| rev:text
| - My friends and I did The Black Room on my birthday (you get free admission on your birthday if you show ID). The facility seems nice enough, but there was a delay in getting into our room due to the fact that there was only one person at the desk, and there were other people getting out of rooms at the same time.
The design of the room was ok. A little bit bare, and the props were definitely on the cheap side. You start the room with one person in your group handcuffed. I literally have no idea why, and it seems like they just added this element to stall you and stretch out how long it takes you to solve the puzzles. It didn't fit with the theme and just served as an annoyance until the keys to the cuffs turned up. What contributed to this was the fact that the room genuinely has no light, and the only light source you have are several electric tealight candles that you have to hold up to anything you want to inspect. This basically meant that the person who was handcuffed couldn't really do anything until they were unlocked, unless you awkwardly hold the candle behind your back and twist around to look at stuff.
The room had a vague element of creepiness to it, mostly due to the lack of light, but the backstory of the room was weak. There were some elements of the room that I was pleasantly surprised by, but most of the puzzles were straightforward lockboxes (with letters indicating the order they should be solved in) and cheesy clue cards revealed when you open the boxes. There was also one puzzle near the end that was way too difficult and wasted a lot of our time until we asked for a hint (and even with the hint we struggled... the puzzle had to do with subjective perceptions of a vague image, without giving too much away).
The room was ok, and probably good for someone who doesn't have a lot of experience with room escapes (although it might be too hard for beginners). I did enjoy myself, but I've been to way better room escapes and I'm not sure if I would come back again.
|