PanIQ Escape Room Sacramento — Attraction in Sacramento

I believe every business deserves their fair chance at receiving positive reviews, but there was too many occurences for our session that influenced me to write the following review.

First off, I've been part of many escape rooms (about 30+), and I don't mean to say that as a brag or anything but more to validate that I have seen many different rooms and how they are. The room that we played today was Insane Asylum. Prior to booking the room, I appreciate that the place accomodated an extra player over the max limit and we were slightly late which didn't penalize our experience. I acknowledge this, and I appreciate it. The issues began in the following sequence (I'll try not to spoil too much):

The first room had an interesting puzzle. We struggled with it for a bit, but with a hint we did get it. We entered in the code and heard the unlock noise. Door did not budge even with some force. Entered it again, and the door opened. Okay. Noted.

Moving forward, we ran into some other puzzles. One certain puzzle required a specific sequence to open a door. My group understood the concept, but it was not working. We started doing all kinds of different ways that it was becoming ridiculous. Used the hint. Told us to do what we were already doing. Still didn't work. Suddenly after openly complaining. It clicks open. It was the same solution we had for like 20 mins. We asked the gamemaster about it after, and she told us again the same thing on how it needed to be done. With our solution already in place, she started saying what it needed to be, but she was just randomly placing things around. It didn't even look like she knew how it was supposed to be. We asked if she opened it for us and she said no. She then blamed that we were orienting it wrong. We only did that because it was not working normally. Something about this interaction did not sit well, because if a puzzle in the room malfunctioned we can't say much. It's really no one's fault. It was the fact that we were told that we did it wrong, when it was correct the whole time. We weren't bringing it up to blame anyone but to pretty much give a heads up just in case a future party ran into the same issue.

There was a puzzle that required some weight bearing. Bringing it up with the gamemaster, she told us that if you are too light then it won't work right. The way to counter that is to have yourself pushed in more. Honestly, if we need to apply that much weight, then I am confused on how a kid would be able to get through that. We were told that it was a weightplate, and that we didn't have enough weight on it. Again, it just felt like we were being blamed for some kind of inconsistent mechanism.

One of the puzzle, you're given an equipment to use to solve something. After failing to get what we needed from it, we went to improvising to figure it out. When all was done, we were told that the equipment actually made it harder to get the answer. Personally, I used the equipment and checked everything thoroughly. It even became laughable at what I was beginning to use the equipment on because it was not helping at all. If the given tool is not going to be helpful but instead hinder your experience, it is best to think of another method.

This complaint can go either way. A puzzle involving a key needed more force than we were normally anticipating. We are always told that you shouldn't need more than two finger strength to do anything in a room. Being courteous wasted time.

Lastly, the way the game ended was absolutely a sour taste. We completed the room, but didn't know until 2 minutes later. Apparently the sound track to the room is known to delay. Then usually a picture session is offered, and we didn't even get that. I can't express how off this experience was considering we had friends from outside the city come play. I don't mean to be blunt, but it was the worst experience I have had in terms of escape room experience. The gamemaster was nice, but we didn't feel like the response from her were very appropriate with how...

This is my third time doing an escape room at this location (and probably my friend group’s 30th escape room ever) and I wasn’t going to leave a bad review even with my bad experience but after reading the negative reviews (all having the same bad experience as me) and seeing the business respond saying “they have made improvements and taken everyone’s feedback” I’m here to clarify they absolutely have not.

I went to this place two months after they opened in December and went again last night and things have just gotten worse.

My first complaint is they need more than one person working on a Friday night. We got there at 9:15 for our room scheduled at 9:30 and did not get into the room we booked until 9:52. And then when we did get into the room our game master realized she forgot to lock something and literally showed us where the key was to unlock the first door.

Then all the same stuff lots of other people were saying about the clues are kind of weird. Escape rooms are meant to challenge you but at the end make sense. This escape room likes to make puzzles that slightly don’t make sense and when you ask them about why something slightly didn’t fit they say “oh we always have one puzzle that is meant to stump you.”

Hard Puzzles are meant to be clever, not random.

After we got out we asked the game master how we were supposed to reach a key and she said oh we just place it slightly out of reach so we gage what that would be for each group. We had a 6”7 tall man in our group and he could barely reach the key. When I followed up and said what was the point of the puzzle right in front of the key that made it look like once we placed everything , they key would come to us, and the game master responded saying “oh that’s just for fun”

I would’ve respected this game master and escape room more to own up and say it was broken rather than keep making excuses for their bad puzzles and rooms that are slightly broken.

Please don’t even bother responding to this review if you’re going to tell me you’re taking critique and feedback seriously when absolutely nothing about this business has changed or improved in...

Took my son for his birthday along with his friends and our younger son. They had THE BEST TIME EVER!!!!!! They couldn’t stop talking about how much fun they had. YES they solved their room with only 35 seconds left. The Manager, Adrian and one other employee, Jessica were absolutely fabulous in taking care of us. The staff truly made the experience great they even let me stand outside their office and watch what the kids were doing. The other amazing thing is that we wanted to buy shirts for the kids but their credit card machine wasn’t working. They are a cash,ess business so we were out of luck HOWEVER, Adrian said to come back in a week and he would give me a discount. So I went back and Jessica was there…I explained to her what Adrian had told us to do…she checked with him…and their machine was not working again so they gave the kids the tshirts as a gift. (It was my sons birthday) All I can say is WOW!!!!!!!! I would 1000% recommend this business. In today’s world of no customer service…..Paniq truly shows what a business should be for customer service. Thank you thank you thank you Adrian...