Escape Room Concord NH — Local services in Concord

Disclaimer: My group escaped. The room was fine. Quite linear but had some interesting tactile elements to the puzzles. Nothing too challenging. One part of the room was broken and staff needed to come in to fix it right at the end, so the escape was pretty anticlimactic.

Pricing is good, but there was some unclear information on the website, so we actually owed more than what we paid when we booked, but weren't informed of this until after we were done the game. They should have rectified this when we got there, not as we were leaving.

Our gamemaster was very cold, condescending and off-putting. Didn't seem happy to be there and took it out on the group. Went through his canned speech at the beginning very quickly, so some of the people in the group who had never done an escape room before didn't absorb it. He was then very argumentative and disrespectful towards multiple people in the group after we escaped when we had questions about the puzzles. Things got pretty tense, and they forced us to take a group picture afterwards, which was awkward. We just wanted to leave.

This place seems like a very corporate version of escape rooms where they try to run it more like an amusement park. Stuff thrown together quickly, staff who don't want to be there and a sense of everyone just going through the motions to get people in and out as efficiently as possible. No sense of fun, adventure or intrigue. I think that the atmosphere is really important for an escape room experience, and I learned today that a bad one can ruin it. I would not recommend this place, especially with some really fun alternatives in the area.

**Edit: The owner left a lengthy response to my review. He said he spoke to somebody in our group, but I checked with everybody and they all agreed with the concerns I raised.

As for the pricing, the FAQ clearly states that if you book a private room it comes out to the same cost as bringing two extra people for free. This is only true for parties of 8 or larger and thus is misleading and unclear. Regardless, I reiterate that the price was not the problem, but the way the discrepancy was allowed to happen in the first place and later handled on site was.

For the issue with the puzzle, there was what appeared to be a moving metal puzzle with pins in it on a door. The pins slid easily in and out of the holes, there was no unscrewing of anything. It appeared that if you removed the correct pins, the entire puzzle would shift into a different shape, potentially revealing or unlocking something. As we were working on this, we repeatedly asked out loud to the gamemaster to stop us if we shouldn't be removing the pins from the puzzle, as it wasn't moving as we expected it to, but received no response. When we tried to explain this to him afterwards, he got very defensive about it.

When I say things were just seemingly thrown together, I would again point out that a major part of the escape room was broken and needed to be fixed towards the end in order for us to escape. As for the photos at the end being an argument against this being a corporate, impersonal experience, I heavily disagree. We were unhappy, trying to leave and the gamemaster was arguing with us about every little thing on the way out (not just the puzzle issue, as the owner suggests). The fact that he couldn't read the room and pushed to do the photo felt very much like he was just going through the motions of the script they are given and wouldn't adapt to the circumstances. It wasn't a happy, fun picture opportunity for a group, it was more "line up so we can do this thing we have to do and then we will figure out the payment situation so you can leave".

My review was not based solely on the negative interactions with the staff, but also reflected my feelings about the entire process of engaging with this company and the room/puzzles themselves. I would have given them 3 stars if not for the negative staff issues. I initially gave two stars, but after the attempt to discredit me by the owner I lowered...

This is in response to my wifes comment from yesterday that he replied to:

Yes. We determined that it was a processing error. ON YOUR END. We showed up. Called you to unlock the door of the business that was supposed to be open, but wasnt. Waited around for you to apologize, but didnt. Asked if you had any more availability for the day... but you did not respond to it. So its weird that you are acting like you wanted to do something to help us. You said you were working on your project in that room and we kind of stood around awkwardly while nothing happened until yes, we just went away and said it was fine. The expectations of speaking to an owner when their business makes a mistake and no accountability is taken, what else can we do in that situation? I'm not going to have an argument with someone, I'm just going to take my business somewhere else. That's the free market. We have been to this business 5 separate times, to treat us as if were invading on your time and space when we are literally trying to pay for your service is madness. I am not going to have a conversation with a grown adult and business owner over how he should...

Very discouraging experience today. I’ve visited this business multiple times and have enjoyed the rooms and game play. Today I booked once more and received an unusual confirmation but, a confirmation no less. Upon arrival I was told that my booking was not showing up. It was explained that since I booked around the time the rooms are automatically removed from the website, it was likely I had a faulty booking. Thankfully my bank had not been charged. However, there was no type of accountability practiced regarding the issue of the booking process and the impact it had on our experience at the business. There was no attempt to rebook our experience for a later time or day, and we were just simply met with careless nonchalant behavior and shown the door without an apology. It’s discouraging to book again considering the mishap and lack of motivation to correct...