Palace Games — Attraction in San Francisco

The Attraction is not really an Escape Room and more of an experience. There was major hype going into this experience from the reviews I read and I tried to go into it level-headed. Well, I was really let down by this experience.

First room was fine and the puzzle was an easy concept to grasp, even though we struggled for a bit. Regardless, moving into the spaceship we were having a good time. The spaceship was something different, although we have seen this concept before. The 2nd main room (1st planet you visit), was difficult for us to understand with the 1st set of puzzles. It seemed like it may have been malfunctioning as it was extremely repetitive, it took us a long time, and we became extremely frustrated because it seemed like we kept doing the same thing over-and-over. I know The Palace Games tries to be extremely immersive with no GM interaction, but it made it frustrating that we could not get a nudge, as we could not move forward and it felt like it took forever to get to the next set of puzzles in this 1st planet room. This repetitive, possibly malfunctioning room is what killed the experience for us.

The Library was a cool room and almost saved this experience for us as it did bring some fun and energy, but it was still nothing spectacular. There was a cool reveal in this room and the height of the ceiling was impressive.

As we entered the last room, our group was over this experience and we flew through the last room in a few minutes. The GM knew that half of our party “checked-out” since the 1st planet room and either the room was very easy or the GM made it easier for us so we would just be done. We finished with 15 mins on the clock so not sure. This last room did have some cool decor though in the forest-like setting.

Overall, we were disappointed with game play and sets. Besides the library room, sets and games/puzzles were nothing special, with no really cool reveals, which contradicted some reviews. Spaceship was kind of cool but repetitive. The quality of the room sets and the tech aspect was impressive, but it seemed to be overused at times, and possibly malfunctioned in the 1st planet room.

Sorry to say that The Attraction was not worth the price of admission, even if you brought 8 people (please note that bringing more than 4-5 would be too many though). Paying over $400 for any type of experience should give you a really fun and special experience…this gave us neither. I really wanted to like The Attraction and looked forward to doing this room for months in advance, but it did not give us much fun and did not impress us as much as many of the 60 to Escape (in IL and WI) and Exit Games (FL) rooms did. I have done almost 40 rooms, so I think my opinion does have some credibility, so please know that this room may not be for you. I really wish we would have done The Edison rather than The Attraction as The Edison is more of a traditional ER, which we probably would have...

OMG! Now I see why the Edison room has been ranked as sixth in the world and top escape room in the USA. I would give 1000 stars if possible! Successfuly escaped this room with a party of 5 people (ages 10 to 46 years old, all of us have done between 10-25 escape rooms each). The amount of technology incorporated into the puzzles was absolutely mindblowing and heads and tails above any other escape room we've ever done. Great combination of logic puzzles, scavenging, physical challenges, and teamwork. Linear game play with no red herrings. Every puzzle was well integrated into the theme of the room and made sense. There were no boring "find the combination to 100 padlocks" that plague the many escape rooms that take the easy way out in constructing their rooms. The surprise reveals were amazing. For those with younger kids in the party, there was nothing scary about this room except for a momentary few seconds of darkness, so I would recommend to participants of all ages. The location and history of the Palace of Fine Arts was very nicely tied into the theme of the room (as are all the rooms here). It is evident that a ton of thought, effort, passion, and perspiration went into the crafting of this room. All props and technology worked perfectly. Our gamemaster, Andrew, was friendly and helpful as well. Don't do this room as your first room if you've never done escape rooms before because you want to be able to walk in and appreciate how much better they've done things compared to the typical and average escape rooms. If you do this one first, you'll be sorely disappointed with any other escape room you are likely to come across. We really liked the length of this room also which was a maximum of 100 minutes compared to most other places that are only 60 minutes... with the sheer number of puzzles and challenges, you really need this increased amount of time. They also provide a data summary of your performance at the end broken down puzzle by puzzle so you can compare how you did to other groups. Apparently only 15% of groups successfully complete this room, but even if you fail, you are sure to have an amazingly good time regardless. We enjoyed our time so much that we actually booked a second room for the next day! Can't recommend this...

My puzzling team has done a number of escape rooms in the area (SCRAP, Kuma, Om, etc), and Houdini Escape was my best experience yet, the one that most felt like it was designed by true puzzle-lovers to provide the kind of experience they would have wanted in a puzzle room.

The story was that Harry Houdini, master escape artist, had created an escape room for eight of his friends: brilliant innovators of the time including Thomas Edison, John Philip Sousa, and the like. Because Houdini tailored the room to his friends, many of his puzzles made playful use of their inventions, like Edison's light bulbs, and Sousa's music. The end result for us was a room full of novel and intriguing puzzles (with clever mechanics I'd never seen before), beautifully themed, with clear love and attention evident in every period-appropriate detail, every carefully-crafted "aha" moment, every deliberate clue designed to optimize the game experience. There were never any weird stretches or leaps in intuition - even the most difficult puzzles made sense and had logical solutions.

After the game we had the pleasure of speaking with the creators behind the room, and even got a glimpse of the back area bursting with wires and tubes and LEDs. Several puzzles had really felt like magic: you found the solution and immediately a door popped open or a light turned off, and I was absolutely convinced that there was someone watching us on camera to flip a switch at the right time. When we found out how it was automated, it really was like seeing how a magic trick worked!

We also heard from the creators that if we hadn't finished in the allotted 80 minutes, they would have let us keep going. In fact, they purposely leave time in between bookings so that slower teams can have some extra time to escape. I thought that was such a refreshing attitude, instead of booking back to back to maximize the number of teams they can put through.

Overall, I highly recommend this well-crafted and engaging room. Can't wait for the next installment, which I hear is...