Murder of Crows

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Every city should have the joyous opportunity of experiencing an Escape Room, and Keynundrum stands alone in filling that purpose for Topeka. Prior to visiting, check out their awesome website. They have recommended team sizes for each room and, for more competitive escapers, the best times for each room so you can go for the record! Located near 29th and Gage, there is very limited signage for this room so prepare to trust your GPS navigation. Park in front of the building and be wary of close-by private parking. The rooms are spread around the first floor of this office park and the main lobby is located at the end of the hall and to the right. The lobby is very bare bones with nothing more than a few seats and some small lockers for personal belongings. Our hosts were extremely friendly and clearly very passionate about puzzle design and creating great experiences.

They took us down the hall to our room, Murder of Crows (a room title we all loved and appreciated). We were greeted with a standard small living room setup complete with a couch, bookshelf and fake fireplace. At the beginning, we are given a small paragraph with our goals and story. If you are an Edgar Allen Poe fan (as many of us are) you will appreciate the subtle Poe references sprinkled around the room. A quick note on clues – be aware that there are no free clues at this institution. Each clue will cost you 5 minutes so bring your A Game!

Upon starting our standard puzzle-answering rampage, we begin to notice the most disappointing aspect of this room which is the quality of the props. The room had a mix of real world décor and plastic/paper props. For example, they had a bookshelf filled with fake paper books that clearly have been tossed around a few times. It came to a point where we were more concerned about breaking the props than solving the puzzles. Many of these props were just room decoration and can easily be upgraded with their real world counterpart. Another issue we ran into was light! Yes, the lanterns they provided were on theme but they did not provide enough light to see properly. This can be easily solved with adding just one standard flashlight or other source of additional light.

What the room lacked in prop quality, it made up for in puzzle design. We had a blast trying to solve all the puzzles in different and fun ways. We appreciated the way the puzzle designer approached the design with a mix of linear and nonlinear paths. The only thing we didn’t like, which is really just a pet peeve of ours, is what we call the “box in a box” puzzle where you get the code to open one thing only to find another thing to open. Cut out the middle man! Other than that, we love the way their brain works when putting together a room.

All in all, while we were stunted a bit from the lower quality props, we had a fun time working together to solve some pretty smart puzzles. The website recommends 4-6 experienced players and we absolutely agree due to the physical space and the complexity of the puzzles. More than that would be a bit of a tight fit. People of Topeka – support your local escape room! Visit Keynundrum and try all the rooms!

Get out and Escape! Drinks are for Winners!