Escape Reviewer

I would like to begin this review by commenting on how well the story for The Locker Room was presented to us. A staff member described the backstory in both languages, switching back and forth between French and English without pause. This was a much better opening experience than with our prior escape at Murder on Champlain TV! As a tip, maybe Échappe-Toi can have a few game-masters who speak English more fluently to lead the bilingual groups!

 

Despite the introduction, this escape was ultimately underwhelming. A single area, designed to look like a hockey locker room, was not poorly designed by any measure, but it was very basic. Props were sparse, with spread out hockey equipment around the entire room. It was a bit of a let-down given the extensive design of Murder on Champlain TV which we played just before this one.

 

Puzzles were a toss-up of either surprisingly easy, or seemingly convoluted. There were no surprises inside of this room, with lots of similar locks and containers to open. Most of the hockey equipment actually acted as red herrings while proceeding throughout the room. This is a case where more is not always better. If the puzzles had a clearer connection between the props and what needed to be found, this would have made much more sense. An example would be if the lockers had a FULL set of equipment, and there was ONE item different somewhere between them.

 

The puzzles were also quite abstract. Similar to Murder on Champlain TV, there is a convoluted, extremely long password at the end of the escape that doesn't have enough clues for players to logically solve. Throughout The Locker Room, we spent most of our time looking at each other and breaking into that nervous “what the hell is going on here” laughter. As with Murder on Champlain TV, The Locker Room is definitely notable for its design rather than its puzzles.

 

It's important to note that while we did not have as fun of a time inside of this room, the other players with us did. It’s always great to watch a group of people who have never played escape games before and how their reactions compare to ours. More often than not, these people will have a great time with any escape! While we are critical, having played nearly 70 escapes by now, newbies are often open-minded and will likely have fun regardless! In our opinion, The Locker Room is an interesting concept with abstract puzzles and poor design, but players new to the escape game genre may still find this a fun time out with friends!

Reviewed by Evan on July 26, 2015