Game Over Escape Rooms Katy — Attraction in Katy

NOT AN ESCAPE ROOM - ALSO INAPPROPRIATE ART - Spent $200 for 5 of us to wander around a somewhat pretty room for an hour. The “puzzles” were not solvable, they were things like put two random objects together in a certain way to get the clue, but there was no clue that led you to know the objects go together in any way (and the articulation you need to do to get them to work is WAY beyond anything anyone would intuitively do). They straight-up told us not to try it without clues because we wouldn’t make it out of the first part. The second part, the challenge was to make things line up in a way that you had to try each combination manually. There was nothing to solve, just 20 minutes of brute force guess-and-check. So dumb. There was strobing light that wasn’t disclosed (my friend has epilepsy) and it was too dark to see the writing on anything, which I guess they do to make it seem like it’s a challenge. The challenge shouldn’t be SEEING. There was a mermaid painting that had her breasts and nipples out, although the room was billed as the kid-friendly room. The video screen was in a table flat across not hanging up like normal so you couldn’t see it from the room, and there wasn’t one in every room, and the video was of a horror skeleton mermaid, who said basically “Atlantis sank, find Poseidon’s trident” and that was the story. The host had to give us hints when we didn’t ask for them, and at the last part the “puzzle” is so bad the first symbol doesn’t match at all and they have to tell you how to start (think — you decipher a clue and the result is an A and a triangle, which don’t match, so you start the puzzle over… but it turns out the font was just different and A = triangle, but all the other symbols match exactly). I’ve done dozens of rooms and have always escaped, but this is a different kind of entertainment. It’s not an escape room. You aren’t able to do it without being handheld for each part. Very...

I've done two rooms here (Top secret and the magicians) and the over designs and puzzles themselves were fine and top notch. However, the specific mechanisms to trigger or unlock things need to be fixed or better designed. For example, in Top Secret you have to input a password into a keyboard but the password has to be ALL CAPS. There is nothing that tells you it has to be in all caps and our game master simply said "is your password in all caps?". Either tell us it needs to be all caps or just set the password to not be case sensitive. In the magicians, a 4 digit code was determined from a sign that says the options in a top down manner. And the key lock has all of its numbers oriented in a top down manner. But the lock is turned 90 degrees on its side so we turned our head 90 degrees to put in the code in a top down manner. However, doing it like this apparently was backwards and we needed to put it "left to right" which is opposite of the code. In another one we had to place Wands in holes in a specific direction to trigger but we're never told which way to put it until simply the game master we had to put it in a certain way. How are players suppose to figure that out for themselves? In another one, we have a 9x9 puzzle piece we needed to put and the middle piece is simply a straight line so visually it could be oriented in either direction 0 or 180 degrees. But apparently it also had to be turned 180 degrees? All of these items just need to have a much better game design that relies on actual puzzle solving instead of just random placements of pieces and hope you get it. Its a shame because everything else is actually good. But in the end, I'd rather go to a more basic place that has its puzzles and trigger locks much better designed than go...

Private rooms with interesting premises. We have done the Temple of the Skull and Nightmare Hotel rooms. Enjoyed both and will return to complete the others. What stood out was their customer service and room design (particularly for Nightmare Hotel). Temple of the Skull was challenging because of the symbols that are quite similar to each other, multiple, and a recurring theme. It was a linear room which helps focus on what needs to be done next but can also eat up time if you get stuck. It's not a room for beginners. Nightmare Hotel was a legit scary room (jump scares). Loved the clean set design and the scares were tied with the flow of the game coherently. There was one puzzle that can take a long time to solve even after you figure out what needs to be done. So, avoid getting stuck on something for too long because you may need extra time for that one (you will know when you get there). I will mention that our support experience for Temple of the Skull wasn't all that great because of the sluggish hint system and a missing stylus from the tablet. I'll give them the benefit of doubt on this one because it was excellent with Nightmare Hotel. The staff seemed invested in our game and payed close attention, providing helpful nudges. We bypassed the automated 3-tiered hinting system and communicated directly with our GM (Gaby) which worked much better. Group of 3 experienced people should be okay for Temple (having more people doesn't help much) while a group of 4 should be fun for Nightmare Hotel (good size for scary room + helps with a couple of time consuming puzzles for sure). Looking forward to the next one! Oh, and extra points for...