Key and Code Escape Rooms | Reno Summit — Local services in Reno

Big escape room aficionado here and I have to say that the Key and Code brand of escape rooms are probably the most frustrating and least rewarding of all the brands in Reno. We have attended the Summit location a few times now (mainly because they had last minute availability) and all visits have left in frustration.

The good - Clean location and decently high production value of rooms. Sessions felt immersive and staff have always been great. At one point (because it was on Halloween I believe) we were offered a live actor to augment the horror room we were booking. We didn't take them up on it but we appreciated the cool effort.

The bad - The puzzle rooms themselves are very non intuitive and downright frustrating, which unfortunately is really the biggest metric an escape room needs to hit. Whoever creates the puzzles for Key and Code is doing the brand a huge disservice. Every room we experienced had puzzles with solutions that required logical leaps to solve, and each also had puzzles that had ambiguous enough answers that we would waste substantial time attempting incorrect answers before finally stumbling into the correct one. Without spoiling anything, an example of this was a gear puzzle that acted as a 1:1 word cypher, except that the "output" of the cypher was broad enough to be multiple letters, so we wasted like 15 minutes trying different words that accomplished nothing other than wasting time (and presumably designed to encourage the attendee to try and come back to attempt the room again). Other puzzles were color or direction dependent, but had the colors or compass rose so faded that the only way to proceed was to try every possibility first. All rooms desperately need a refresh and puzzle rework.

We have attended multiple rooms around Reno and the best ones have easy to semi-challenging puzzles that provide the player with a sense of accomplishment when solved, while the room itself has enough of these puzzles for the average group to reasonably solve within the allotted time frame. Not overly difficult (or nonsensical in K&C's case). During the last room we attended here, our team of 3 got maybe halfway through the room since we had to deal with so many logical leaps or faulty answers. Each visit has left us in frustration and irritation over the wasted money instead of the excitement we have had at competitors (even ones we have failed). Hard pass for future visits unless they are able to redesign the rooms and...

After coming to the South Reno location twice, I can't recommend it anymore.

The first time we did Elixir and the second time we did The Demon Barber.

Elixir went fairly well, but we ended up not solving the puzzle because an item that had to be placed in a box did not work, then an employee came in and tried, and it also didn't work. We had done the correct action, but couldn't proceed because if the item isn't detected, it doesn't open the next clue.

I made it clear that I thought it was rather unfair to not have a properly working Escape room but nobody cared. Just a sorry and they moved on.

The second time was Yesterday (Sept 29th) when we did The Demon Barber. The GameMaster couldn't have cared less. I played the 'victim' (this turns out to be more fitting than I expected) which mean't I went back to the escape room. The gamemaster was way ahead of me and talking and walks from a lighted hallway into a dark room where there was an open door that I walked directly to the end of. Gamemaster has no idea what is going on, he keeps talking and by the time I take a seat he just says "sorry" and walks out. I never see this person again.

Whatever, we do the escape room. We did have to ask a question and we were given the WRONG INFORMATION, twice no less.

Then, unsurprisingly, there as a lock that didn't work. The staff's only advice was to grab and pull it as hard as we could, finally we got it done. Also, plenty of sharp edges as one of our adult gets ended up walking out with cuts on their hand.

This location is run down. The staff we had this day couldn't have been any less interested. Zero customer service. By extension, I have to assume the management doesn't care or has no idea what is going on.

Don't waste your money here until someone starts to care about upkeep and...

These escape rooms are good for a budget, but the price compared to others most definitely shows, me and friends did the “demon barber” room just to find many mistakes and inconsistencies in difficulty. Some parts seemed overly easy well others seemed extremly difficult. Many times a puzzle was worn, old, or to specific to solve without help. Not a skill issue, just something that doesn’t work as it seemed in the planning stage (print to small for example). Many things that were wrong included “that door wasn’t supposed to open” or “that door should have opened, go ahead and pull on it” many minutes after solving the puzzle or “you have the right idea just move it around it should eventually work”. Also many locks, papers, or items were worn or old to the point where it affects how you use them in the room. overall there was budget when the room was being made making it less scary, more difficult on parts that shouldn’t be with new materials, and overall a more cheap and disappointing feel. Been to the other location before and it always seems cheap, disappointing, and not...