Escape Reviewer

User Score

Quick Facts:

City/Area: Ottawa

Escape Length: 45 Minutes

Players: 2-6

Cost: $20/person

The Vacancy

Design: ✭✭✬✩✩ 2.5

     Idea: 3.0

     Details: 3.5

     Features: 1.0

Creativity: ✭✭✭✬✩ 3.3

     Novel: 4.0

     Comprehension: 4.0

     Surprises: 2.0

The Vacancy is a 45-mintue escape that takes place in an apartment that's mysteriously become newly listed on the market. A nice little background story was given by the staff prior to entering. Although not completely unique, the story was adequate and fit the theme. Details and decorations were what you'd expect from an apartment with a couple of dressers, cabinets and cooking items. The objects found throughout the escape were a mixed bag, with some more higher in quality than others. The room design was fairly traditional, with no major "wow factors" or surprises.

 

Puzzles found within The Vacancy were quite unique. There was a nice variety of puzzle design, including involvement of multimedia which added to the creativity of the escape. However, right off the bat we felt that there were a bit too many items and locks. It was honestly a little overwhelming and pretty difficult to find which items were related to which locks. It took a while to figure out which puzzle to solve first in order to get started. The problem with not knowing how to relate certain clues to puzzles seemed to recur during the whole escape. We felt that a puzzle involving pictures was particularly abstract. One solution might be to reduce the number of extra "red herring" items, as there were a lot of unused objects by the time we were finished. Additionally, the number of puzzles seemed to be too high for a 45-minute escape, so cutting down a couple may lend to making the experience a bit smoother. We found the multimedia puzzle to be a little too time consuming for the stringent 45-minute limit. Finally, I appreciate that the staff was trying to incorporate story elements to make the final puzzle an interesting finale. However, I strongly feel that players shouldn't be penalized in such a time-consuming way for not knowing the final clue. We had a very positive discussion with the staff following our escape, so we hope that a lot of these issues will be improved for the future!

 

Overall, The Vacancy has some very unique puzzles, but it's weighed down by being too abstract, having lots of red herrings and not giving players adequate time to solve everything in the allotted 45 minutes. We will be excited to see what Tick Tock Escape can come up with in terms of changes and improvements for the future!

Reviewed by Mitch on September 27, 2015

Stated Difficulty Level: N/A

Theme: Thriller

Family Friendly? Yes

Company Atmosphere: 4.0/5

Tell us about your experience with The Vacancy.