL;DR For me Escapology is my Gold Standard for which I judge all other escape rooms, and you'll have fun there regardless of skill level.

The first thing that stands out is the promise of a private room from the start. Lets be honest being grouped up with randoms is never as fun as being with just your group, and not having to worry about that is a huge plus in my book.

When you walk in waiting room is very nice and having a comfortable area to wait for your party to arrive or your room to be reset is great. Once you finish your game you can chill with your group and never feel rushed out the door (Just be careful talking about the puzzles when other groups are around, you don't want to spoil anything for anyone)

As for the Rooms/Puzzles themselves: Each room contains high quality props with matching themes that really help with the immersion. You will get a quick video with safety/rules and then one with the lore of why you are doing what you're doing, which also helps get you in the mindset of catching the evil hacker, stopping the virus outbreak, or figuring out who did frame Rodger Rabbit.

The puzzles/locks are a nice mix of both analog and digital components, and there is usually enough stuff around for everyone in a group of 4-5 to be working on something during most parts of the game. The puzzles themselves are also quite varied which will force you to think and view things in different ways and will leave you satisfied when you finally solve it even if you did need a hint. Usually everyone in the group will have a different "favorite puzzle" by the end. While there are a couple of finicky locks that need some playing to get open, the GMs will usually alert you to such locks when you encounter them.

My only real criticism from a game design perspective is that a select few puzzles have props that could be tweaked to be slightly more obvious that they are something to be examined further and not just for show.

Overall with friendly staff, a plethora of rooms to choose from, and a great environment it's my go to escape room when anyone asks for...

I have mixed feelings.. I read good things about this escape room so I was very excited at first and took some friends here to do the ScoobyDoo one.

Overall the theme is awesome. I gotta give credit to that, but there were a few things I didn’t like and I’ll try to explain without giving much away. First one of the puzzles we solved, we wasted 10-15min because we thought we were doing it wrong, and tried to solve it in a different way, and later realized that the magnets didn’t activate properly. I’ve done several escape rooms and usually when the staff sees you’re doing it right and some things do not activate when they should they let you know so you can retry it, but this wasn’t the case. There was another puzzle that to me and the rest of the group was just confusing to solve because of some elements were intertwined with no clear path. At this point we sort of gave up because we were basically running out of time and could not go forward without solving this specific puzzle. When I asked for explanation of this puzzle, the girl recognized the clue wasn’t set up the best way but said you could actually solve it by hearing the clicking/sound of some objects placed in the correct positions. Seriously??! That defeats the purpose of providing clues for the puzzle, they might as well just say, “now brute force this”. I thought it was a very poor explanation and this specific instance made my experience less fun. It’s just not acceptable if you are paying for the experience but not actually getting it in full. Anyways, after that, she went on trying to solve the remaining puzzles for us and I don’t know if it was because she tried to be quick or again the magnets were not properly working… at his point I was just suspicious that this room needed some good fixing.

I was disappointed since I read this room won some awards a few years ago, but seems I feel it didn’t live up to my expectations. And just to clarify, I’m no newbie here nor an expert, but I’ve done enough escape rooms to know what to...