Escape Artistry Escape Rooms — Attraction in West Chicago Township

Pretty poor experience yesterday. The game master came off as a newbie. When we got there, there was a bunch of people in the lobby that had apparently rented out some room within the escape artistry place to do some type of music video recording? IDK. It was weird… and loud. One of their people wandered into our game while we were playing. I don’t know how he just ended up back there and stumbled into our room. The game master was also too involved and overbearing. She kept offering more and more guidance on things instead of giving us some time to work through it. Multiple times she started to direct us in one direction and I had to say “just give us a minute” and we would end up figuring out whatever we were working on without her guiding us. Like, it was just way too much involvement. THEN, lol when we were actually stumped at the end, she didn’t say anything. There was another time that I was working on a puzzle and then she started directing us elsewhere, which made me assume that we had already solved that puzzle in some roundabout way, or that she had already given us the answer to it. Come to find out, there was no need to redirect us from that specific puzzle to the one she pushed us towards. They were not directly dependent on one another. It was just a really bad experience. Also one of the answers regarding location seemed reeeeally out of place given the theming… unless we missed something in the story line. It was just a really bad experience. I almost walked out of the room a couple of times because I was getting so annoyed. I’m giving 2 stars vs 1 star because I’ve done some of their other rooms and while there were some things in those rooms that didn’t quite match up (in our opinion) with the theme of the room, they were average quality. I would’ve gave escape artistry 3 stars overall before yesterday’s experience… But this last experience was just awful. We’ve done 4 of their rooms but we’re not going back after this last time. A waste of $100 for 2 people to spend an hour in a room with someone literally trying to guide us every 5 minutes in some direction vs letting us play the game and struggle...

I visited Escape Artistry with a group of friends and completed The Railcar experience. We frequent escape rooms in and out of the city of Chicago, so we feel like we have a pretty good idea of what makes certain escape experiences shine.

Location: Escape Artistry's The Railcar experience is located in Wicker Park. The location is very easy to commute to via public transportation. If you are traveling by car, factor in an extra 10-15 minutes to find parking. Wicker Park has very tightly packed streets with street parking that can be difficult to find. Also factor in 5 minutes for walking up to the 3rd floor of the building to find Escape Artistry.

Host: We were led by an employee nicknamed Sweetheart that was clever and funny. He made us feel comfortable and excited for our attempt at The Railcar.

The Room: We felt like this room would not be conducive to more than 8 people. The Railcar feels like you are actually in a small train car, and so space is limited. There were several puzzles for people to work on at different times. It felt like we were working on multiple things at once which is what we enjoy in a room. We were surprised at the amount of puzzles that were incorporated into such a small room.

Where it shined: This escape room experience shined with its variety of puzzles. There were the usual lock and key puzzles, but also several moments where we had to use math, word play, and solve brain teasers to get out. We enjoyed being required to think about puzzles in different ways.

Difficulty: We felt that The Railcar was about middle of the pack in difficulty. We escaped with about 15 minutes left on the clock.

Escape Artistry made us feel comfortable, welcomed, and we thoroughly enjoyed our experience. We recommend this room to anyone looking for a nice introduction to...

This was our first trip to Chicago and the Railcar at Escape Artistry was our first escape room in Chicago, our 44th overall. First, I want to give a big shout out to Drew, our gamemaster. He ensured we had a great time! When my family discusses escapes rooms after we play them we think of them with three aspects in mind, Setting, Gameplay, and Mechanics.

As far as the setting goes, the set itself was very well done. We understand it to be made out of recycled materials. The story went well with the setting, therefore, making it a highly immersive environment. The props were ok and there was minimal clutter. The only thing I would comment on is that while we did the room with just 2 of us and escaped, I would not have like to have 10 people in there which they advertise as the upper limits.

The game had a fairly decent story to gameplay connection and while we had some searching to do it wasn't too much. Some of the puzzles were very unique but if you are a short person (I'm 4'11'') you need some taller folks playing with you! I think some of the puzzles were very memorable but I hated one of the locks and wondered why you would need/want that type of lock in a railcar. As far as pet peeves, they managed not to hit any of ours....which are red herrings, having to guess, need for prior knowledge, poor lighting....so great job for not having issues in this area!!!! Overall, we enjoyed the game a great deal.

As far as the mechanics go in the room, it had a good game flow, good hint system, very attentive game master, no breakdowns (Yay!), great customer service and a...