Countdown Games — Attraction in Lexington

Based on other reviews, I had high expectations. Fortunately, all expectations were met as I completed 7 of their escape rooms in a weekend.

General Comments: The rooms were simply fun thanks to the games, technology, decor, well-thought design, and immersion. Their clue policy: they will give you hints when you want and ask for them! So, you dictate your level of help and what is fun to you. We had great game masters all weekend. I used my personal flashlight in most rooms; and I would have liked to have a notepad/pen, too, to take notes. In the final room, my friend finally used his phone for notes. All of the rooms required stairs. If you are looking to only climb them once, I would recommend Bank Heist (the room itself is fully contained on one floor) or Time Machine. Most of the other rooms required a lot of ups and downs. I will also add that the rooms are high in complexity when it comes to all the technology behind the scenes that make things work, but they are simple rooms without "clutter" which minimizes red herrings and allows staff to turn them around quickly.

Though I do recommend all of the rooms, I will review each a bit to help out those who don't know where to start. They are listed starting with my favorite.

Shock and Awe: I had the finest escape room moment of life as my "quick" and action-focused mentality overshined my engineer's methodical approach in a game based in physics. I found the games in this room and the lights/ambiance really cool. It's a very linear game with you discovering the story as you go through written notes left in the room. We did have one malfunction as the game was not setup correctly and invited our gamemaster in after several minutes of struggling. She figured out what the problem was and awarded us make-up time for the hitch. Still, I would call it my favorite!

Time Bomb: I really liked the theme and the puzzles in this room. I was just having fun in every moment in the room and was never frustrated with any piece of it.

Time Machine: I liked the trip through the decades, whether it was depicted in the decor or music. Most of the puzzles were good - but we did start to take notes on a phone to facilitate one of them. There was only one puzzle which I felt was frustrating and you had to use it twice. I think it malfunctioned the first time as it seemed to auto-complete it self after we received a hint to start it. Then on the second time, we had randomly placed everything correctly before we even started so we effectively bypassed it (thank goodness).

Bank Heist: This is the only escape room I have ever played that incenticizes you to stay in as long as possible. And it is the best depiction of a bank heist that I have ever played. It included both physical and technical "hacks" to get to the prizes. The games were mostly logical which were right up my alley. The only problem I had is the information for the logic games were all over the place, so I spent more time trying to remember where I saw something than I would have liked. This is one you will want to take notes in!

Castle: Very awesome three-story castle. Requires a bit more observation than most of their other rooms. Like many other rooms, you do reuse a puzzle more than once, but because the immersion worked so well, it became innate for us to figure out we had to re-use it.

Pharaoh's Curse: This is their no-lock room. What I liked: the puzzles. Several of them reminded me of puzzles on Survivor that you always wonder how well you would do and now I had my chance. What I didn't like is that you basically have to open all the rooms before you get into it. As a result, you're left thinking, "Where do I start?" or "Where do I go next?"

Abduction: The immersion in this room worked the least for me; you are abducted and must build a machine to get out. I am not mechanically inclined, but I did enjoy the pre-machine puzzles. It sounded like a part of the machine had been faulty so we effectively got to bypass it which was a good thing for...

Took a weekend and played all 12 of their currently open games (Pharoah is under construction at the moment) with a group of friends ranging in experience from 50 rooms to 400 rooms.

The good: The scenic value was through the roof on most of the rooms. Everything looked great, though some rooms were showing signs of wear on certain puzzles. The Castle, Ghost Town, Murder Mansion, and Pirate Ship were the crown jewels in this department. Many rooms contained some fun and surprising reveals.

The decent: The puzzling was solid enough but rarely felt like the standout element of the rooms. Most rooms contained at least one if not two or three puzzles that felt like tedious time wasters. The type of puzzle where you've understood what you need to do, and now you just need to spend 5-10 minutes doing it. This place has never met a jigsaw puzzle they didn't like. I thought their strongest puzzles with the best flow was in Ghost Town, which is their newest room so I imagine theyve learned what their strengths are and future rooms will be even better.

The bad: we did have a multitude of tech issues in several rooms and the occasional reset issue. Hey, it happens, but is a bummer nonetheless.

The biggest let down of the experience was that the entire company felt devoid of soul or personality. It just felt like we were cogs in a machine going through the motions. I imagine it is hard to staff this place with so many rooms, but our GMs were largely low energy and nonchalant. Shout out to Zaid and Kali (sp?) who our group all thought did an excellent job though.

A good company puts together excellent rooms. A great company realizes that the experience starts the second you walk in until the second you leave. How you are treated matters. The rapport you build with a GM matters. A great GM can really make or break an experience.

Overall I was glad that we made the trip from Atlanta. None of the rooms were bad by any means, and it was a fun experience that could have been a truly phenomenal one with some puzzle updates and better staff training.

Here is my ranking of their rooms: Ghost Town Pirate Ship Murder Mansion Abducted The Scary One Prison Break Time Machine Bank Heist Castle Time Bomb Super...

My fiance and I have 3 rooms now at Countdown. They have been mixed experiences.

In "Murder Mansion" we had 4 people. It was beautiful and very detailed to look and feel like a mansion. We did not finish tho. There were so many puzzles that we almost did not have time to do them all, but what made us not finish was the lack of communication from our game leader, who allowed us to move pieces from room to room when it caused us to use our remaining time to revisit solved puzzles. Overall a 3.5/5 stars simply due to the lack of communication.

In "Time Machine" it was just us two. The room was again beautiful and exhibited the feeling of time traveling to different decades. Our game leader communicated well and made sure we did not move in the wrong direction. We felt that some of the puzzles were gimmicky, but over all a 5/5 star experience.

In "Bank Heist" it was just the two of us, and it was a dreadful experience. The game leader did not explain the game well, stumbled through the explanation, and didn't seem like he knew about the room. The aesthetic of the rooms was focused on the expensive toys on the walls with very little to do with the rooms identify. "Thousands of dollars" in Legos doesn't add to the puzzle solving of a bank heist. Our game leader offered next to no help when we missed elements from earlier in the puzzle that we could not solve the rest of the room without. We struggled for 30 minutes before being told (after the game ended) that we missed a critical element earlier in the room. This room felt jumbled and confused as to what its purpose was, but it would have been better if the game leader would have been paying attention and led us when we got off on some tangents that were not relevant. Overall the puzzles were not clear and the game leader was not paying attention at all. My fiance is an ICU Nurse and I have my 4yr degree and we have never felt so dumb after an escape room. 1/5 stars, getting 1 star due to the cool Legos.

Countdown Rooms, after 3 different rooms now, seem to focus on the technology, and valuing style...