Original Adventure

This was the second room I have ever attempted. It took place as soon as humanly possible after attempting our first escape room! We were addicted after our initial experience and we found the next possible time that worked for us all. We were so excited!

This just happened to be the first escape room in Ontario! At the time we had no idea we were attending one of the groundbreaking Ontario Rooms. Regardless, my good friends Kaleb, Mags, and Alicia set out to breakout!

 

Pre-Room & Customer Service:

8/10

The staff were really friendly here: they showed us around, explained things fully, and led us to the washrooms for those who needed it. The lobby was pretty decent. Not a ton of room, but just enough. I imagine if they say they can accommodate up to 24 people they clearly can handle fairly large groups. Aside from that, nothing really stands out about the pre-room screening. There was a slight inconvenience where we were required to wait outside of the lobby until 5 minutes before the escape.

 

Room Quality:

7/10

The overall quality of the room varied quite a bit. There were components of it that were very high quality and other components that were less so. Everything felt fairly sturdy, most of the props seemed very durable, but others showed significant signs of wear and tear. It has been a while since we attended this room, however, and updates to the props may have occurred. Again, with no set theme, the quality of the set design did not really come into play!

Immersion:

??/10

Honestly, I don’t know how to rate this. There was no backstory to this room, so immersion is a bit of a difficult score to assess. It was literally a bunch of random puzzles you were required to solve to escape.

Surprisingly, this was quite different! So many rooms nowadays attempt to stick to a theme that their puzzles get left by the wayside…but when there is no theme there is just a focus on the puzzles which is kinda nice!

Puzzle Design:

8/10

That being said, the puzzles were not extraordinary. There were (I felt) an unnecessary amount of red herrings in this room. This is somewhat allowable because we were given a good amount of time. Still, the puzzles were really good, well varied, and allowed you to play as a team or as individuals. There wasn’t a logical order but again I think this gave the designers a unique freedom with their puzzle design.

There was one puzzle that required a particular set of skills that only a single member of our team had, and without her we would have been in pretty big trouble. We also had a bit of an issue with one of the other puzzles that resulted in a staff member coming in and somewhat resetting the puzzle. But other than those two hiccups, all of the puzzles worked quite well.

These puzzles were probably one of the best I have seen but again this was likely due to the creative freedom resulting from the lack of theme.

”Overall”:

8.5/10

This room is so unique in many ways that I would say it is a must for any avid escape enthusiast. First of all, it was the first, so from that perspective it would be a top priority on my list. Aside from that the lack of theme, which may seem boring to some creates such a unique environment and puzzle set that it is vastly different from many other rooms I have visited. For these reasons I think that Adventure Rooms Canada (Kitchener) is a must try for every escaper!