The Lake House

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Cryptic Escape Room is located in Newhall just off the I5. There’s plenty of parking; however, it can be easy to turn too soon or too late into the lot. The games are available by reservation only, no walk-ins, so be sure to book online and if you get there early you can always grab some pizza and a beer next door.

The lobby is standard for a room escape. There are a few wooden benches and a counter for employee use. They do have a candy bowl and offer free, cold water. If you need a locker they have them at the end of the hallway, near the restroom. Before starting a game you will need to fill out the waiver form on an iPad. Once you’ve completed your game they have quite a few “We escaped/We failed” signs to choose from for your End Game photo, along with a Leaderboard showing top teams and times.

The Lake House is considered the harder of the two rooms offered at Cryptic Escape Room. You’ve been abducted by a hermit and locked up in a cabin by the lake. Before the clock begins you watch a video of a young man who also was kidnapped. He left a video recording to explain the situation you’ve found yourself in and to let your party know that you have about an hour before the hermit will be back.

The room does indeed feel like a cabin, including appropriately themed decor. There are some immersion-breakers though: You’re in the room that the young man filmed his video in, and while the chair that he was chained to is in the room with you, he is not. Also, the Monitor that is used as a window should have been mounted into the wall, instead of on the wall. The curtains are a nice touch but because the Monitor sticks so far out the illusion of it being a window is lost. This room has “Do not touch” stickers on almost everything attached to the wall. Generally these stickers are found on things like electrical sockets and we thought that having one on every sconce on the wall was too much.

The puzzles were standard for the most part, but well themed to the room. Two puzzles had some technical issues that we would not have been able to solve had it not been for the “hints”/answers offered to us. We had trouble solving another puzzle which we felt did not have any sort of pointer as to how it was to be solved.

Cryptic Escape Rooms has only been open for a few months and they have lots of potential. According to the employee that helped us, the owner is very excited to expand and open more rooms. While this is great, we feel as though the rooms they have should be refined first.