Breakout Games — Attraction in Pineville

This place sucks. For context, I've had a career in running escape rooms for close to 6 years across 2 different companies, and played dozens from New York to Idaho.. I played Mystery Mansion, and tbh, it was terrible. It wasn't broken- there wasn't set up errors or anything particularly damaged in the game. (Mostly. There was one book completely falling apart.) But the game was just... bad.

Puzzles - 1/5 Extremely tedious puzzles. One involved reading a paragraph of small text written with no spaces that describes 3 convoluted math problems. Even if you do complete that math-which is DEFINITELY not all ages btw, despite advertising-the place you insert that 4 number code is hidden, and a second 4 number lock is left plainly visible. Naturally, when your try the code and that second lock doesn't open, you assume your math is wrong, then burn 10 minutes checking your math to get the same result.

The puzzles also require you to know the lyrics to a song, as well as the names of chess pieces. Escape rooms in any form shouldn't require outside knowledge. A final puzzle required you to translate a sequence of 4 symbols into numbers. Cool, simple but fun. Only problem, the sequence was on a continuous loop with no delay. There's no way to know which of the 4 numbers it starts on, besides either guessing or having your game master tell you. Also, hope you know the names of chess pieces! If you don't have that outside knowledge, the final puzzle is unsolvable! So far as puzzles go, there were no highlights, and several notably bad ones. (If the people who designed this room see this, piano puzzle, the math puzzle and demonic symbols puzzles are all terrible.) There was almost no "eureka!" moments. Nearly all puzzles were either plainly obvious, or beyond convoluted.

Gameflow - 1/5 EXTREMELY linear. There was just 2 of us playing and it still felt like we were constantly on top of one another.

Decor - 1/5 No wonder they don't want you taking pictures in the games... yeesh. The first room is entirely empty save for a door, a single box on the wall, and one prop on a different wall. That's it. The lobby is better decorated than that. The game practically requires using an immersion breaking use of your phone as a flashlight, as one isn't provided. At least it's clean, I guess.

Story - 1/5 There... was a story to the game, I think. I certainly couldn't tell it to you.

Accessibility - 1/5 Hope you don't have trouble with small text or dyslexia. If you do, the game is unplayable. It's MOSTLY wheelchair accessible, at least. Definitely not a game for kids, despite being described as "all ages." Also, it was swelteringly hot in the room the entire time.

Staff - 2/5 I didn't catch the name of our game master, but she was nice enough. Far from enthusiastic, but nice. However, when we asked for help on that song puzzle, she pointed us in the direction of the song we needed. Cool. We played the song on the piano as the puzzle seemed to indicate. When nothing occurred, we asked if we were missing anything. As a nudge in the right direction, she asked if we knew the name of the song. "Treulich Gefuhrt" is the answer to that. Aka "Bridal Chorus." Neither of which contain the lyrics to the song, which is what was needed to solve the puzzle. The clue told us literally nothing. Don't know the lyrics? Google them. They're nowhere in the room.

We also asked for help early on, and directly made sure to confirm with one another first, then called for it. She then asked if we both agreed. Yes, obviously. We just said that. It's Monday night, it's not like it's super busy. Please actually watch the game you're running.

IN SUMMARY/TLDR Multiple points of outside knowledge, bad decor, frustrating puzzles, and unenthusiastic staff. Look elsewhere for your escape room needs. Whatever it is, it can't be...

I'll be honest, I do not want to leave this review, but I was incredibly disappointed and frustrated with Breakout Games. For reference, I played Mystery Mansion around 9ish on a Monday. So, I'm not busy by any means. To start, the rooms felt unfinished and unmatching within. The introduction video is less than a minute with no scene setting assistance from the staff or room. You start in a black room with a singular locked box and 1 puzzle to figure out. Bad news if you have more than one player, it means any more than that end up feeling like they are stepping on the toes of the one person who is doing said puzzle. The next room wasn't much better. The puzzles were unrewarded and frequently didn't match the theme or feeling of the room at all. The whole room felt like they didn't really understand the story they were trying to present. Also, outside knowledge is required for a certain puzzle, which is a terrible thing in escape rooms (I won't spoil the puzzle, but I will say that it is a convoluted and bad puzzle). Every puzzle felt like a chore with no reward as opposed to anything fun or exciting. All in a half done room that leaves a lot to be added to the story and feeling of it. My biggest complaint is, sadly, the puzzles. I don't think there was one I found myself satisfied or happy about finding. I'm more annoyed that it didn't make sense, but somehow clicked on the 3rd lock I would try it on. My least favorite section in this "all ages" room would be one of the last puzzles. It is a poorly worded word math problem clustered together in a dyslexic nightmare. Not only is it impossible to read, but the problems are worded poorly enough to cause issues. Not to mention being math that most people can't do off the top of their head without calculators or notes. I won't spoil it as to ruin business, but I really should save others the pain. It was at this point where I was ready to leave, but I was hopeful it would get better. It didn't, sadly. And I do hate to say it, but I had a somewhat poor experience with the staff. While they were nice, they did make an effort to do the bare minimum. Overall, I would avoid this location and find a better option. Honestly, I'm glad I've done other escape rooms before because if I hadn't, I would not be trying it again after...

Really wanted to like this! First the Pros: ~Online booking/waivers were super easy. ~All games are private, which is a big plus in my book. ~The challenges were of various levels of difficulty which was nice so all ages/ skill levels in our group got to be part of the solution. ~Our game master Daryl was very good! Now the Cons: *Everything was blah- the lobby wasn't welcoming or gave off any cool vibe. The room was "bland". Even the "welcome" video was generic and while it gave you some basic escape room info, it didn't give you any "vibes" going into the room- just blah. *The worst part was that the walls were so thin that you could hear everything, EVERYTHING, going on in the next room which made it hard to hear things (including ourselves) in our room as the other group was quite loud. It was really distracting and plain annoying at some points! *I wasn't aware until after we arrived to the location that this is a chain. In my experience this leads to less intricate puzzles than rooms created by the local proprietors- true here! *No ratings or level of difficulty were provided on the website to help you decide what experience you'd like to chose. (We chose by last minute availability- so maybe this room was not booked because it was just meh).

We aren't escape room experts by any stretch of the imagination. But we have done quite a few escape rooms, we finished our room at Breakout with quite a bit of time left. Yes, we did use a few clues but only because someone in our group was VERY uptight and freaked out over every second lost (asked for clues to placate this person). We probably could have finished without the clues with plenty of time to spare. Overall we just didn't leave feeling excited about beating it; it was just an hour spent. I might try another room at Breakout- but it's really a big maybe if...