Escapology Escape Rooms Draper — Local services in Draper

We did the "Under Pressure" room at this location a few days ago, which is labeled as a 9/10 in difficulty on their website. We still managed to come within just a couple of minutes of beating the game, and probably would have if it weren't for malfunctions with the game puzzles.

First, though, the good: The production value of the room was pretty high. Good quality props, multiple rooms to unlock and explore, direct and helpful hints, and TV screens and audio for ambience. For the most part, the puzzle solutions made sense, and didn't require random guesswork - although there were clearly several clues in the room that existed just to mislead you.

The not-so-good: If you use a hint, it takes 2 minutes off your total time. (I didn't monitor that, so I'm not 100% sure on it, I just know that's what we were told.) I've never had time removed for requesting hints, so that made me a little uncomfortable.

The bigger issue is that several puzzles were either outright broken, or misleading in fundamental ways. It took us ten minutes to solve the very first puzzle, because even though we had it correct within a couple minutes, the code on the lock was actually incorrect. We had to ask for a hint, which only told us what we already knew. I only managed to solve it because I randomly rolled one of the lock's mechanisms backwards and discovered the code was completely wrong. Another puzzle involved a gauge whose needle had been shifted away from the correct answer (according to the employee, sometimes people mess with it?) and we lost another ten minutes there. One puzzle was impossible to solve without a hint because relevant letters labeling the puzzle had been worn away, so we had no idea that something that looked like decor was actually a puzzle. And the final puzzle involved knowing information that existed in two places - but in one of those places, it was wrong. We, of course, used the wrong place. We had no way of knowing one source was incorrect.

We had been given back 6 minutes to our time due to the first puzzle's issue, but that only somewhat covered the first puzzle.

I've done dozens of escape rooms and can usually tell when a puzzle is well-built, or when it's just random guesswork. These ones are thought out and make sense, but they've clearly become damaged and worn. We had a group of 7 people and paid a lot of money to use a room that had broken puzzles in it. If the rooms were regularly checked to be sure that parts aren't broken, worn away, or otherwise obscured, it would be...

Our group went in this evening to do the Murder Mansion room. The lobby is set up nicely but our first impression began right away with the desk worker, Shelby. She was extremely young and lacked the professionalism you would expect. She began our experience by talking about how long she had been working. She also hinted towards us tipping her multiple times at both the beginning and the end of our escape room. I have never been asked or expected to tip at an escape room.

My husband and I have completed over 20 escape rooms across the country (and have gotten out of all of them), including several custom built rooms that are rated as some of the hardest in the country. The room itself did have good puzzles compared to some of the other rooms we’ve done, however there were a few things that would help enhance the room:

The clues were not helpful. All three times we received a hint that we had already figured out, followed later on by a hint that actually helped us. This leads me to believe that the hints were preset and not customized by the game master to our point in the game. We wasted several minutes waiting for hints that were actually helpful. The game master should be watching the room and there should not be a delay in hints that are actually customized to help. (Shelby also told us that our hint may take a while until the game master realizes we needed one ... why is the game master not watching our room? Are they running multiple rooms? Or are they young as well and not paying attention as they should?)

In all the escape rooms we’ve done I have never had a code lock you out for 5 minutes. Understandably you do not want people entering random numbers over and over again, however, the game master should have been able to see we had the code. We needed to wait 5 minutes until we could enter the code, obviously wasting precious time.

As mentioned previously, the worst part of the room was the numerous eluding to “tips”, even going as far as waiting to open the door to see if we would tip her. Very strange and unprofessional. She is young, but I would recommend training your employees to maintain a higher level of professionalism.

I would recommend addressing these points of the room and the staff to make the experience more enjoyable for all who choose to pay a large amount of money to participate in this activity. Not to mention this is one of the most expensive escape rooms...

Escapology: more like I wish I could escape all of these game masters. The rooms are pretty solid for what they are - fun themes, varying level of difficulty, good prices. The one thing I dread coming here is the high and mighty personalties of these adolescent game masters.

Our group had a reservation for mansion murder on 2/18 at 5:30PM. Our group was at the desk at 5:32PM then after a moment Henry came out to greet us. Henry did the usual game master duties, two of the five had to sign the waivers then we had to pay. Henry then led us to the room where he told us we would have 5 mins taken off because “you guys got here late.”

In all of the Escape rooms we have gone to, there’s always the expectation and grace period of starting later than the reservation time because of waivers, payment, and explanation of rules. The fact that he said “you got here late, so i’m taking 5 minutes off” when we arrived within 5 minutes of our reservation time is ridiculous and unnecessary. Following this news he preceded to take about another 5 minutes to explain the rules and share the lore of the room. If he offered us to skip the lore of the room to get the 5 mins back, then I would think otherwise, but the fact he wanted to take time away from us just feels like he wanted to exercise his “authority.”

If customers are paying ~$150 to be in a room for 60 minutes, then let them spend the full 60 minutes in the room without losing their time from their experience in the all mighty All Star Bowling alley/escapology of Draper, Utah.

If we came late, give us the option to cancel/refund or reschedule. Why choose to make people upset after spending hundred(s) of dollars? (Even then, we weren’t even late enough to warrant time removed!) No other escape room in Utah has ever removed time from the escape room as a punishment. (Alcatraz, Red door, Castle of Chaos, Mystery door, are some of the better ones.)

The first time we went here we had another game master that was passive aggressive and condescending as soon as we arrived (5 mins early) but that’s another review.

Overall: rooms good, people not...