Panic Escape Room Games — Attraction in South Elgin

We challenged Narco...

The story line to the room was one I had not seen before, and they attempted to integrate some cool technology into the room for some puzzle solving, but that's where the creativity ended.

Essentially, the room was nothing more then locks and keys, with even more locks and keys that led to .... let me guess... more locks and keys.

The room contained adult content. By that I mean there were pictures of naked women with their breasts exposed on the walls, playboy magazines used to solve puzzles, naked photos of women stored in locked boxes as well as a collection of women's panties. This wasn't a deal breaker, but it would of been nice to know this content existed a head of time. This room is NOT family friendly.

The room design also left some construction trip hazards and some low hanging hazards that required you duck as you passed around the room. Forget that and you would do some serious damage to your head. There was obvious damage to the room where someone taller than I had obviously hit their head. This is just poor design and not necessary.

There was some VERY cool tech integrated into this room. Unfortunately the tech didn't work and we were forced to just be given the solution to the puzzle. This was anti climatic and seriously frustrating as we knew what we needed to do, we just couldn't do it with the tools provided.

I've come to learn that I love escape rooms. I enjoy my experience regardless of the quality of the room.

In summary: This room suffered from really poor game design and game flow. There were way to many locks and keys and a lot of misdirection used to the point where you were constantly having to asking for "clarification".... not a clue. Again... poor design.

They have some pretty creative concepts. With better game design, and some more investment in room setup I think this could be a really awesome place.

• Update * Corporate offices contacted me shortly after publishing the review just to verify why my experience was less than a 5 star experience.

It seems like a lot of what they are attempting to do at their facility is different from your traditional escape room experience. These differences are supposed to be communicated to you pre-game in the lobby during your intake process, which was not done for our group.

Even the adult content, drugs a and weaponry are all supposed to be discussed prior. :(

I think the biggest disappoint to me was that it appears that Narco is the 3rd game in the series. Corporate let me know that all of their rooms tie together into and over arching single threaded story, so we started with the ending. :( Again... not explained.

It's worth noting that had ALL of this have been discussed with us as it was supposed to be, I think our experience would have been a 5 star experience.

Because of the customer service follow up, and now having a better understanding of their goal and mission, I'm updating my review to 4 stars.

You should absolutely check this place out.

I'm hopeful with some communication tweaks with staffing and better explanation to guests of their overall goal your experience here would be a 5...

Our experienced team of 4 played Night at the Museum. The theme was cool, but there were a few issues (hence why I can't give it 5 stars). Upon entering, our Game Master was nice, but unfortunately was low energy, and dressed in sweat pants. He told us the TV monitor in the room was broken, so there would be no sound letting us know he was communicating with us. (He was going to replace it later that day, but I think we should have been offered a different room, because it caused us delays.) I didn't hate the room, but so you're prepared, here's what you'll have to contend with: There are an overabundance of props in the room, most of which can be manipulated, but have nothing to do with solving the room. We personally prefer either less props or that if they're not related, they are nailed/glued down. Second, we did get a couple nudges from our GM, but we were so busy working on the puzzles we kept forgetting to look up at the screen just in case he typed something (again because of the broken TV), so we wasted a lot of time there. Third, a couple of the locks' painted in numbers were rubbed off so it took us extra time to get the correct code plugged in. Fourth, there was a moment where a black light comes on and is supposed to shine on something to alert you as to how to solve the next part. We looked everywhere and the only thing that was lit up had nothing to do with anything. we were told at the end of the game which item was supposed to light up, and upon examination, the light did not really shine on it that well and the part that was supposed to show up under the black light was all smeared and practically rubbed off. You were supposed to read it to know what to do, so basically that part of the puzzle was broken. Finally, for those of you that have a harder time seeing things in the dark, This room has many locks that are to see in the dark. The numbers are shiny and metal and it's hard to tell which number you have lined up - even with the flashlight. We were close to solving this room and I think if certain things were not broken and designed better we would have been successful. *Update: Got a call from Brian at Panic to discuss all our issues posted here. He assured me that there are employee protocols in place for handling things like a broken TV, and appropriate dress, and these were going to be reviewed with staff. He also brainstormed with me about things to improve play in the room, which I thought was very cool. Brian is very professional and did give us a discount on coming back. Thank you! His prompt attention to our concerns was much appreciated! Just the fact that he called instead of just replying to the Google review is encouraging me to come play...

My experience was way before covid hit. This was the first escape room my husband and I have ever been. Let me start by saying that we had a blast. I am addicted to escape rooms now! It was a perfect place for our first escape room. They have TVs mounted to help and show the time. Since we had no clue what we were doing and didn't want to break anything, we were hesitant to touch too much. If you're a beginner, this is definifely the place to go! We were guided with more than your 3 hints. Our game guide reassured us that it was okay to do things like open doors and move items around. It may seem obvious, but we held back because we didn't want to break anything. It helped us in our future escape room endevours. We have been to this location twice because we live 5 min away. We did Alice in Wonderland and Split, despite only having 2 players. This place has amazing customer service and seriously caters to guests. Now, for the bad, and the reason for the 3*. Yes, we had fun, but the rooms were boiling hot. We were sweating in Tshirts. There were broken locks and ones we had to be extremely careful with. One lock we weren't even able to open, so we were just told what to do next. The concept of movie themed rooms is cool, but we didn't really feel the concept. The rooms felt cheap. We had this feeling while we were there, but since we had never been to an escape room, we didn't know if this was normal. Since then, we have been to a few other escape rooms (no names), and we found that the rooms were cheaply put together at Panic. They aren't as immersive as they could be. At the end of the day, Panic is still worth checking out, especially if you live in South Elgin. It has its flaws, just like every other place, but you'll...