Escape Rooms Ranked

Okay, the idea of ranking the escape rooms we visit is going to become unmanageable very quickly, but this is the post that will be continually updated with the scoreboard.

This scoreboard is the list of escape rooms I've played, from most favorite to least. As it grows, it gets reshuffled based on the wind.

This is a completely subjective list that shows what game I would most like to play as of the last time I revised it . It's what I would want, if I were searching the internet for reviews.   

Click on the names to read the reviews and find out what I liked, didn't like, or learned about myself at each game. 

1. Evil Genius: Occam's Apartment
2. Escape Chronicles: Smuggler's Tunnels
3. Evil Genius: Norcross Art Gallery
4. Room Escape Live: The Bunker
5. Escape Chronicles: Testing Facility
6. Quicksand Escape (San Diego): The Diner
7. Red Lantern Escape Rooms: Midnight on the Bayou
8. 60 Out: Grandma's Master Plan
9. Escape the Laboratory
10. 60 Out: The Wizard's Workshop
11. Exit Game: The Lab
12. 60 Out: The Zen Room
13. Quest Rooms: Da Vinci's Challenge
14. 60 Out: The Hangover
15. Escapedom: The Lair
16. Mortuary Mystery
17. 60 Out: Dracula
18. Maze Rooms: The Castle
19. 60 Out: Ghost Ship
20. Escape Era San Diego: Déja Vu
21. Maze Rooms: One-Way Ticket
22. MagIQ: The Pirates Cove
23. Escapology (Las Vegas): The Budapest Express
24. 60 Out: Titanic
25. Xterious Escape (Las Vegas): Bugsy's Nightmare
26. Enigma Escape: The Crime Scene
27. Exit Game: The AI
28. Escape Hunt Experience Cleveland: Murder in the Old Manor House
29. Trapped Cleveland: Labyrinth
30. Escape Room Cleveland: Black & White
31. 60 Out: Senator Payne
32. Amazing Escape: Mystery of the Red Dragon
33. Enigma Escape: The Will
34. 60 Out: Alice in Wonderland
35. Great Redemption: Great Redemption
36. Hidden Passage: The Pharaoh's Curse
37. Maze Rooms: Prison
38. Amazing Escape: Escape From Corporation X
39. Perplexity Games (Cleveland): The Clockwork Caper
40. Maze Rooms: Lunar Escape
41. Cryptic Escape: Stuck in Time
42. Exit Game: The Villain's Lair
43. Escape Hotel: Witchcraft
44. SCRAP: Escape From the Magic Show

Unless otherwise noted, all of the games on this list are located in the broadly-defined Los Angeles area.

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Home Games:

This section is for boxed games you can play at home, and maybe eventually VR or video games that are like room escapes.

1. Escape Room in a Box
2. The Librarian's Almanaq
3. The Mystery of Stargazer's Manor

A

B

C

D

F

Youngstown.

Youngstown, Ohio is a standing set of a city.  Built for 200,000 and home to 60,000, it would remind you of the cliche facade towns of the old westerns, if it weren't so desolate as to be distracting. I've spent a couple of weeks there shooting movies - specifically My Soul To Take (a religious horror) and My Soul To Take 2 (a buffy-esque martial arts actioner).  Neither is the Wes Craven version, and neither has seen the light of day, as far as I know.

The films shot nights, meaning the crew woke up around 5pm and went to work as the sun was setting, and by the time the sun was rising again, those of us who weren't headed over to a third-shifters' bar for a few hours were headed back to the hotel for the free hot breakfast.  Ordinarily, you've got a handful of guests and patrons wandering downstairs over the course of a couple hours, stumbling towards coffee and perhaps sustaining some powdered eggs as a kind of collateral damage, but for a few weeks five years ago, one Holiday Inn (or something) was beset by two dozen filmmakers cleaning out the breakfast buffet as fast as the staff could refill it.

Today, I'm on set in a real Hollywood soundstage, and there's no make-your-own-waffle station.  What gives?

Therefore, I'm hanging out with Luke today.

Later, a compilation of videos and things I've worked on out on the internets.  But today: 

Rob: Hey, Hombre Ocho
Luke: Hey.
Rob: allons a la lune?
Luke: Pas a la lune!
Rob: aw...c'est magnifique, la lune. Tu vas aimer la lune!
Rob: allons!
Luke: Je ne veux pas aller a la lune.
Luke: Il va faire froid sur la lune.
Luke: Mais, ici, nous avons 60+ degres F.
Rob: je ne crois pas cela
Rob: la lune est super-chouette!
Rob: mais, pas "froid"
Luke: Aussi, la, il n'y a pas d'atmosphere.
Rob: oh! l'atmosphere! Tu et t'atmosphere!
Luke: Quoi?
Rob: "Bonjour! Je m'appelle Luke. J'aime respirer Tous! Les! Temps! Regardez-moi!"
Luke: Ouai ouai.
Luke: Tu l'aimes, aussi, mais tu ne le dis pas.
Luke: Tu as un amour discret avec l'atmosphere.
Luke: Mais tous le monde ecoutent tes respirations!
Rob: alors, je n'est pas une jeune fille
Luke: Ca ne fait rien.
Rob: allons a la lune, s'il vous plaît?
Luke: Tu as les poumons!
Rob: il y a gâteau.
Luke: Si tu as les poumons, to ne peuz pas aller a la lune (sans quelques chers choses a porter).
Rob: (le premier cadeau de la saison)
Luke: Je n'aime pas le gateau de la lune! Je ne suis pas un astronaut!
Luke: Je ne veux pas des enfants du fromage de la lune!
Luke: Je ne veux pas manger l'hamburger avec un paille!
Rob: arrete
Rob: je suis désolé
Luke: Je ne veux pas les astronauts, qui defient la force de gravité devant nos enfants!
Rob: je ne tu appellerais jamais un astronaute
Rob: c'est trop
Luke: Tu m'invites a aller sur la lune!
Rob: je ne pense pas
Luke: Tu es mechant.
Rob: j'ai pensé un vacance a la lune seraient amusement et un delight
Luke: Evidement, le 'matinee' a la Cedar Lee finit a seulement 2:00PM!
Luke: Il n'est pas amusant, un vacance sans oxygen.
Rob: aussi, aux Cinemark a 3h-quelquechose. J'ai un certificate!
Rob: je voudrais payer pour nous tous les deux, parce que j'ai vende un Dialysis cette annee
Rob: (il serait amusant pour un peu de temps, meme sans l'air)
Luke: (Je ne vous croix pas.)
Luke: Ou a 'Regal Crocker Park' a 3:10.
Rob: "Crocker Park?" Es tu certain qu'a assez l'atmosphere pour tu?
Luke: Peut-etre.