Bloody Midnight (retired)

Pre-Room Preparation:

20%

My first visit to Mr.Escape was also my first escape room experience with only 2 participants. Mr.Escape being one of the first companies to target teams of two wisely went the route of Groupon, and being me, I wanted to be amongst the first in the GTA to see how the experience differed.

If first impressions were the only means a person could use to evaluate a company, Mr.Escape would surely be out of business by now! The store front is visible from the street, but a bit awkward being the corner lot of a commercial building. As I pulled into the parking lot, two young Asian males stepped out from the store and stood right in front of the doorway smoking and talking very loudly on their cellphones. It seemed evident from their clothing that one or both of them worked for Mr.Escape. None the less we ventured inside moving past them. One shortly followed revealing that yes in fact one of them was an employee. With his quick re-entry back into the building, there was a strong smell of cigarettes filling the lobby.

The front lobby and waiting area was very small and the wall was adorned with a small number of participants who either passed or failed in their attempt. The walls and hallways leading to the various rooms were darkened and designed well. Unfortunately our narrator struggled in his English making for a rough understanding of what exactly it was we were looking for, but having done 4 escape rooms previously, it seemed fairly evident that getting out of the room was our task.

Room Presentation:

60%

Once inside the Bloody Midnight room, I was impressed with how the theme was immersive and consistent and not simply pasted on. The room was used in a minimalist sort of way, but somehow that worked for the backstory.

Escape room companies please heed my next few pet peeves (and these are applicable to Bloody Midnight at Mr.Escape). It’s VERY annoying when the following things keep happening inside your facilities:

• The narrator struggles with his/her English (or whichever language is required to narrate to the participants)! If we don’t understand them, the experience is lessened, and we may end up missing important pieces of information!
• The room isn’t designed properly and there are a list of things the participants are told not to touch, move, or interact with! It’s the job of the set designers to cover these things up before you open your doors for business!
• The narrator doesn’t know the backstory of the room well enough! If there are a lot of ”ums” and ”I think it’s like…” phrasing in your presentation, go home and practice it for pity’s sake! Don’t treat the backstory and theme of the room as an annoyance that gets in the way of some very important locked puzzle boxes!

Having said all that, there were two things in the room of Bloody Midnight that impressed me and have me talking about it long after the experience, so it wasn’t all bad…

Puzzles:

50%

I have to admit I’m quite torn on how to rate the puzzles in this room. It’s the standard set of locked puzzle boxes for the most part, but a couple interesting twists that caught my attention.

Many of the puzzles/tasks were average to above average in how creative and fun it was to interact with them. There was however one puzzle in this room that might very well be amongst my top 5 worst puzzles of all time in how poorly it is designed and presented.

** Warning **: I’ve avoided a spoiler, but if you don’t want to know what one of the puzzles are skip the rest of this section and head to overall comments)…
The 2nd to last puzzle in this room requires you to read a lengthy journal with added pages you’ve acquired. Clearly the author of this journal has the same poor grammar and spelling as I do. Combine this with a lack of explaining things properly in English and you have one recipe for disaster! Not only is this lengthy journal hard to read, it eats your time, and it does a poor job of properly explaining the information you need! Even when we called in a clue on it and the narrator worked it out right in front of us we STILL didn’t fully understand why & how he came to some of his conclusions (not that we could understand the narrator as he explained it). This was a HUGE disappointment in an otherwise very well designed series of puzzles & tasks.

Overall Comments:

40%

Unless you manage to get a deal you just can’t beat, I’d say Bloody Midnight is to be avoided. I’m disappointed to rate it as low as I have because there actually were a few things I enjoyed about this room. The theme, the interesting design twists, some of the puzzles and the overall atmosphere were great. Sadly it’s the few things that are horrible I can’t ignore because they soured the overall experience.

Enjoy your escape!

Matt Silver