Escape Room Reviews: The Smugglers' Tunnels

Company: Escape Chronicles
Room: The Smugglers’ Tunnels
Date Played: 9/4/17
Player Count: 4, a good minimum for this room.
Success:  Success!

Premise: As part of an elite crime ring that’s been burned, you need to get the goods, finger your traitorous partner, and get out!  The more work you do and the more puzzles you solve, the more stolen artifacts you can recover and the more cash you get to split with your crew.

Immersion: Escape Chronicles’ first room is well designed, but it’s an office theme, so that’s almost a gimme. This room looks as much or more like a cavern hideout than the Testing Facility looks like an office break room. 

Highlights: The Smugglers’ Tunnels has a wonderful system for giving each member of your ring of thieves secret, specialized knowledge. You’re not a bunch of henchmen, you’re hand picked for your unique skills, all of which are necessary to pull this thing off. The room features a non-linear series of tasks befitting each specialist. This room has fun interactions, some cool reveals, and plenty of things to keep everyone busy. 

Lowlights: I wasted some of my loot on calling a criminal mastermind for a hint when I should’ve totally seen the thing the hint was about. Also, we got suckered by a forgery instead of one of the real valuables. 

And Finally: I loved this room. With two excellent rooms, Escape Chronicles is officially my favorite escape company in Los Angeles (or anywhere). It may be neck-and-neck with Evil Genius, but so far I’ve only seen one room from them. The North Hollywood location might make Escape Chronicles seem a little off the beaten path, especially for visitors and tourists, but this should be considered one of LA’s can’t-miss games. Out of 33 games played, this one is practically tied for first. I'm going to call it #2.

How to book this room yourself: Visit https://www.escapechronicles.com/rooms/smugglers-tunnels/

#2,386: Wind River

The Mars Generation - ★★½☆☆
I like to do a joke where I say that I bet there was one week each year at Space Camp when every kid there was a Double Dare champion. Like, you'd want to keep those game show winners away from the serious space kids seen in this movie.

The problem, of course, is that for younger audiences nothing about that joke makes any sense. The smart thing to do would be to tell a different joke. But what I usually do is try to dig my way out of the hole by explaining it to them. Space Camp, I'll say, doesn't exist anymore, but it's a place where you used to be able to send fancy children so that they could pretend to be a part of the Space Program, which doesn't exist anymore, but used to be a scheme organized by the government to shoot United States citizens. At the moon. And it worked! Except that some people don't believe it, they think it was all a hoax put on by Stanley Kubrick, who is a filmmaker that doesn't exist anymore...

Somewhere around this time I realize that the college kids or whoever are just staring at me, having learned nothing because I started in on the wrong part of the sentence, and for some reason I start again. Double Dare, I'll say, is a game show that doesn't exist anymore, where the grand prize (so named for its size compared to the other prizes) was a trip to Space Camp. Of course, I'm talking about original, proper Double Dare, not Family Double Dare, Super Sloppy Double Dare, or Double Dare 2000, because as we all know, the grand prize of these latter-day Doubles Dare is a trip to Universal Studios Florida, also known as: the place where Double Dare was taped.

That's right! If you somehow got on to one of these shows, played your ten-year-old heart out and won? You got to go outside. To the theme park you already paid to enter, so that you could be on Double Dare.

What I'm trying to say is that I learned from this movie that Space Camp still exists. It looks like it's pretty fun if you're into that sort of thing.

20th Century Women - ★★★★½ 
Wow, Annette Benning is great in this. I hope she won a prize for it. I would have given her a prize. Wow.

Wind River - ★★★★☆
Hawkeye continues to mentor the Scarlet Witch (here using the winking pseudonym "Jane Banner"), this time in dealing with the casual horror regular humans are capable of perpetrating on one another. It's a little unclear whether this takes place before or after Civil War, although my money's on before if they're operating under the auspices of the federal government.

It's refreshing to have one of these smaller, quieter side stories without Robert Downey Jr. zooming in to save the day every few minutes. Sometimes a regular man with impeccable target shooting skills is enough.

Escape Room Reviews: One Way Ticket

Company: Maze Rooms
Room: One Way Ticket
Date Played: 9/4/17
Player Count: 4, which was plenty
Success:  Success!

