Escape The Pharaoh’s Tomb

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How does one make a trip to Buffalo more enjoyable? That’s easy, head to Locked-Up Escape Games located 2-3 minutes away from the Walden Galleria Mall. This was our second visit to see the folks at Locked-Up, and one we were definitely looking forward to. We’ve always known them to be among the ‘big players’ within the industry when it comes to set design, budget, props, and immersive experiences… Did that continue with this most recent visit? Let’s take a look…

Locked-Up’s facility is large, but it’s buried in a non-descript plaza further back from the main road, so keep your eyes open as it’s a bit hard to find. Once you make it into the parking lot you won’t miss the building because of its size and shared space with their haunt company. From that point on we had some debate amongst our team. Some of us really enjoyed the amazing props and eerie feeling of the interior design the moment we entered. Some also enjoyed interacting with the staff and how the post-game pictures are taken. On the flipside, some of our team members felt really uncomfortable with the long walk to the bathrooms which were in need of sprucing up. They also felt there could’ve been a seated area for teams, and perhaps a designated entrance specifically for the escape rooms apart from the haunt side of the building. Debates are definitely common among ERA members (which is a good thing), but on this one we truly had some very diverse experiences and things we were impacted by…

One area that didn’t divide us however was the incredible room quality! WOW, is the only word you’ll find yourself saying every minute or two inside Escape The Pharaoh’s Tomb! Our team shared one of those moments when we looked at each other and without words instinctively knew we were in one of North America’s top rooms for design quality! Sand covered floors and dusty items, high quality props and appropriate materials… etc, etc, etc we could go on, but you get the idea (and if not, hopefully we’ve raised your curiosity to check it out)! So what stopped this from being perfect? A couple moments with small glitches in the tech, plus a couple price stickers left on items, but again these obviously didn’t impact us enough to leave any negative impressions. The overall quality, size, and scope of the ancient Egyptian artifacts were just amazing… but now we’re just repeating ourselves.

The immersion was also impressive… with one unfortunate exception. Chamber to chamber, we constantly felt like we were engaged in the moment, in the scenario, and anxiously wanting to know what was coming next. Again, we couldn’t get our chins off the ground… but when another group came into the lobby we could hear them talking, receiving their pre-game rules, and eventually playing in the room next to us. Fortunately it came towards the end of our experience, but for the last 10-15 minutes we weren’t quite as immersed and were reminded of the people right next to us each time they yelled, screamed, or banged on something. It didn’t bother us too too much, but for the best experience, we’d encourage you to visit when the overall volume of customers is a bit lower.

The puzzles within Pharaoh’s Tomb are a nice combination of physical and cognitive based problems to give you that real Indiana Jones feel (spoilers: there’s no giant boulder, so don’t worry if you can’t run fast). The puzzles are perfectly within theme, and most of solutions are apparent so you won’t need to rely on lateral thinking. The best way of describing Pharaoh’s Tomb’s puzzles on the whole is to say some of them are ideal for families (and new players) and some are well suited for enthusiasts (and experienced puzzle solvers). Some of the puzzles involve collaborative work, and some are better for one person to work on. In the end we felt like a group size of 4-6 people is the sweet spot, depending of course on the amount of interaction you want within the room. One thing that proved a bit of a double-edged sword was the amount of puzzles… we really enjoyed the number of puzzles we had to work on, but the problem was because most of our group was actively engaged in working on puzzles, we’d sometimes miss what was going on in another part of the Pharaoh’s Tomb (and some of the effects that happen with the puzzles are pretty cool). Aside from these minor nitpicking things, we really enjoyed these puzzles and tasks!

So is this an escape room we’d recommend? Yes! Would we recommend it for everyone? Yes, we would! Ideally we’d suggest you try and have a mixture of people in your group (enthusiasts to help with familiar puzzle solving, and new players to help with searching and exploration). All ages will enjoy the experience, and like we said a group size of 4-6 players is probably the sweet spot for maximum enjoyment. Locked-Up Escapes has done it again! Escape The Pharaoh’s Tomb is a great addition to their lineup of rooms, and we can’t wait to see their new room to be released shortly…

We want to hear your thoughts! Be sure to comment in the section below or send us a message via ERA’s email, Facebook, or Twitter… As always, happy escaping!