Welcome witches and warlocks,
I recently had the pleasure of attending the Dracula escape room by 60Out Escape Rooms and thought I would offer up some thoughts for my fellow escape room enthusiasts. To best describe the story, I will use the website’s summary:
“Recently there have been some vampire sightings in the area and we have called on our very best vampire slayers for help. You have arrived an hour before sunset, so time is of the essence.”
We started off in a graveyard with a vampire hunter’s journal to help guide our actions. Though the room felt a bit small for our five person group, they managed to cram quite a few clever riddles within the tight confines. The first room looked very nice (apart from some leaf nettings on one of the walls), but it was the subsequent chambers that showed off the masterful set designs. I would hate to give too much away for future adventurers, but I have to say that there is some gorgeous set design once the party exits the funeral.
Giving us the book as a way to kick off the events was a clever way to marry together the puzzles to the theming in this first room. While I would like to say that the two went hand in hand throughout the entire experience, one of the brain teasers definitely stuck out like a sore thumb for being less about the theming and more about the riddle. Obviously, having only one of the puzzles feel out of theme is not bad, but given how well done the others were it is very noticeable.
The riddles themselves were rather difficult and required a real eye for little details to solve them all within the timeframe. Those less puzzle inclined will find a few clever physical tasks to undertake that will aid the problem solvers in the group. Those looking for a challenge will find this to err more on the side of brain teasers than manipulating physical objects, so it definitely helps to have some people with escape room experience in the group.
All that being said; we lost about ten minutes of our time to a puzzle that just refused to work properly. I am not sure if the game master ended up overriding the riddle or whether we finally got it to work properly, all I know is that we kept doing the correct thing and it kept refusing to function. Once we got past that one issue, we had no further troubles (thank heavens), but fair warning to future parties that if you think you have a puzzle solved and it still does not unlock anything, start telling the game master the solution to save yourself the time/stress.
All in all, the themed puzzles were what really sold this for me because I love seeing how rooms incorporate their riddles into their sets. This is definitely a bit more difficult of a room that requires a good eye for detail, so the uninitiated escape room players should definitely bring along a friend or friends who has/have been through a few before. Fans of darkened graveyards, demons, or the great Dracula himself will love feeling part of the action in this room.
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