Great Room Escape — Local services in Austin

Such a great time. We took an Uber to Mindspark and when we were being dropped off, we thought we were being punk'd. A huge, empty parking lot, shared with the House of Torment. In hindsight, it added to the allure of the zombie adventure we were about to embark on.

I've done other Escape Room games, so I will compare this to past experiences:

Challenges: The puzzles were on par with the competition. However, the added element of working against the Zombie made it significantly more challenging. You couldn't just plop down and make yourself comfortable while trying to solve a puzzle...you literally had to be on your feet, and thinking ahead as to not get caught.

Environment: The props were fine. Based on other rooms, I felt they were a little run down. It was obvious the room was very well used in the past. Some props were broken, including a major one that the host struggled with opening once we solved the puzzle. But, again, it probably added to the feeling of being in an actual apocalypse. There are two character actors in the room with you the entire time...the zombie, and a butler/assistant. The zombie's job is to scare you and slow you down from solving puzzles. She was amazing, and I felt like she got a beat up quite a bit (unintentionally). Doors slammed on her from participants trying to keep her from touching them. At one point she accidentally got pushed very hard when an unsuspecting guest got spooked by her. The chain that keeps her attached to the wall becomes a hazard at some point when it's at it's longest and stretched across the room while people are running around. We had several people trip. And I'm sure it wasn't comfortable for the actor, either, as people were running into the chain and tripping. During the course of solving some of the puzzles, we found props that were, apparently, misplaced in the room (not supposed to be there). Twice "the butler" said, "Umm, sorry, those keys aren't supposed to be in here. They don't do anything in this room." Honestly, had he not been in there "guiding" us, I don't know that we would have been able to figure out that we had the wrong keys and we wouldn't have gotten out.

Theme: Fantastic, engaging story line. Thoughtful, engaging actors.

Overall, it was a really great time. Glad we escaped, and look forward to trying some of the other...

My family and I played Houdini and were greatly disappointed. Comments as we were leaving was “this was the worst escape room I’ve ever done”. The company asked for negative reviews to be sent to them directly first, but it’s been 9 months and they haven’t responded so here’s a 1 star review.

The following is what we did not enjoy. Given that we are playing a mind game, it was extremely annoying being next to the axes and hearing people screaming and throwing axes. I’ve done more than a dozen escape rooms and it’s always quiet. The fishing lock box with the magnet wasn’t even actually locked. We opened the top of it and started fishing, and then once we put it in the fireplace the attendant returned to the fishing box and had us solve the lock (that didn’t open anything) and fish again. Almost everything was linear and multiple people couldn’t necessarily work on multiple things. Many times where we were waiting on one thing, such as the number game, the safe, and the Chinese puzzle. Bess was rude and it felt like I was getting in trouble. There were a many things we “couldn’t touch”. Well then it shouldn’t be in the room or it should be clearly marked. The lock to the safe was extremely hard to open. We had to try it about 10 times. Needs to be replaced. The Chinese lock was not intuitive at all. It’s very finicky, the dials spin too easily, and it was hard to make sure they were all facing the top when that is where the bar is. Bess had to step in and wiggle something for us that we had right. We shouldn’t be playing a game that we can’t do alone. The riddle on the door didn’t have anything to do with the game… just to get a clue. I would rather try and figure it out myself. The ending was somewhat uneventful. We solved something, and then Bess had to re-do it. Made no sense. Again, it should be something that we can do completely by ourselves.

On the positive side, we did enjoy that it involved multiple rooms - that’s always exciting. Overall, it was a disappointing experience and was...

Speaking only to the Houdini room escape experience.

This experience may be a better fit for beginners, but I honestly can't say I enjoyed my time that much. I've been to multiple room escape games and this was by far my most negative experience coming out of it.

Something unique about the Houdini room, is that a staff member actually SITS in the locked room with you. Our staff member kept walking around watching what we were doing, making verbal cues that weren't exactly asked for, and guiding us to hints that I would have preferred having figured out on my own. To me, it felt like I was a student being watched over the shoulder by a teacher during an exam-- judged for every wrong or right step our team was making when I would have much preferred to have explored the room with my own team and worked through things. The staff member seemed a bit (maybe too) eager to guide us to the right clues before our group had exhausted leads which slightly diminished the deductive, problem-solving joy of the game. This made me feel a bit rushed and not as excited to play when I felt someone was watching my every right or wrong step. While my team tried to not let this peculiar setup affect their fun, they concurred that they also would not have preferred this setup when we left.

As mentioned, maybe this is something that would be actually very APPRECIATED by someone new to room escape games, but just for feedback, perhaps it can be better in firstly asking and gauging a group on their experience and how much direction they want rather than jumping to help people before anyone asks for their help, if they need to be in the room even at all. At the end of the day, the real goal is not to rush through clues to get out of the room, but to leave feeling like you had fun, bonding with your team, friends,...