Premise: You’re on a train! Also, there’s a bomb. On the train. Something to think about.

Immersion: The production design of the train is terrific. This set does not give the same sense of traveling between cars that Escapology's train game does, but the train decor is lovely, and the engineer’s station is steampunk fun.

Highlights: This room has a pretty good flow to it, and the set, as I say, looks great. The end game has some fun moments and interactions. I thought the section involving train routes was neat.

Lowlights:  We got stuck once, caved and asked for help, and it turned out to be one of those situations where we let a finicky prop convince us the right answer was the wrong answer.

And Finally:   This room is very heavy on collectibles. It’s not a very difficult game, but there’s a fair amount of search to do. This would be an excellent room for new players. Our group found it a little bit short. It would be fun to play as just a couple, but of course Maze Rooms discourages that (financially). Out of 32 games played, I'm putting this one down as #14. 

How to book this room yourself: Visit https://la.mazerooms.com/quest/one-way-ticket/

Kickstarter Monday: Gadget Edition

On the first Monday of the month, we take a little break from movie talk and turn our attention to Kickstarter. This month: gadgets I've backed.

Most people creating gadgets for the first time and with someone else's money get it all wrong. Physical objects are hard enough, and then some folks want to bring electronics into it... But now and then, I find one that catches my eye.  (And good thing too, because the long arc of this column is going to bend towards lists of books!) 

MaCO - Magnetic Cable Organizer - These were a bundle of little rubber straps with magnets on either end for tying up cables. They also came with 'base stations' that are little bits of metal. I think they've probably been mass-produced for less by now (Okay, that's another Kickstarter Sniglet needed: when your product gets ripped off, produced faster and cheaper, and beats you to market.), and I surely overpaid for them at the time, but! I use mine constantly. I got at least half a dozen of them, and I know it because that's how many I interact with most days and they make life easier.  A good buy!

The Linkmount - This is a silhouette-ruining hunk of metal and plastic that you glue to the back of your phone, and in exchange your phone gains a kickstand / keyring, a tripod mount, and a secure mounting point for a series of "base stations" that are strong magnets you glue to places you want to stick your phone. The Linkmount made me feel like a kid who has ordered from an ad in the back of a comic book, checking the mail everyday and wondering if the x-ray specs are ever going to arrive. It did arrive, something like a year behind schedule, but stuck faithfully to my iPhone 6 ever since. It adds tons of weight and the design of it probably makes Jony Ives' eye twitch, but it worked great and I wish I could still use the magnetic mount in my car. Another good buy!

Chaosmos - A board game that plays the way I always hoped Cosmic Encounter would. The way the YA book Interstellar Pig does. When last mentioned, I playtested it with the creators in Los Angeles. Since then, I did receive the boxed game. The standard edition, not the extra fancy versions for high-level backers, but the parts are all of high quality. It's a really well made and good looking game, and fun the times I've gotten to play it.  Unfortunately, none of the folks in my old game group speak to me anymore, so it doesn't get much use. Anyone looking for a new game group?

Media Monday: TV Month Rolls On!

The Crown s1 - I really learned a lot about the Queen! If, of course, these events are true. I hope they are.

Rebels s3 - The plot has been swinging a little far into stuff I don't care about, but the good episodes really draw me in. I think I binged enough of this season at once that I started to understand Chopper.

Designated Survivor s1 - This one season felt like three shows, and it's probably not a coincidence that it went through a few show runners in as much time. I guess it's coming back for s2, but since everything got wrapped up with a nice bow at the end of s1, I'm not. I would have preferred a drama about rebuilding the cabinet than a low energy conspiracy plot. 

Magicians s3 - This show went off the rails a long time ago. I like watching the visual effects for the magic - I think I could do most of them.

Review s3 - Review s1 might be my favorite TV comedy ever. s3 is just a little send-off. Heavy on clips, but not without the charm of previous seasons.

Orphan Black s5 - I was dreading this a little bit, even though I wanted to see how it all turned out. About half way through it started to win me back and I was excited to see the conclusion.

Fargo s3 - This is my favorite TV show. It might (maybe?) be my least favorite season, but even if it is, it’s still an excellent show. (And thinking back on it, I might only be liking it less because of how successful the show is at making this season's villain villainous.)