Victoria Escape Games — Local services in Victoria

*I encourage you to go through and read the 1-star reviews for this business as you will see a pattern of verbal abuse from the owner toward anybody who dare leave a bad review, which there are quite a few. Apparently anybody who leaves a bad review in this business owner's eyes is "illogical, ignorant or stupid".

A group of 6 of us booked an escape through this business for the beginning of a bachelor party upon a suggestion from a friend. Our night commenced with a single alcoholic beverage at the groom's house before setting out to this venue so we were not even remotely 'intoxicated'. I have to preamble with this as the business has a policy of zero-tolerance for 'intoxication' - again, we were far from being intoxicated. This was the first stop of the night, booked in at 6:45pm on a Saturday. The member of our group who booked this for us failed to relay some of the information regarding a 'password' we were to give a gentleman at the front door of the escape room.

The man who eventually would become our 'games master' who accompanied us, peered through the window with mirrored aviator sunglasses, super creepy-like with no knowledge or explanation. All 6 of us were drinking water bottles when we arrived (further evidence we were not actively drinking alcohol), so one of our party splashed a little water on the window where the games master's face was peering through as a joke - yes, water. He ripped the door open violently and proceeded to berate us for being 'abusive' supposedly. I have to be very descriptive because when I tried to leave a review before on Google, the owner of the company berated me through his response and told numerous lies publicly about our group, calling us 'hooligans' among other insults. (You might want to actually look up that term in a dictionary)

The fact is, our group consisted of an Olympic Gold Medalist and National television host, a police officer, a school teacher, a man that works with at-risk youth and two other mature, professional men. So this owner can paint all the lies he wants but the facts are that we never at any time acted in a manner that was abusive, intimidating or otherwise inappropriate. However, the employee of this business certainly attempted to power-trip us by informing us he would "end our game right there and not refund our payment." for yes - splashing a little bit of water on the window as a joke in fun. Maybe get a sense of humour. You are supposed to be a games outfit - people are there to have FUN. I know that might be seemingly foreign to you, but I see we are not the only ones who have been treated this way by the jerks associated with this business. We completed the entire escape to the end without incident, but we were determined to get our money's worth and didn't really care whether we solved the game or not at this point. The night was ruined from the get-go from this games master with tiny-man-syndrome. I have never been treated this way before in my entire life by a business and then for the owner to treat me the way he did after the fact without actually hearing our side of the story was shocking. I will be going out of my way to spread the word about this business - Victoria is a small city. There are plenty of other places to do these activities in town and I would recommend any place other that isn't Victoria Escape Games. I see from reading some other reviews now that my experience is not entirely...

We (a group of 4) did the witchcraft and wizardry room and wow I must say this place was an incredible experience. I loved that room. This marks my 7th escape room challenge and I have seen many things done right and so many more done wrong. The owner was with us as a guide along with another staff member.

What it did right: -Rules were laid out clearly right from the start to minimize confusion -Creative and clever room design. You can tell the owner is passionate and knowledgeable about escape rooms -Props were fantastic. They were appropriately themed and laid out well. Anything that wasn't to be tampered with was clearly marked, which many rooms don't do -Puzzles were challenging but not impossible. They were logical and diverse -No difficulty or failure with any of the mechanical puzzles, which is something I have faced several times in other rooms (most commonly locks not working as they should) -Fair number of hints and they were reasonable, not too cryptic -Price was standard pricing for escape rooms and worth the money -Options are given at the end of the challenge with regards to answers to the puzzles or a chance to pay for more time (I really liked this!)

What it did wrong: -The only thing I can think of was I was initially taken back by the owner and staff member being in the room during the entire challenge. It was the first time I've had this in an escape room, but it turned out to be a positive experience after all. They both kept to themselves and were friendly and professional. It was also nice to not have to struggle to get a hold of someone for hints and/or questions, which was another common problem I faced in other rooms.

I would highly recommend this escape room to others and we will be back at some point to try the...

We did the professor room with a group of 5 and escaped with just over a minute left. The room has a low success percentage but, none of the puzzles were too hard or too out of the box. This company had a few differences to others I've been to. An employee was in the room with us the whole time. It may seem a little strange at first if you're used to rooms where you radio for hints. But, I actually think it works better. The employee can give better hints since they know exactly where you are in solving puzzles and the responses are immediate. It can be difficult getting a vague hint over a radio from someone outside the room. They also gave us 4 tokens to give to the employee anytime we wanted a hint. All escape rooms I've been to give only 2 hints. I've always felt like there should be at least 3 hints and 4 was perfect. I enjoyed that we were given the story of the room through a video. It really set the mood and answered any questions we could have had. The mood of the story really depends on your introduction and sometimes receiving it direct from a person it can feel rushed or lacklustre. That being said the female employee with short hair and I think glasses we had was amazing. Really enthusiastic and got us even more excited to do the room. Despite her being in the room with us I forgot she was there at moments because she stood quietly out of the way letting us become immersed in the room until we had a question or needed a hint. I'm excited to try their other rooms and will definitely be back. I think the only thing I would change is that they charge at least $125 for 5 and under. So in order to make the rooms the same price as other companies at $25 per person you need to have at least a group of 5 which can be hard to put...