The Escape Game San Jose — Attraction in San Jose

6/7/25 Updated Review: My second experience was MUCH better! First off, customer service definitely deserves 5 stars. They reached out to me an hour or so after I had posted the first review. They seemed to really care about my group having a 5-star experience. They remied it with another experience and made sure it was private.

Now, the room we did was Special Ops: Spice Market, rated 8/10 difficulty. As we figured out the puzzles, the story unfolded and it was actually really cool! This room wasn't as linear as Timeliner, which we really enjoyed. I do want to mention that we are a group of 5 who does escape rooms at least once every two months. We got out of this room with 13 mins and 55 seconds left and ZERO hints. I walked out of the room happy with a great experience. However, I question the difficulty of the puzzles. Not sure if this is because of our experience or the rating scale.

Overall, I will give TEG SJ 4/5 stars because: (1) each room does not need to be maximized at 8 per room, if they want to max profits, make a minimum number of players instead; with the price per person, it should be a private room (2) game guides should have caught the group taking over in my first experience; the assistant manager left a message saying they should have caught it

Thanks TEG San Jose!!

‐---------------------------- 5/25/25 First Review: My very first escape room was actually at The Escape Game Atlanta, so I had high hopes for this one. I came here for my birthday, with a party of 5 and figured it be fine if another 3 joined us, because I've done it before and it wasn't bad. I was absolutely wrong for this location. The random group of three who joined us last minute didn't consider us and solved all the problems despite me yelling out loud "We would like to try" and "I guess we don't get to try" multiple times. The others not allowing us to play, TEG can't do anything about that. However, what they could have done, knowing they heard everything going on in the room and can see what was going on, was to comp my group. My group got to solve 1 puzzle in the room. The most I got was having a private room for the next time I go. Icing on the cake - the person who greeted us afterwards (not the person who walked us in) said, "What great team work! You all escaped, would you like to take a photo?" I know it's your job, but please read the room.

The room itself: I did Timeliner. I think it would have been a good experience if we didn't have the random people, but from what I observed, this was a very linear escape room. You need to solve one puzzle to get to the next. The only way you could solve more than one puzzle at a time was when you were in the side rooms. So, to have this as 7/10 difficulty and max 8 people, meh. Maybe it would have been 7/10 difficulty if it was a group of 3 or 4. With 8 people, it was quite boring since only one or two people are able to solve the problem at a time.

Price: This is a higher priced experience. I get the area that TEG is in is much more expensive, but with $45.99 a person, each room should be private. When I asked how to get a private room, I was told I had to pay for all 8 spots.

I love escape rooms and enjoy them often! I do escape rooms at least once every 2 months all over the Bay Area. I would love to try all of TEG's rooms, but I feel cheated from my experience today.. I feel like I spent over $200 for a random group to have their private experience and TEG only able to offer me a private room the next time. I'm hesitant to use it because why should I spend over $400 for essentially...

To give some context, I have completed all of the rooms at this location.

The rooms are, overall, decent. Some are better than others. I enjoyed Timeliner, and Gold Rush would have been really cool if it wasn't broken. If you want more specific reviews of each experience in particular, you're better off picking up the Morty app to read those. This review is more a reflection of the business and customer service.

The business model: 1/5 stars When I first played at this location, I really enjoyed the modern design and attention to detail. I played this room with my wife, niece, and another woman with several of her children (ranging from middle-school to high-school ages, I would estimate). Overall, my biggest gripe about this place is that the rooms are NOT designed for 8 people. It is very rare that there are several different puzzles scattered throughout the room that could keep 8 people busy. Playing with strangers is already hit-or-miss, but when you're effectively taking turns on doing things and solving puzzles, that's a real drag. The only reason we were able to finish the rest of the rooms at this location is they had a BOGO deal, so we bought out the entire rooms in order to play on our own.

Customer service: 2/5 This was hit-or-miss. We had one game master who was completely inattentive until the last moment, and then he ended up shotgun firing hint after hint at us in the last 5 minutes of the game cause he failed to keep his promise that he would give us nudges if we were falling behind.

In another instance, I was talking to the front desk employee, asking them about the Gold Rush room. When I had played it, two of the truly unique and cool puzzles were broken / decommissioned, and they made it sound like it wouldn't return. Next time I speak to them, it sounds like everything is back and running smoothly again. I don't know why there was an inconsistency between what these different employees were telling me, but I was extremely disappointed in that escape room, considering how it had won so many awards. I was given a broken experience, and here was this person effectively gloating that I had paid full price for a broken game, but it was all working now (Note, he didn't actually SAY that, but that's how I felt). I had booked all of my games several weeks in advance; it wouldn't have been crazy for them to say, "Hey, some of the really cool stuff isn't working right now for this room, would you guys want to reschedule your appointment?" It's not like they're losing out on money, is it?

TL;DR: Try to play when there's a BOGO deal. I would not recommend playing any of their rooms with more than 4 players. I would ask them in advance if any of the puzzles are decommissioned / broken before...

I cannot stress how amazing this place is. The fact that I'm writing this review when I never write reviews proves it.

Been three times here and wanted to shoutout Lolly who is the best game master and is so insanely sweet. Not only does she give the best hints, but each time we've had her, she's made me and my group cards to celebrate our time together. Her kindness is so appreciated.

Done three rooms (Timeliner, Gold Rush, Heist) and all have engaging and fun puzzles that aren't unnecessarily hard. The sets are well themed and it's the little touches that made it so much fun. During the heist for example, you actually need to look through a real book to solve a puzzle! Each room has a good mix of high tech fun (Timeliner has some crazy effects that make it a stand out room) and practical hands on challenges. This is not your average "go unlock this, put this code in here" place. In Gold Rush, you will be searching for actual gold nuggets. And the Heist has a bunch of fun practical set pieces that I won't spoil here. Trust me, they're all fun and engaging rooms.

We've had one booking mix-up here (we booked for a private room, but it wasn't made private online so showed up to find it had been double booked) and the way they handled it was amazing. First, they refunded us and gave us the next escape room on them. But they also profusely apologized and then gave us some free online escape games so we could play together while we waited for our new date. Then, when we showed up for our rescheduled game, they apologized again for the mix up and gifted us their board game. This customer service went above and beyond our expectations and we truly appreciated it.

We're three friends that have to coordinate a lot to be able to find time to hang together so these little gestures by the staff meant so much to us. We honestly dread finishing all these rooms because we want to keep...