PanIQ Escape Room Chicago (Logan Square) — Attraction in West Chicago Township

Edit: I am updating this from 2 stars to 4 stars based on Paniq's response to my review. Heidi, Paniq's regional manager, reached out to me saying that this was a training error and it was indeed Paniq's policy to charge the price at the door for extra players at the correct prorated amount. She refunded my purchase in its entirety and gave me a voucher for a free game which is more than generous. She also said that they do take feedback from their GMs seriously and that they are already in process of updating the puzzle I disliked. I really appreciate that she worked very hard to make this right. I'll leave 1 star off for it requiring a review to get the correct action from Paniq, but I do believe they are an honest company with a good (albeit expensive) product based on the one room I've done with them. In their defense on the price part, the rent in Logan Square is probably pretty high.

Original review below.

The reason I gave this 2 stars is because they have a policy that I believe is a rip-off to customers. This game has a sliding scale where the more players you have, the cheaper per person it gets. They also offer the ability to add more players, and the FAQ states "So long as your final player count does not exceed your chosen game's limit, that's not a problem! We can process payment for extra players at the door. We are unable to process refunds for players who don't show up, so book conservatively if your final headcount is uncertain."

So I booked for 2 and then added 2 at the door. However, they did not give us the price for 4 people in total, we paid $8 plus tax more than that. When I sent them an email inquiring, they said, "Since our games are private, we have scaling pricing for smaller groups. Once purchased, this price is not adjusted for variations in the group size. To mitigate this, additional tickets are set at our cheapest player price: $37.95, instead of the additional tickets also being $43.95 at the 4 player rate."

I think this is unfair and takes advantage of customers. There's no mention of it in the FAQ or the booking process. I have done over 200 escape rooms, and have added players at the door many times. I've never seen a policy like this. This is on top of the fact that the game is already very expensive compared to other escape rooms, and the fact that when I booked it initially, I got charged a $3.71 transaction fee that was apparently unavoidable unless I had a prepaid voucher. So that's another ripoff. Basically, this company is trying to find little ways to sneak in hidden charges and it's unethical.

The game itself (wizard room) was enjoyable. Really good atmosphere, mostly good puzzles, though there's two puzzles that are of the exact same type--I don't like the kind of puzzle that was represented at all, and two was definitely too many. Especially as one was the last puzzle of the game. When I gave feedback on that, I was just told by the GM that they agree. It was clear that they were not empowered at this chain to actually provide feedback on the design. But overall, the GM was...

PaniQ Review:

I celebrated my 32nd birthday in one of these escape rooms, specifically “Medieval Madness.” This is one of the few nights in my 32 years where I felt intellectually unstoppable and dumber than a kindergartener, often simultaneously. So here’s five stars — one for each of the following:

Hype: Before entering, the game master (what our escape room overlords called themselves) informed us that our trials were the most challenging, mind-bending, spacetime-distorting, soul-crushing, and spine-breaking ever put together. We knew the stakes were high. We would either make the front pages of history or become forever buried in its footnotes. I wonder if we even made the footnotes.

The 4D Cinematic Experience: The aesthetics, lighting, and sound design planted us firmly in an epic tale of medieval torture, Christian theology, Gregorian chant, dark organ music, and the holy wrath of our Lord and Saviour. The only thing missing, which we as players were supposed to contribute, was character development. Though we would walk out of the room as stupid as we walked in. Not even the Pope himself could redeem us.

Mental Roller-Coaster: The sweet, sweet satisfaction of solving a puzzle (with minimal hints from the overlords) delivers a brilliant moment of revelation. As if the impenetrable fog that once clouded your judgment has finally parted. As you stand back to admire the fruits of your labour, you realise the newly revealed clue tells you only one thing: push the hint button again and hope.

Commiseration: As you reach the edge of your sanity with one puzzle, you decide it is time for fresher minds to pick up where you have failed. As my friends and I bash our heads together, the excitement of teamwork carries with it an underlying Schadenfreude. Do I enjoy watching my friends fumble? No, but I take solace knowing that in those moments, they too were questioning how they’ve managed to get this far in life.

Forgiveness: The clock struck zero. We met our end, still trapped. But no! How could we handle the crushing weight of failure? Perhaps the overlords sensed this desperation. Even as they snickered at our hapless efforts, their kindness shone through. We were offered the precious gift of time, a few more minutes (and several more hints) to escape.

The final door cracked open, and we once again smelled the liberating air of civilisation. The overlords showered us with congratulatory remarks and a photo-op, either to soothe our aching pride, or to immortalise yet another night where they captured some...

we did the wizard themed room and i think it was a phenomenal time. aesthetically, the room was great, and it all felt very immersive especially with the application of wands. a couple of puzzles did frustrate us a bit, but i feel like that’s inevitable in any escape room. the challenge is what makes it fun. the room itself deserves 5 stars.

i’m only docking a couple of stars because i wasn’t the biggest fan of our game master, veronica (or vanessa? i’m terrible with names, but i’m like 95% sure it started with a v). she wasn’t the most helpful and she gave hints on things we already noticed. she also told us to do things we’d already done multiple times. i understand that sometimes you’re not gonna notice or remember everything a group has done, especially when there’s so much going on at once. but when my group would try to express that we’d already seen/done/noticed what she was pointing out and we just didn’t know how to use the information we already had, she’d give the same exact hint but in a more condescending tone which i didn’t appreciate. it wasn’t helpful at all and just made us frustrated. we ended up figuring out those puzzles on our own and it was a huge waste of time asking her for help.

i would definitely come back and i would recommend this place to other escape room enthusiasts, though. i just didn’t like our game master at all, if the long paragraph didn’t...