Novel Escape — Local services in Austin

Hands down the best escape room I've ever done, and I've done over 50. The owner brought so much light and enjoyment to the experience and put a lot of little personal touches on the experience which added a lot. In addition, the puzzles in the room were creative, unique, solid, functional, and fun, which to me is just about everything you could want in an escape room puzzle. The immersion was solid, and there were multiple rooms as part of one escape room, which I always appreciate uncovering! The room is not insanely high tech (but not low tech either, there were some awesomely clever mechanisms) but I actually prefer it that way because you get to have a more hands on experience in these kinds of rooms, and you can see all of the awesome little details the owner put into the room, that just wouldn't be the same if there were a million touch screens everywhere (For example, I also like Escape Game Austin's rooms, but they have gotten so high tech with their newest rooms that a lot of the fun has been lost to screens). This room is definitely family friendly which I appreciated as well because although I am an adult, I'm quite jumpy and don't like to be scared. For those that prefer to know about scary stuff in advance (don't read if you don't want spoilers), there was one small "jump scare" towards the end that wasn't actually meant to be scary, just surprising - it was actually very funny and a really great moment to laugh about afterwards! Overall, I had a fantastic experience and I can't wait until the owner releases more...

This is definitely the best escape room that I've been to in Austin (and I've been to most of the ones in the city). The clues were not so hard that we had no hope of solving them without a clue, but hard enough that we felt very accomplished when we solved them :) They were also VERY well thought out - some escape rooms suffer from having a few low-effort clues - writing on the wall that is the code to a lock, for example - but not this room. It's pretty clear that a lot of time went into each clue, and that makes the experience so much better.

The room's construction was also amazing - making clues physically (and not just mentally) intricate takes effort, and that's definitely the case here.

The experience itself was also very nice - clues were delivered in a way that fits with the room's theme, which is not something I've encountered before, and our gamemaster was clearly invested in making sure we had fun.

Last, we did our room outside of their normal hours - a member of our group who loves escape rooms had her birthday on a Monday, and they were so kind as to accommodate our request to do the room on a Monday evening - which we really appreciate.

TL;DR - cannot ask for more in an escape room, definitely go, and we'll be back for the other two rooms that are being constructed...

Excellent presentation, from the entrance hall to the gentleman doing the work facilitating the experience, to the accoutrements of the rooms themselves. It was my first time doing an escape room, and I had a fantastic time. We were able to puzzle out the majority of the flow of clues, only occasionally asking for assistance, which was provided an unlimited number of potential times(I think we requested help four times in our hour session). The majority of our group had something to do at any given time, so it was engaging to our entire group.

I only have a few negative impressions, one minor, one far more substantive:

1. One of the puzzles included a lock with the serial number still prominently displayed on the lock, and given that there is a different lock in the same experience that uses a code on the lock itself, that seems like a significant oversight. It didn't impact my group's gameplay, but I can see how someone might feel cheated if they got off on a red herring.

2. The big downside is the cost. Doing a bit of research, I discovered the typical cost per head is about $15-$40, and this place was on the high end of that range, at $35 a head.

In any case, for a first time escape room player, I had a blast, and would highly...