Review: Halloween Season Escape Rooms - Part 2
Scary room recommendations for Los Angeles and Las Vegas - stay tuned to Part 3 for the Scary Rooms of Europe
This is Part 2 of our October series of Halloween season appropriate spooky and scary escape rooms. You find Part 1 here.
Scary escape rooms are serious business - and how people find them vary from “we will NEVER play a scary room” to “where are the scary rooms?”. Part 1 covered those escape rooms in the Los Angeles area that (1) we recommend as a fun escape room and (2) have spooky or passively scary elements for those who like that experience.
We have played many actively scary rooms - and we will cover those in this series…but not all of them have been fun…if the room uses scare elements like loud noises just for the sake of starling players we don’t find a compelling escape room experience. When an escape room can integrate the scare elements in an organic way within the puzzles…those are the escape rooms we can recommend.
Here are our recommendations for those looking for actively scary situations. We will tell you why - but we won’t give you spoilers!
Los Angeles area: Project Minotaur - Quest Room
We had a blast playing this room!
Quest Room calls Project Minotaur an "Event"...and it is! The scenario is immersive and what happens when you play and how much fun you will have is somewhat within your control. This escape room is about the large expansive set - the immersive scenario - and the fun you will have interacting with the actors you encounter. Our performers were great and they made or experience memorable. You will not find many puzzles but you will be challenged in strategic and thoughtful ways.
Project Minotaur placed number 100 on the TERPECA best in the world list for 2023...so it is a special game and it is to be savored. This is a longer than-average timed room for the USA market - I recall the room was posted as a 90 minute room when we played it but I see that Quest Room has it posted for 100 minutes. The room is listed for 2 to 8 players - we played as a group of 3. I think the ideal size is 3 to 5 players...there may be times that fewer people will find it easier to navigate some of the challenges.
One hallmark of Quest Room experiences is that team members are sometimes separated in some fashion - while I generally do not like this game mechanic I have found that Quest Room does this elegantly in ways that are immersive and fun and actually add to enjoyment of the experience.
So if playing an escape room with actors is not for you then I recommend you pass on Project Minotaur - for the FUN FACTOR guide on playing an escape room with actors click here.
Since we don't want to give spoilers here is some important information from Quest Room's website...
“...you and your friends have stumbled your way into being the newest test subjects for PROJECT: MINOTAUR. Can you make your way out of the base before you encounter the experiment’s namesake?
This terrifying experience is our most epic thriller and grandest design yet. It is over 1600 square feet total. This room is not just a haunted house escape room. This is an EVENT...WARNING: PLEASE NOTE that Project Minotaur is a live experience with actors, and it’s physically demanding. It contains enclosed spaces, strobe lighting, narrow hallways, you may be bruised, scraped, get liquids on you and be made fun of and the actors in the room may physically interact with you in a non-harmful manner.”
Las Vegas area: The Asylum: Playtime - Lost Games
If you are in the Las Vegas area there are plenty of high-rate horror escape rooms. We played The Asylum: Playtime. We recommend The Asylum: Playtime - we had fun!
In this scenario you decided to check yourselves in to Solitude Heights Asylum of your own free will. And Lost Games does a great job providing a convincingly and lushly decorated space as an iconic Asylum of your nightmares to be greeted - in character - by the Asylum’s director. The set is fun and well decorated as you would expect a nightmare asylum to be! When the director leaves you are left on your own and must figure out where to go next - you will find yourself in one of the wards where an introductory scene will be played out in front of you.
The Asylum: Playtime has a satisfying number of varied escape room puzzles - the set is well decorated and there is the opportunity to explore the set. Perhaps not surprisingly the The Asylum is not very well lit and you have your challenge to shed light on the situation and seek help to uncover the mystery. The Asylum: Playtime is for groups of 2 to 8. We were a group of five and we had plenty of room to explore and plenty to do…so a group of 4 to 6 should be fine. The room is probably quite playable by just two experienced players however.
We found that The Asylum: Playtime leaned into the horror elements with a delightful dark comedy twist. This is a horror room with interactions with live actors and many dark and suspenseful moments. So we would call this an actively scary room at times - we will reveal some of the scariest rooms we have done in Part 3.
Indeed - we found a friend along the way.
We used icons above, find out what they mean:
In Part 3 of this series we will reveal our recommendation for the scariest AND best escape rooms we have played - spoiler alert…they are in Europe!