Novus Escape Room - Middletown Delaware — Local services in Middletown

*updated 2/27/2025

Updating this review to 4/5 stars. The manager and owner reached out to us and we came to an agreement that was favorable for us. Even though the original experience still sucks, they made efforts to make it right and we ended up going back to do the 2 rooms we were originally supposed to do and it was alot of fun. It was a pretty unique experience as far as escape rooms go with the "character" aspect of it. will most likely be going back to do the other rooms.

previous review** If I could rate zero stars I would. Me and my wife booked 2 rooms back to back. One for 415pm and another to follow at 515pm on the day of this review. We arrived to the escape room at 409pm to find the doors locked. Rang the doorbell a few times with no response. We were parked right infront of the door so we decided to get back in the car because it was cold. Fast forward to 520pm and us calling the place over a dozen times and still no one showed up. Terrible experience, wasted over an hour waiting for nothing and we will never book with them again. Steer clear of this business as they clearly don't value their customers or their time considering we didn't even get a courtesy call or email saying they wouldn't be able to accommodate our booking. Left them a message on their answering machine and am currently waiting on them to call me back for a...

We've been twice now and did enjoy both times throughly. The staff are amazing. They seem to have found the nicest people who really want to see you enjoy yourselves. The puzzles are awesome. Although having been through two of their rooms, their are some carry over items used to solve clues.

So why only three stars. Technical difficulties. On our first visit, the in room screen wouldn't load the video to tell us about our story before we began, not a huge deal, but then one of the doors wouldn't open even with the correct key. It took a staff member 5 or 6 minutes to get the door open. We just figured, not a total loss, and we still really enjoyed ourselves. We'll we visited again tonight, different room, same issue. Again, a door that should have opened when the proper thing was done would not. This robbed us of the experience of completing the room. Staff both times were great and apologetic.

Both times we went it was just my wife and I. But at 30 dollars a person, I kind of want the puzzles to work when you play them.

We really enjoyed the rooms and the puzzles presented. The staff are second to none. Just wish both visits weren't plagued...

We were underwhelmed. We’ve done over 40 escape rooms in many cities, but I’m not sure I would return to this place to do any more.

For starters, it was not very creative. The story and puzzles didn’t align very well, and we literally stood around for 30 min trying to solve the last “puzzle” to get out and it had nothing to do with the story or written clue. When shown the solution, it wasn’t an “aha moment” where we felt like we could’ve done more to solve it.

There were tons of props laying around that didn’t contribute to the story, but didn’t serve as clever misdirections either. A high tech “game master” iPad doesn’t replace having an attentive, live game master making sure you have a good time. The role play aspect has a potential, but is overhyped when the room itself is just mediocre.

We love escape rooms, and there are ones that we didn’t escape but still had an awesome time and with. This was not one of them and didn’t meet our...