Not a front for a secret organization.
Written by Rob Schultz (human).
Set List at The Pack is brought to you by Animal Photography!
You know, like the concept of taking pictures of animals. It's like when there's an ad for all pork. I thought they'd be like glamour shots. Look how the portrait doesn't even look like the bird being photographed! Her husband will hardly recognize her! He hasn't been the same since the accident with the wind turbine.
Company: Exit Game
Room: The Villain’s Lair
Date Played: 2/4/17
Player Count: 2, more would have been better
Success: Failure! Even with a bit of extra time!
Premise: You're in jail in North Korea, and it only gets worse from there!
Immersion: The jail is the most jail-like jail I've been pretend jailed in, and I guess I don't know that the rest of it is not what it's like in North Korea. The video introduction is... let's say a little broad.
Highlights: The set decoration and production design is quite nice. The glowy hall shown in promo photos on their website was fun to work through. There are several elaborate puzzles that would be fun for a larger group to work through.
Lowlights: We were unattended and/or forgotten during our game. Early on, something got stuck and after no response to our call for hints I straight up cheated to fix it with something I was carrying. At the end, time expired and nobody came to let us out. We weren't discovered until a host came in to start the next group. (Granted, we probably should have used those extra minutes more effectively to finish the escape, but it was kind of a confusing situation, and unclear whether the game was still functional.)
Exit Game always checks players with a metal detector before letting them play. The first time we encountered this, I thought it was fake. This time it wasn't, but I don't know what the point of it really is. I feel pretty strongly that I would prefer to be treated like an adult at any company I visit, and trusted not to take videos or whatever.
And Finally: We sort of played this game out of desperation, trying to find an opening somewhere at the last minute. We were fixed on Exit Game because we liked visiting them in the pass, and we had been given a free ticket. Based on their website, this would have been the last game on their list we would have picked, and at least that intuition was correct - it wasn't a great time for us. I don't personally recommend this room, but I have and still do recommend Exit Game to others, and I look forward to trying some of their other rooms in the future. Out of 18 rooms played, I'm ranking this one #16.
How to book this room yourself: Visit https://www.theexitgame.com/m4---the-villians-lair
(We were given one free ticket at a SoCal Escape Room Enthusiast meet up event.)
The Edge of Seventeen - ★★★★☆
Although I might not relate to the direct experiences of the characters, this movie seems more true to what high school feels like than other, more buzzed about high school films.
De Palma - ★★★★☆
So much fun. Makes me want to go watch every De Palma movie.
Manchester by the Sea - ★★☆☆☆
Whatever. Take all the acting prizes you can carry. I didn't fall asleep, but that doesn't mean I wasn't bored.
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story - ★★★☆☆
I guess this is my favorite Gareth Edwards movie? I guess I get the pick now; all of his movies are about characters at the periphery of some actual story that we only glimpse in passing. The 8th grader Star Wars geek in me finds a lot of the little details interesting and nods along at the references, but the modern-day movie going part of me is still kind of suspicious. Star Wars seems like this big open space, and if you're going to commit to doing a series of in-universe movies that are outside of the Skywalkers-and-company, how do you end up picking such safe (re: boring) subjects? Why are you making more prequels? I don't want to see each sentence of the opening crawl blown out to 2 hours. I really, really don't want to see Han Solo pranking the dean. For one thing, you're Star Wars, every extra has a name and back story, and fans will lap up anything you put in front of them. For another, you're produced by the studio that brought us Guardians of the Galaxy. Even though it's the worst MCU movie, at least it's bold!
And this huge media push to tell us this is the 'first stand alone Star Wars movie'? You are full of jokes.
Set List at the Pack is brought to you by Tiny American Flags!
Now available in Small and Extra Small!
There are those who would criticize the oft-repeated '4 gallons of horchata' joke text as lazy, or so I would imagine, since nobody ever talks to me about these. I would, in my imagination, defend it as one of the funniest possible things to be included as a pack-in promotional item with any product at any time.
Company: 60 Out
Room: Zen Room
Date Played: 1/22/17
Player Count: 4
Success: Success!
Premise: You are in your happy zen place, assuming you're someone who likes escape games. Now to put everything right and get back to the world. Or something. The real premise is 'what if everything in the room was white?'
Immersion: Well, everything in the room WAS white. Or as white as can be after X amount of grubby handed players have come through. 9/10 on that front.
Highlights: Some of the interactions in this room are very satisfying. Several required good teamwork, even though we spent probably half the game split up and working on separate problems. As always, 60 Out makes the best magical objects.
Lowlights: This room falls prey to what might be 60 Out's biggest weakness: room design that amounts to just lining the walls with gadget stations. I mean, you get to check out a bunch of gadgets, so that's good, but it doesn't look like anything. It's less of a simulation and more like a midway. Best case, some stations serve multiple purposes. One of them, I have no idea how it helped us, if it did.
And Finally: This is as close as I've seen to an Escape Room-themed escape room. (Which, btw, I totally want to play. Open the second room and... it's the first room again!) and tries to bring to life an idea that fascinated me in middle school, if you could paint everything in a room in subtle shades so that when you walked in and turned on the light, you saw nothing. Anyway, out of 17 games played, I'm going to try slotting this one in at #5.
How to book this room yourself: Visit https://www.60out.com/rooms/zen-room
(Visit within 3 days of a player's birthday for a free ticket!)