Planet Escape Room — Attraction in Lomita

The themes and decor we're great, but the puzzles weren't all winners. Personally I prefer a collection of smaller puzzles that unfolds to larger ones. This way, more players are able to interact with the room and feel accomplished in solving.

In the rooms we did, the puzzles started off long and were more frustrating than fullfilling. Because of the linear structure, it was impossible to do certain puzzles out of order, but because of the multiple partial clues in play, it could leave you stuck for a large portion of time if you didn't start with the right one. These overly involved puzzles felt like time wasters (thankfully no red herrings since those are always a buzz kill in escape rooms). But with some of these puzzles, it was unclear that you didn't have enough information to finish, so we'd get pointlessly stuck on incomplete puzzles.

Lastly, the end goal wasn't always clear. Especially in the final puzzle or two of the rooms, we found ourselves wondering what we were even trying to do. When we solved puzzles like this, it felt accidental and not rewarding. After we finished the room, the staff clarified the puzzles we accidentally solved, and we were baffled by the huge jumps in logic that connects these clues. I want to see the problem, and work together to find the pieces needed to solve them. Not knowing what the problem is makes the whole process feel aimless and less rewarding.

Escape rooms ultimately should be fun, and while I did have some fun moments, the overly directed puzzle path and obscure course were not very intuitive, and did not make me feel like I was using logic. Luck worked more often than I would have liked.

We want to feel challenged, but we don't want to feel like we're wasting time. I feel like these rooms have potential, but just haven't found the balance...

Let me start by saying that the Game of Sword Rooms is beautiful! Having done over 75+ rooms, the set design was brilliant and contained surprises I had not anticipated. Although at times I felt select puzzles were tedious, I appreciated the devotion to theming.

My biggest issue during my experience was the customer service elements:

1. Staff member was NOT wearing a mask upon arrival, with another customer already in the lobby as well. Did put one on eventually, but was not worn properly.
2. Felt EXTREMELY rushed upon arrival despite being the normal 15 minutes early.
3. Asked a question on Instagram. Never got a response but instead got unfollowed.
4. Room Was NOT Reset Properly!!- This was a major issue for me. There was an item that we could not open because allegedly “a customer walked away with it yesterday”. Rather than being on top of it and providing the information when needed, it was given in the last 2 minutes of the game for a puzzle we guessed on 15 minutes earlier (and would have saved us valuable time).
5. Upon debrief there was no explanation or recovery for their mishap, only excuses. A GM is expected to walk through the remainder of the room, and when asked what we did wrong in the final puzzle, they were not able to tell us. They themselves did not know how to solve it and did not make any attempts to provide an answer.

Again, beautiful room and great heart with design. I am just very disappointed with many elements of...

I hadn't heard about this escape room, so when we decided to check it out I had no idea what to expect. The outside of the room looks pretty small, but then when you step inside you realize just exactly how much space they have.

The game itself was spectacular. We went in a bit undersized, as we brought a teenage first timer and my 4 year old son as well, and in fact the room is non-linear so it requires multiple puzzle solving going on at the same time. Despite this, we managed to squeak in under the time limit with 52 seconds left and solve the case!

The puzzles flowed very well and were logical, I never felt like I didn't know what to do next. Pay close attention to detail, because there were some obvious things we missed that cost us time that made us feel silly in retrospect. We also had to swallow our pride and actually take clues, and the in game clue system felt nice without interrupting the flow of the game (nobody stumbles into the room to break immersion).

Afterwards, I had the chance to chat with the owner who was a big escape room enthusiast. We saw them working construction on their second room now, and he shared some ideas he wants to do going forward. I am extremely excited to go back and experience all the rooms they are going to put out. You can tell that they genuinely care about putting together a memorable experience for...