Escape New Haven — Attraction in New Haven

We, the fellowship of like-minded intellectuals (FoLMI), were walking with intense whimsy and woe. As we had just recently visited a museum, our hearts were stirring with adventure. We strolled through the town, our eyes met with the words "Escape New Haven". We entered with haste and found ourselves walking deep into the building. Upon reaching the lobby, we were greeted by the glorious Dan, and the humble Chris. The two masters of the Escape room greeted us, and guessed that we didnt have an appointment, and they were correct. This led us to suspect that Dan and Chris possessed either stunning divination abilities or perhaps they could read people perfectly, knowing everything about them with a single glance. Either way, Dan introduced our fellowship to "The Crypt", their second hardest Escape room. After familiarizing us with the rules of the room, Dan led us to The Crypt. Due to the intense nature of the room, the details are going to be withheld to save any mortals reading this from devastating mystical consequences. Nonetheless, throughout our harrowing experience in The Crypt, Dan kept us from leading astray. His holy light illuminated the darkness of The Crypt. Upon finishing our escape, Dan came to us, like a diety who descends to welcome his followers, and congratulated us on our achievements. After being praised by our savior, the fellowship headed out for the next journey. Soon, we would reminisce with warm joy of our travels and the trials we encountered...

A group of 4 of us did The Crypt and had an absolute blast! I've done several escape rooms now and this ranks solidly in the middle of the pack but that doesn't stop it from being a five star experience. I've done rooms that felt very low budget and DIY to rooms that felt like you were truly immersed in a hollywood level set. This was more on the DIY end of the spectrum but it felt appropriate for the specific storyline.

The whole staff was friendly and helpful, answered all of our questions and made sure we had a solid grasp on what was to be expected within the room and expected of us. The room contained a nice variety of puzzles. Most of them involved a series of locks but there was a nice variety of tactics that had to be used to figure them out as well as several different styles of locks (numbers, letters and directional). You can ask for clues but they decided whether or not you really need them and will sometimes give you clues unprompted to guide you back on the right path. Clues are delivered via text on the screen that contains the timer.

My only real complaint was the the ending felt a bit anticlimactic. We actually finished the room (with 2.5 min left) but didn't even realize it because it was only signaled by a light beeping in another room and the main door popping open (but the door was not within sight). Other than that, it was a worthy room and I would recommend...

Including edit and changing my rating: I was contacted by the owner of escape new haven. While my experience below is what it is, I appreciate the commitment to customer service so I changed from 2 to 4 stars, which includes rating a previous experience I had here which was super fun.

Original post: The concept of this game was well intentioned, but not set up or assisted well. We did the Wallaby outdoor game. My first issue was that the person from Escape New Haven only gave us a box with a bunch of locks. No further instruction. We tried for 20 minutes to figure it out, but it wasn’t until a nice person walked by and told us there was some paperwork inside to get us started. It was not set up well and I feel like something as challenging as this needs more input at the onset, or at least to give us the starting materials. Additionally, there was a lot of walking, which is great, but not when you’re lugging around a big wooden box with locks. I am not that strong and I was with a 9 year old kid. I also wasn’t informed I’d need my phone so I didn’t bother to make sure it was full charge and it died. I would not do this again and I would not recommend it to anyone. I love escape rooms but this was not a good experience. I don’t always win and that’s ok. But I at least have fun in the journey. This...