Live Action Escapes — Attraction in Worcester

We just had our first experience with Live Action Escapes today - in the Janis room. Overall, I was impressed with the technology - especially in the last room. However, that was overshadowed by what was an overall negative experience.

When our group was brought up to the room, the game controller left all of the monitors of his station on (which we walked by as we made our way to the room entrance), revealing to our group rooms that should not have been seen until partway through the game. This was also an issue when he brought us into the room, where a door to another room that should have been closed was left open. We also found the rooms to be dirty, and one smelled badly of mold and mildew. The rooms were dark by design, which was fine, but the two small flashlights that were provided would not work correctly. The game controller explained this away by saying that "they were in space for a long time", and that we were expected to use our cell phone cameras. This was odd, because before the game started, we were encouraged to leave all our belongings unattended outside of the room. Some of the locks did not work properly, and others were oriented on their containers in such a way that it was very difficult to enter their combinations. Overall, we did not find the clues to be all that relevant to the game scenario. The technology at the end of the game was impressive, but not intuitive. When I tried to explain this to the game manager, he was not at all interested in any feedback to improve the experience, and insisted that he was right.

Overall we found the game manager to be rude and condescending, especially at the end of the game. Our group has done 20 escape rooms. In most cases, the game manager is the difference between an enjoyable experience and a negative experience. I would recommend that the business reiterate the importance of the game manager's role, ensure that the room is set up before the players are brought in, and check all of the equipment to ensure that it is working properly. A good thorough cleaning would be good too. If you are looking for a more refined escape room experience without these issues, I would recommend some of the other options that are local...

I absolutely love escape rooms. I've done a ton. This one was just okay. The story behind the 1 room I did wasn't very detailed. I did the "challenge" which is their most challenging room...but it really wasn't challenging. The place is hard to find for a few reasons. The main reason is the elevator up to their floor sometimes works sometimes doesn't. We tried a few times koobefore it finally working. And there are no sign of stairs to it. They are on floor 3, so when we entered the elevator and pushed 3, the door would just open back up without going up, even after following faded directions that were on an index card taped inside the elevator.

There was a "challenge box" in our room that seemed totally unrelated.

We were handcuffed, which was an interesting touch. However, I didn't like how we were handcuffed the entire time. It was kind of pointless...especially since we were told to unhandcuff ourselves if we were having trouble teaching something. It would have been cooler if part of what we were working towards was getting unhandcuffed.

Another thing I didn't like was how when we finally found the key we needed to escape, it didn't actually open anything. And with their story line, we would be able to leave an imaginary door with the key, but we're still handcuffed in there...so we wouldn't actually be able to leave.

A heads up - the parking I was able to find nearby was 10 dollars. They do not have their own lot, and it is not wrll marked. Finding the place and being patient with the elevator was more of a challenge than the room. In their defense, the room has a 30% success rate, so maybe it is hard but I've just seen everything before that they had in their room in other places.

Another thing I didn't like was how you didn't interact with the staff on the tv for clues. It was just envelopes around the room that you could use or not use. Definitely not tailored to your needs.

As for the staff, we interacted with 2 women. One seemed friendly, and one did not.

I may just have high expectations for escape rooms, so it's possible that if you're new to escape rooms it might be a...

My husband and I just completed Live Action Escape’s Starship Rescue room as the fourth stop on a tour of escape rooms in the area. We have completed 25-30 rooms in the past 3 years, and are constantly looking for something novel to wow us. Starship had the potential to do this, since my husband is a huge space nerd and the flight simulator at the end could have been a huge differentiator for the experience. Unfortunately it wasn’t enough to overcome the shortcomings of this particular venue. The venue is above a cigar bar, so the whole facility reeks of smoke. After a short ride in a fishy smelling elevator, we were delivered to by far the hottest escape room we’ve ever been in - easily 85 degrees or warmer. When we asked the staff about it, we were told that we were the first booking of the day, so the AC hadn’t started to work yet. That said, let’s get to the pros and cons of the actual room:

Pros: interesting concept to have the simulator be the finishing move for the experience. Some unique prop/puzzle elements. Everything relatively on theme.

Cons: for lack of a better explanation, Live Action would benefit from a little TLC. There were actual typos on instructions in the room, props that had been duct taped back together, etc. There was also a very frustrating amount of the same type of lock, forcing us to try in multiple different places and waste time. The biggest con though was that there should have been some sort of instructional video or brief intro to the simulator itself in addition to the cheesy intro video. Not everyone is good at absorbing written instructional content and it is impossible to finish without understanding essentially a huge game system.

Overall: we would give it a 3/5. If you’re a space/sci fi nerd, you’ll get a kick out of some of the references in the room, and the bridge is pretty cool. I wouldn’t recommend going out of your way to come here, though, and if you do - be prepared for the hot, smelly space. Our team found it difficult to get past that and focus on the...