Escape Room Review– City 13: Kandy Corp
I love City 13, the independent escape room company in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. It’s original, immersive, and epic. I’ve reviewed the company a year ago, describing its four smaller rooms and its magnificent four-hour Save the Cityexperience that unites all of the four independent rooms with an overarching storyline.
City 13 was known for its massive lounge for players, but space is a valuable commodity, and about half of the formerly gigantic recreational area is now repurposed as a brand new puzzle experience: Kandy Corp.
City 13 describes Kandy Corp as follows:
Kandy Corp isn’t just about candy-making. It’s a sprawling maze of challenges, orchestrated by its eclectic group of department masters, each with a tale to tell and a stamp of approval to give. As a new recruit, you’re thrust into this candy-coated universe, your goal being to master the arts of confectionery creation. But as you delve deeper, it becomes clear that this isn’t your ordinary induction.
This immersive game promises thrills, chills, and a touch of sweetness in an expansive open-world setting. While you’ll encounter other candy enthusiasts in the public spaces of Kandy Corp, your puzzle-solving endeavors remain a private affair. Navigate the factory, interact with its eccentric inhabitants, and challenge your wits in a uniquely social escape room experience.
Join the ranks, embrace the challenge, and uncover the delicious secrets that Kandy Corp Chronicles has in store. Just remember: In this factory, every candy has its price.
This is clearly a different world from the post-apocalyptic city. Design-wise, Kandy Corp has hints of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, with the color palette of the stairwells in Squid Game and a futuristic vibe as well. This isn’t a single escape room. It’s a series of six smaller rooms, each with two or four puzzles of varying styles. I don’t want to spoil the discovery experience, because part of the fun is trying to figure out exactly what the heck is going on in this factory.
Five of the rooms can be played in any order, with each room presenting its own special challenges. Two rooms are fairly easy to solve, two are of moderate difficulty, and one is pretty difficult. That room and the final room require intellectual leaps that really need to be telegraphed through a bit of helpful but not too obvious clueing.
One of the problems with Kandy Corp is the sound and lighting. Most of the rooms are outfitted with their own distinct soundtracks. Sometimes the music is fairly unobtrusive, but in one case, a blaring techno soundtrack is much too loud. It makes it hard to communicate, and it really distracts from the game. Additionally, some of the rooms are so dimly lit that it’s very difficult to read and see symbols. In the final room, I could barely make out images that are critical to solving the final puzzle. If they’d been twice as big, it would have saved a ton of trouble and frustration. In another room, a puzzle depends on identifying colors, but the light is too poor to determine some of the shades without the help of, say, a smartphone flashlight. Also, one room contains multiple telephones, but the sound was out on one of them when my friends and I played last week. Additionally, some rooms are not designed for people with disabilities. Two rooms have puzzles that require physical mobility, dexterity, and hand-eye coordination. The colorblind will certainly have problems with the puzzles. If you need special accommodations, please check with City 13 well before playing.
You have fifteen minutes to finish each room. As long as other people aren’t using the rooms, you can have a second chance to complete a room. It’s usually a lot easier the second time around. Did my friends and I finish? We completed all the puzzles, sometimes needing to do a room twice. Our gamemaster said we finished and won, but the email they sent us afterwards said we didn’t complete the room. Based on what we were told at the actual game, I’m saying we won Kandy Corp, partly because of the initial verdict of our game master, partly because I’m very competitive and I hate losing.
At present, Kandy Corp is a promising and unique experience that requires a little bit of polishing before it’s on the level of the post-apocalyptic city puzzles. However, one piece of news that our game master told us unsettles me. Kandy Corp is currently described as “Chapter One.” At the end of your adventure, it’s revealed that there will be a lot more behind the lore of the mysterious confectionary, and that future adventures are forthcoming. All well and good. I look forward to playing the next chapter in the Kandy Corp saga. The problem is that it sounds like the current “City” puzzles will be removed to make way for more Kandy Corp. I know that escape room companies often have to replace old rooms as they wear out and need to give players a reason to return, but the post-apocalyptic city is a work of art, and it really shouldn’t be sacrificed. If new puzzles could be inserted, like a game for the tiny fifth room and on the streets of the city, or some other epic puzzle that would connect the rooms but with a different storyline from Save the City, that could bring old players back. A storyline like some sort of mystery to solve on the city’s streets would work, or perhaps all of those rubber rats could finally be incorporated into a puzzle where the city has to be saved from pestilence. Perhaps a series of fifteen minute-puzzles in each of the four rooms would work.
My plea to City 13: please don’t destroy your masterpiece! Save the City, this time for real!
Chris Chan’s sequel to Sherlock’s Secretary, Nessie’s Nemesis, was published on September 3rd by MX Publishing. His novel Ghosting My Friend was released by Level Best Books on March 28th. His first novel, Sherlock’s Secretary, was released by MX Publishing, as was his anthology Of Course He Pushed Him and Other Sherlock Holmes Stories Volumes 1 & 2. 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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