The Great Escape Room Detroit — Attraction in Royal Oak

I am sad to say that this was likely the worst escape room we have ever been to (and we have been to escape rooms all over the US and Michigan). I would never recommend any of my friends or family come here. I was shocked because we booked based on all the positive reviews.

We did the Professor Moriarty' s Game Room scavenger hunt. I had called before explained we would have 4 adults and two 8 year olds. The person confirmed that would be appropriate and explained it more as "seek and find" than puzzle solving. On the day of, part of our group arrived on time and the other half of our group called to inform the staff we would be 5 minutes late due to an unexpected traffic jam. They were told that the game time could not be pushed back by 5 minutes and that the part of the group that arrived would just have to start without. I get the importance of keeping things running on schedule but we are talking about 5 minutes. Not the best 1st impression but whatever. Right on time, the half of our team who arrived was taken back and started the game. When the second half arrived (literally 5 minutes late) there was nobody to be found in the lobby, office, or anywhere. They texted those of us who were in the escape room who relayed that message to the "gamemaster" who then game out to bring the rest of our group back, Why is nobody managing the lobby of this business? Finally our entire group was together and working on our scavenger hunt. What a disorganized mess. To be honest I am not sure if that was because of the design of the game or because of our "game master." The things that I know for sure: Props are cheap, cheap, cheap. Props are missing (Chess board says 5, only found 4. Missing puzzle pieces. Missing eyeball). Props are not in working order (laser for skeleton not working). Game master with zero patience and ruined the game. For instance, the part of the game that requires the light to be turned off and find a glowing puzzle on the wall to read.....we were unable to even get from the light switch on one end of the room to the puzzle on the end of the room before she switched the light back on. Rendering us unable to figure out the clue. So instead of turning the light off and letting us figure it out, she just told us the answer. Or when we finished the scrabble puzzle and were reading through the pieces (maybe 15 seconds) and she just told us what the answer (which was a lockbox code) was rather giving us a few minutes to try to figure it out. In addition to just giving us the answers, there were several times when she did and she didn't even give us the right answers. This is just 2 of at least 10 times this happened. And explains why we "escaped" after only 30 minutes in an room that has a 44% completion rate per your website. Spoonfeeding the answers absolutely defeats the purpose of why we spent money on an escape room/scavenger hunt room....to...

I was really excited about this experience, having heard many great things from other friends and puzzle fans; however, our game was tainted by two malfunctioning components, repeated incorrect information from the game master, and a few esoteric puzzles that felt like they may have been missing a clue or two. I've done several escape rooms in the tri-county area (with varying degrees of success and failure) and while they have each had their pros and cons, this was the first and only time I've ever felt that the majority of our mistakes were not actually our own.

I really appreciated the detail and production quality of the rooms, puzzles, and equipment--malfunctioning components notwithstanding--but I was really disappointed with the overall management of the event. Every time when we communicated with the game master, we were given incorrect information. One time, we were told we hadn't found something that we had already solved; another time we were told that something we had solved was incorrect when it was not; and a certain component was described as an object when it was something else entirely, wasting valuable time. The worst part was that we actually did make it to the final puzzle with precious little time left, but not enough to solve it. I don't know if we actually even would have, but it was a feel-bad moment to think about how much time was wasted on bad info. Despite repeatedly being given incorrect information, there was no acknowledgment or apology at the end. We were more or less blamed as the reason a component didn't function properly, despite having solved it, and there was at least one time the game master scolded a player for doing something he deemed prohibited, but which seemed perfectly within the rules and had not been effectively communicated.

I didn't feel that the game runners were particularly helpful, kind, or friendly. As a DM myself, I can be sympathetic to the frustration players can cause; but I can also recognize when a challenge or clue is too obtuse, as well as acknowledge and admit when I relay incorrect information.

Overall, I did enjoy the experience and would give it a second chance, but I hope that next time the puzzles will be quality tested better and that the game masters will be a little more knowledgeable and proactive in their assistance, especially if a component...

I scheduled a kids (middle school age) birthday party here. When booking over a month ago I had booked an hour escape room and an hour in the party room afterwards. About 2 weeks later I got an odd email thanking me for visiting and saying they hope I come back and try one of their other rooms (I also got the same email from the Queens, NY location). So I called the Royal Oak location and asked about my booking. They read me back everything that was booked on my initial call. Today we had our party. I called again today to confirm everything, including if they had a fridge (no), if we could deliver pizza directly to the building (yes), and if the parents of the children were welcome in the party room (yes). We showed up at our booking time. There was only one employee working and he was super wonderful and made sure our kiddos had plenty of help in between helping other rooms and resetting other rooms. Unfortunately he found out that the party room had somehow been double booked (our booking at 5:30, the other at 6:00). They couldn't really accommodate us and I was left scrambling as to what to do. I was offered a refund for the money spent to book the room, but I didn't have time to make sure that was followed through. I felt really bad for the poor employee who was left scrambling with another room to set up and another group to get ready and was honestly just caught in the middle.

Luckily we live close by and ended up doing the food in our backyard, but it was a scramble to communicate that to all the parents that had dropped off their kids.

I might recommend this for just the escape room, but I would NOT recommend hosting a party here. I understand everywhere is short staffed right now, but I really hope it isn't their business model to have one person there having to manage...