Review: Something’s Out There, Maze Room, Los Angeles
Fun Factor 7
Maze Rooms
11901 Santa Monica Blvd, Suite 211, West Los Angeles, CA 90025
Date we played: December 16, 2024
Booking size 2 to 7; We recommend 2 to 4
Game time: 60 minutes
Objective: Find your missing friend - but she has been missing over a year so this might be a challenge!
Horror Theme: Yes - no actors, but jump scares and heightened tension.
Difficulty: Intermediate
We recommend Something's Out There by Maze Room in Los Angeles. We give this a Fun Factor of 7 for its compelling and immersive set, varied puzzles, and clever use of technology to lean into the horror theme of the room. Our rating is primarily driven by the set. The set is immersive—the “outside” spaces feel like outside, and the inside spaces are varied and feel genuine. The puzzles are varied, and we believe the difficulty level ranges from intermediate to advanced. We enjoyed the puzzle variety and clean solutions, but many did not hold up as immersive as this beautiful set.
This is a horror-themed room—so please keep that in mind if that content does not appeal to you. Although there are some heightened tension moments and jump scares, there are no live actors interacting with you, and the jump scares are not overwhelming, so we were able to enjoy the exploration and puzzle-solving. Maze Rooms uses technology and set design to make us fell that there really is somthing-or someone- out there! If you play this room—and we do recommend it—please let us know what you think of the horror level, as our tolerance is pretty high, and we would like feedback. We also appreciated the fun of the varying levels of horror that ebbed and flowed during the adventure.
Some glimpses into the well-made set - definitely a fun place to explore!
We particularly enjoyed how the puzzles and content advanced our movements through the set. New areas opened up at what seemed like exactly the right moment and in immersive and organic ways that added to our fun. The puzzle techniques were varied—which we always consider a plus— and there was a variety of difficulty-levels, which we enjoyed. There is some—but not too much—scavenging for props as well as observing the surroundings. All of the puzzles had clean solutions - but some were not immersive, which took us out of the moment and felt like a puzzle hunt. Our favorite type of puzzle (the hardest to design) are those that are organic for the situation - meaning that you’re not just solving a puzzle - but you are using or repurposing the set and props in a way to accomplish a task. You will find several puzzles that fit this description in Something’s Out There…and we really appreciated and enjoyed those.
Something’s Out There can be booked for 2 to 7 players. We recommend 2 to 4, as some parts of the experience may be too confined for larger groups. The puzzles are generally linear, meaning that with a few exceptions, the group will all be working on the same puzzle.
“We particularly enjoyed how the puzzles and content advanced our movements through the set. New areas opened up at what seemed like exactly the right moment and in immersive and organic ways that added to our fun.”
One disappointing note is that our final sequence was accidentally triggered prematurely during the final moments of the game. However, our game guide was on top of things and immediately jumped in and entered the room to reset the scene. This was unfortunate and affected our fun, as we briefly waited in the lobby for the reset, but the tech failure was mitigated by excellent customer service. We were told that this is a rare occurrence - so we are comfortable in recommending this game.
Could this be our friend’s camper?
This Maze Room location has an above-ground and below-ground parking lot - which is always great for a Los Angeles room…but we found convenient parking on the street.
If you play Something’s Out There by Maze Room, please tell them that you saw our review - and tell us what you think - and we hope you have fun!
I mean…what could go wrong here?