Escape Room Review–Escape the Room Milwaukee
Escape the Room Milwaukee, unlike City 13 and 60 to Escape, is a chain of escape rooms. (Yes, 60 to Escape has another branch in Gurnee, Illinois, but the two branches have entirely different rooms.) Therefore, branches around the country have similar rooms, and this review ought to apply to those branches as well.
Located in the Third Ward, Escape the Room Milwaukee has four rooms. When you walk inside, there’s a small waiting area with a bunch of nice puzzles and games to play if you get there early. My friends and I visited three times (playing two games one after the other the last time), and on each occasion the staff was friendly, supportive, and did a nice job creating a positive experience for players.
For three out of the four rooms we played, we had to share the room with strangers, which made for some… interestingplaying experiences, some of which were better than others, some of which were quite memorable. In the wake of the pandemic, I believe that Escape the Room has instituted a “no strangers– private group rooms” policy, though I don’t know if this is still universal and how long this policy will last.
The first game we played was The Dig, which is great for fans of Indiana Jones. The goal is to make your way into an underground archaeological site and then solve puzzles to recover a lost treasure. My friends and I thought we’d be playing this room alone, but we wound up playing with several men who had just left a Christmas party and had enjoyed several potent potables each. Take note escape room companies: if you’d like to create a more difficult interactive experience, hire actors to play inebriated fellow players, stumbling around, messing up puzzles you just spent five minutes assembling, loudly asking questions, losing discovered keys and props, and locking themselves in portions of the room and needing to be rescued, especially when you’re afraid that they’re in a state when they’ll mistake a chapel’s confessional for a restroom stall and all the members of the group will be charged equally for the cleanup, then this may be a memorable way to make escape rooms more challenging for expert players. Or you could just let the actors get genuinely blasted, though that might prove to be more expensive, especially when you have to keep paying for taxis and rideshares to get your employees home safely. Seriously, our fellow players were friendly guys and I bear them no malice– after all, looking back, my memories of the game are shaded with laughter at the increasingly farcical nature of the experience, and there were numerous times when our compatriots helped us a lot by approaching the puzzles in ways we never thought to consider while sober.
The Dig probably has the best production values and special effects of the four rooms, from the opening setting to the underground dig site, filled with Indiana Jones references, puzzles, lights, and all sorts of other details. A couple of the final puzzles aren’t exactly intuitive, and one solution might make as much sense as the official one, which is why we needed a hint in the right direction. Yet we solved this room just in time– as we did all four rooms. I recommend at least three players for this room, probably four, of an experienced group that works well together.
The second room we played, The Rec Room, is my least favorite of the rooms, and the one with the least impressive production values. You’re in a 1980’s themed rec room and must escape before you’re lost to time. It’s complete with games, 80’s movies posters, and some decorations, some of which were specific to Milwaukee, meaning that some of the details and clues might be different from city to city. The initial puzzle which is necessary to move forward is actually easy to miss and kind of time-consuming, so if you don’t catch the clues at first, you might fall way behind. Another problem lies in a time-consuming game you think you have to complete but don’t actually need to finish to win. Some players might be used to the “one and done” rule, where there’s just one use for an item you find and then you’re done with it, but one easy-to-discard clue has multiple uses and requires a bit of outside-the-box thinking and a bit of 1980’s political knowledge, so be careful.
The worst aspect of The Rec Room is one point that isn’t a puzzle so much as a frustration, where you have to retrieve a certain object using a not-particularly helpful tool. We spent over twenty minutes completely stalled in this game, unable to move forward. Thankfully my friend Blake earned MVP status and thought creatively as to how to solve the problem, completing the objective with about three minutes left in the room. After a few frenzied final moments, we managed to escape with seconds to spare, making for a happy ending to a room that had a bunch of fun, clever puzzles and a lot of aggravation.
We played this game with a very nice family of four, although the father lost interest in the game and spent the latter half of the hour sitting on the furniture and looking at his phone.
In our third and last visit, the first room we played was The Apartment, where you’re let inside a nice little apartment, and you must retrieve keys, solve unusual puzzles, and other standard fare. The first thematic drawback is that the ultimate objective is vague, and I don’t recall a thematic contrivance to create any sense of urgency to solve all these puzzles in an hour. Yet despite these issues, the puzzles are fun and not too challenging, and even though it was just the three of us, we solved everything with no problems. If I remember correctly, we solved this room with the most time to spare. Take note– experienced escape room players may be following the “no cell phones rule,” but a cell phone is actually necessary to solve the room– perhaps on two occasions if there’s a gap in your knowledge of a certain historical mathematical subject. This may be my second favorite room because it had the least frustrating moments.
We played the fourth and last room, The Agency, with a father and son who were strong players who worked well with us. The spy-themed room has you searching for codes and clues, and there are a lot of tricky puzzles– some of which lost me and I was never clear on how my peers solved them, though the production values are right up there with The Dig. It’s easy to overlook critical clues, so double- and triple-check every item and location. Please be warned– once again, a smartphone is actually crucial to solve one clue, though we didn’t realize this and solved the puzzle through simple trial and error. Also, towards the end, if you do something wrong twice, you automatically lose the game, so watch your step. Due to some frustrating puzzles that require you to repeat a cycle if you miss something, it’s my third-favorite room, but it was still a fun experience with a great setting and design.
When we last visited Escape the Room Milwaukee, we were told that it was possible that at some point in the future one of the existing rooms might be replaced with another one from the chain’s collection, or perhaps additional space would be rented or another venue opened. If that happened, I’d go back to play the new rooms. It’s not as fresh and imaginative as some of my favorite locations, but I always had a good time, despite some aforementioned low points. If you’re an escape room novice, start with The Apartment, and save The Dig and The Agency until you’ve had a bit of experience with the genre.
–Chris Chan
Chris Chan’s anthology Of Course He Pushed Him and Other Sherlock Holmes Stories Volumes 1 & 2 was released on June 22nd. His first novel, Sherlock’s Secretary, was released by MX Publishing. His Agatha-nominated book Murder Most Grotesque: The Comedic Crime Fiction of Joyce Porter was published by Level Best Books. His first non-fiction book, Sherlock & Irene: The Secret Truth Behind “A Scandal in Bohemia” is available for sale at Amazon.com and the MX Publishing website, as well as at Book Depository (with free worldwide shipping there). It is also available in a Kindle edition.
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