NC Escape — Local services in Durham

This was the worst group activity I have ever participated in. To start off, as I walked in the building, I went to go find the restroom. I found a door, and knocked on it, thinking it was the restroom. It turns out it was an escape room, but one of the employees got super mad at me, just for knocking on a door. (Looks like someone had a bad day) Anyways, this lady threatened to kick us out of the building, just for knocking on the wrong door. Then when my friends and I were in the escape room, there was nothing to do. All of the puzzles took only one person to solve, so the other people were just patiently waiting for that person to solve it. Towards the end of our session, several of my friends and I decided to sit down and chill on our phones, because there was absolutely nothing to do, and we weren’t being given hints after constantly asking for them. So seconds later, I went on Snapchat and took a picture of my friend with the flash on. In the blink of an eye, a woman came storming into our room, and ordered us to leave the building. When I heard this, myself and one other friend proudly strolled our way out of the building, because we had no urge to be there. Some of my friends stayed back a little longer, because one of them had to use the restroom. As he was walking to the restroom, a different woman stopped him, and refused to let him use the restroom, threatening to call the cops if he went in there. So after hearing this, everyone exited the building, because we all wanted no trouble. We then walked around downtown, talking about how terrible that experience was.

Approximately 4 days after the “incident” occurred, my friend received an email from the manager. She informed us that we could not come back to NC Escape unless we have a parent or guardian with us in the room. Keep in mind, all we did was take a photo with the flash on, and we received threats from the employees threatening to call the cops. But it’s ok NC Escape, I never plan on coming back ever again, and neither do any of my friends and family, after telling the story to everyone. So don’t panic, you won’t have to worry about teenagers taking photos with flash in your escape rooms ever again. By far the worst $20 I have ever spent. If you feel like having some fun, just lock yourself in a room and try and pick the lock to get out, it’s more entertaining than this. I do not recommend this to anyone, we were the last session of the night, and the employees just wanted to get home, which is why we ultimately...

We’ve done a lot of escape rooms not only in the Raleigh/Durham area, but also when we go on vacation. It’s a fun family activity for us. We’ve done good rooms, great rooms, and not-so-great rooms. I don’t leave reviews for the bad rooms. NC Escape had good rooms. We try to do double features the same day, so I called to talk to the game master and get a feel for which rooms would fit our group best. They recommended Alien Escape and The Attic. First, we tackled Alien Escape. It was harder than we anticipated. We needed more hints than normal to keep things moving as we struggled to find the right path. Luckily, the hints are unlimited. The puzzles were non-linear, meaning people could spread out and work on different puzzles without waiting for the last puzzle to be solved. This is necessary to conquer the room, as there are LOTS of things happening and lots to do in a 60min time span. The only thing that hung us up for a long time was the 3D block puzzle, which isn’t really a spoiler alert. Hints don’t help – you just have to do it and can’t do much else until it’s done. If that puzzle was replaced with something easier, the whole room would be more doable. Otherwise, the puzzles and props were really fun and different than other puzzles we’ve solved. We all liked it and just barely escaped in time.

Then we took a quick break and returned for The Attic. It was much smaller with an easy story and mission. There were some good jumps that made us scream. This room was more linear and had some great puzzles. It was also WAY easier. We flew through it without any hints and made the monthly record board. We were expecting more at the end, and was kind of shocked it was over so quickly. This would be a great room for those new to escape rooms, but it’s too easy for experienced gamers.

The game masters were nice and helpful. The location is great as we could walk to a bar in between rooms and grab a drink. We wish we had more time to try the third room, but we ran out of time. Still a great day!...

EDITED 5/19/19 from 2 stars to 5 after new management took over

Under the new, expert, management of the owners of the brilliant Green Light Escape of Wilmington I gave this place a chance again after a few horrible experiences under the old management/staff. The turn around was amazing! Gone were the drab lackluster GMs, the "we'll give you a hint when we want to policy", and the confusing puzzles that their own staff couldn't solve. What we got instead was a pure, fun, and well put together room in Brewery Heist! Our group beat it in just over 30 minutes with no hints and we absolutely LOVED it! This was my 155th room and it still brought new puzzles we all enjoyed!!

*Previous review below for reference: Myself and friend visited to try their newest game, Dreamscape, on a Groupon offer. I had previously done Ex Machina (great room), The Study (horrible), and we were a bit excited to try Dreamscape, being the newest, and also because the theme sounded amazing. We were teamed up with two others whom also, luckily, were enthusiasts too (my partner and I have done upwards of 30 rooms). We were very intrigued by a lot of the puzzles, but a few of them fell short. I don't want to give too much away, but when we got to the "tower" puzzle, which consisted of other mini puzzles, we were lost. One horrible element of this company is that they only give hints when they feel you need them (or want to give them). The story for this room was actually pretty open-ended with not much cohesion to the puzzles themselves or why we were doing them and a lot of the puzzles were so obtuse that without any direction they were unsolvable. We didn't beat this room, and not for lack of trying or lack of expertise in puzzling - as a matter of fact, even the Game Master could not show us how to complete one puzzle that none of us 4 understood. When we left we said our goodbyes to the other team we had just met and in talking we got the validation that we felt from them as well - this was a horrible confusing and...