MindTrap Escape Room — Attraction in Murrieta

I've done over 125 escape rooms in Seattle, LA, New Orleans, Houston, and the Bay Area. I actively travel and seek out the best escape rooms in the US, so this review is catered specifically to enthusiasts looking for unique, high quality rooms.

Oz - mid 5/5 | Rank 9/145 (Excellent and memorable room where we came out of it impressed. Enthusiasts should put this on their itinerary, likely the highlight of a trip.)

We’ve heard a ton about this room from enthusiasts who were raving about it and saying that it was comparable to the best LA games (Lab Rat, Stash House, etc). This is quite a rare occurrence since games of that quality are extremely rare, but we decided to go for it, and make the 1.5 hour drive up to Murrieta for the 2nd day of our LA trip instead of doing 7-8 rooms in LA proper. This was a big opportunity cost, but games of that level are worth planning an entire trip around, so we were willing to take the chance.

Oz turned out to be well worth the trip. The game just does so many things well across the board that this is now tied for my second favorite room in the LA area, and is a room that all enthusiasts should probably make the trek to go see. When you see an Oz themed room, you probably expect a fantastical adventure with great sets full of story and joy backed by good puzzles, and that’s exactly what you get here. Especially good for people who like fantasy stories, but good for everyone as it’s backed by good gameplay regardless.

Set - The set was great. As you made your trek from Kansas through Oz, there were a ton of variety in the environments as you progressed through the game. Within each environment, there were a ton of custom, physical props (some of which were very large in scale and quite impressive) and interactive elements that brought the areas to life as you made your way through it. The game also incorporated great use of sound effects to that effect as well. Everything was beautifully decorated, and there were some neat visual tricks as well.

Story - The story was on the simpler side, but had a good progression, strong puzzle theming to back it up, and some cool scripted events. There was also a lot of humor injected into the game which I always appreciate. I will say that the story doesn’t try to be too deep or isn’t very character driven as you’re given a goal and have to accomplish it, but the characters do help you along the way in certain ways. The middle section of the game might have felt a bit too much like “Get from point A to B” as I don’t remember strong story events backing that up - might have been nice to add a story event in the middle somewhere, but it might have been hard to do without messing up the flow of the game.

Puzzles - The puzzles were very solid overall, though on the easier side. The game flow in general felt nice - everything worked well, and there was a nice mix of puzzles ranging from logic, dexterity, and some spatial puzzles. The puzzles also did a great job at being on theme with the story as every puzzle had a purpose and was something that you could have conceivably done even not in an escape room.

Player Recommendations - Standard recs of bringing the minimum if you are an enthusiast and halfway between the minimum and maximum if you are a beginner apply.

Personal Stats: Escaped in a group of 2 enthusiasts with 5 minutes remaining, taking a hint on a...

My review is for the following two rooms: Operation Longbow (which will be retired soon) and Excalibur. I had played two rooms at their Temecula location, but never at this one.

Overall my group and I loved our experience here! With one persons experience in the group being 40, and the others 5. Everyone was able to contribute, enjoy, and be amazed with the production in these rooms. Not only do they have a great smelling lobby (I know it's a weird observation, but it's just something man, probably the wood). They have practice boxes in the lobby, that if you can solve them, you get a little secret surprise inside! Something that I simply can't resist. The lobby is large, which is perfect if you plan on doing a team building here. Now, for the rooms

Our GM was John and he gave us some quick tips before the room, and showed us a video for Longbow. He was spot on with helping us out, and it didn't hurt that he was handsome and funny! He really added to our experience here, I know some places the GM isn't really paying attention, but here you could tell he was actually watching which is nice.

Excalibur: We wanted to start off on an easier note, rather than something more challenging first. Even though this room was easy for us (we completed it with about 29-30 minutes left, something like that). We loved the puzzles, and even though we knew what to expect once we did something, we couldn't help but scream and cheer when it did. It got us amazed and excited. I loved that they brought outside, in. I'm someone who does a lot of set designing and lighting, and although I'm not the most familiar with doing it for interactive theater. I can fully say I was impressed. I was admiring it a lot and wondering how they did it, what they did. Instantly inspired by it to go back and redo some of my old stuff. I think we did accidentally break something in the room, we were told it was a coincidence that it broke the same time we were using it, but we still feel bad. The way to keep track in time in this room is with candles that will go out after 6 minutes. Which was an awesome way to incorporate time into the room.

Operation Longbow: We mainly wanted to try this room, because a friend of ours had said that it was one of the hardest rooms she's done. Of course, we love a challenge and the rooms was being redone. Now I could tell this room catered more towards younger male audiences, but that didn't mean it wasn't fun for us. We loved how much there was to do, and the fact that some puzzles required a few extra steps along the way. The production value in this room was great, and really got our adrenaline running. We loved that it was challenging, but the right kind. Not the kind where it's because the puzzles require a huge leap in logic. I don't want to spoil too much with the rooms, just because I'm not sure how they actually show. I will say this room had a fun use of a second language (German). We got out of this one with about 15...

BEST Escape Room in SOCAL.

That's not an exaggeration this is by far the best themed and puzzles used in an escape room. You feel completely immersed and there isn't signs everywhere telling you not to touch or feel which can ruin the aspect of actually being there. The tech used and the puzzles were fantastic totally new compared to any I've experienced. The games have a great length of time even if your a pro and it is not linear, everyone in the group is able to contribute especially for the trickier puzzles.

Operation Longbow - Wow this one will get your heart racing and make you feel like you traveled back in time and are trying to save the world. The decor and the puzzles are genius. Everyone in the group was able to figure out something that helped and it is multiple rooms and we had to use 1 hint. Difficulty was hard, we completed but even if we couldn't, I would have loved to lose to this one.

Excalibur - wow just beautiful, seriously, you feel like you just entered another world. There were parts that get you wondering how to solve something even when you have an idea of what to do and the puzzles were completely different and new, lots of time went into this one. Kids will also really like this room and as for Difficulty it is around Medium, we completed it but not so fast that you are wondering why you aren't going to another room. It was perfect.

You MUST GO HERE if you are visiting the area or introducing people to an escape room, this is such an amazing place to show new escapees and we...