I recently was able to go to two different “escape rooms” here in Southern California, and, even though I died both times (spoiler alert!) I still had a terrific time. By the way, if you haven’t read Taylor Winters’ excellent article on escape rooms in Mexico or his equally great article about the creators of these fiendishly fun entertainments, you should do so now. I’ll wait.
The first one I tried was Exodus Escape Room, in Anaheim, California. Exodus has two different rooms (Sherlock Holmes, and the Trap Room), with a third one coming soon. Some of our group had already done the Sherlock room, so we opted for the Trap Room, the torture dungeon of Billy The Butcher.
From the online description, I was anticipating something a bit more themed out than the bare-bordering-on-boring room into which we were ushered. It was about a ten-by-ten room, with a set of Formica cabinets against one wall, a hanging television counting down, and…well, one wall was literally just covered in canvas painted to look like a dungeon wall.
I was underwhelmed by the decor, he said, dryly.
We were all shackled to the Formica, the door was shut, and we were on the clock. We were able to extricate ourselves from the cupboards in just a few minutes, but we had to ask for a hint in order to get one of the cupboards opened. A key we found opened a door to a second room that was themed as some kind of janitor’s closet.
Overall, the puzzles in the Trap Room are good, and don’t really require much lofty thinking to solve. We over-thought some clues and missed parts of others (some of the blacklight writing was faded and hard to read) and, well, our 60 minutes ran out.
For a torture dungeon belonging to Billy The Butcher, there was very little evidence of any torturing or butchering having occurred in there. My friend said the Sherlock room is much better themed, but, compared to the room we just tried, that’s a low bar indeed.
http://exodusescaperoom.com
The Basement, in Sylmar, California, is the other escape room we tried, and this thing is terrific. Even before you enter the building, you are thrown off-kilter and put on edge: the door to the business is locked, and all of the windows are blacked out. Is anybody even in there? Clipboards near the entrance hold waivers for everyone to sign. We sign. And wait.
The door finally opened, and we were ushered in and told to sit on a cramped bench. A framed news article about Edward Tandy, the creep who kidnapped you, was hanging on the wall. All the walls were painted black, actually. The rules were spelled out, and then we got to watch a very unsafe safety video.
We were forced to empty our pockets completely, led into a cramped room, and black hoods were put over our heads. And then the fun began.
By the time the hoods came off, and we finally made it into the basement, we were pumped and excited to start. We had 45 minutes to get the hell out of there.
The people who created this experience really knew what they were doing. It looks like someone’s nasty, dirty basement. It sounds like someone’s nasty, dirty basement. It smells like someone’s nasty, dirty basement. The puzzles are intricate, the discoveries are well-paced, there are trap doors, hidden rooms, and a live actor or two to add to the fun (yes, they will touch you and, no, you can’t touch them back).
One other thing about The Basement that I really liked was that, if your group ends up not getting out, they do not tell you what you should have done instead. The only thing they would say is that we got “about 80%” there. If you decide to come back and try again, and you let them know this is your second time around, they will switch up some aspects of the puzzles to make it more enjoyable and interesting (Exodus spilled all the beans so I have no interest in trying that room again).
The Basement sets a very high standard for all the other escape rooms in the area, and I can’t wait to get locked in again!
Uncle Mike sez: start the clock and check it out!
