Dreamweaver at Esxoss Manway by Chinook was the biggest one I've ever done. It connected something like 4 or 5 rooms into a single puzzle. It's one of the few where I felt you could truly splinter the groups to seek clues, but as a result, it could also quickly cause "noise" to occur. The last puzzle was quite confusing and even with the guidance of the admin explaining how the last puzzle worked, it took us about 3-4 tries to complete it. This by far felt the most polished of all the rooms I have played. It had multiple rooms and a story that evolved. Esxoss is probably the most difficult I've played and I would have loved to play it with more escape room experience, but it was still very fun. Few have beaten it and it's probably one you'd want to have escape room veterans playing. Not one you'd have the most fun with a group of newbies. Easily a room I'd suggest leaving till later when you have more experience with locked rooms. Much more immersive than other rooms IMO.
I also went to The locked room on 32nd avenue. Their website seems to show 15% off bookings until July 1. I played mutiny on the high seas and wine cellar with friends. We accidentally found a cheat on Mutiny on the high seas, but I assume they fixed it. Mutiny plays 8 people. Wine cellar plays 4. My friends played game over at that location which plays 4 people and said it was good. Good entry level stuff for locked room.
Mutiny plays in a dark room. You run around with flashlights. We accidentally found a hidden light switch (broke the room) which we think was not supposed to be accessible. It made the room vastly easier with the light on. The rooms here were more "flat", but still fun. It on occasion felt like those mystery clicking games on your phone.
Wine cellar was another dark room. We didn't find any light switches and also found the darkness a huge part of the difficulty of the room. Long story short, we beat the room, but due to some miscommunication, we ran around for another 5 minutes or so until we "died" because we didn't actually leave the room. The admin didn't even come for another 5 minutes or so because according to his info, we beat the room, but were trapped inside because we were idiots.
A few friends played game over. They beat it, but said it was a room with a lot of lights which was a huge advantage due to us seeing who would beat it first. (It was their group in game over vs our group in wine cellar as a competition).
Escape room is a bit pricey. But no worse than going all out at a movie IMO and much more engaging. Locked rooms also have relatively no replay value unless you have a memory like a gold fish. I'd definitely suggest playing starter rooms to see if you like it before jumping into the more complex and expensive ones.
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