The Study

9.4 Overall
Pre-Room
Room Quality
Immersion
Puzzle Design
Fun Factor
Users (0 votes) 0

The Study

  • Played May 2019
  • Los Angeles

  • 45 minutes
  • 2-10 players
  • $35 weekdays, $39 weekends, private rooms available
  • No, however they will soon offer a family friendly rendition of this room

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Upon entering, the staff was friendly and engaging in conversation. While being professional they also seemed down to earth. They have two pregame areas one when you first enter, this is where you check-in, sign waivers and have the option to buy memorabilia (don’t worry, you will have a chance afterward also).
 
Everything about the experience, even before actually playing, has a crafted “creepy mood,” including the bathroom, which sports framed photos of serial killers staring you down as you do your business. 

The narrative (Chapter 3 of the 4 part Edward Tandy serial killer saga) has brought our ragtag group of kidnapping victims to “The Study,” the place our psychotic captor goes to relax. It features a good combination of locks and puzzles, deeply ingrained in clever cinematic technology and gimmicks we can’t really get into without spoiling. The best we can say is: your group will weave between a full team and isolated factions, in deeply entertaining (and awesomely scary) twists. 

The room itself is well built. It looks and feels like the creators took their time, paid attention to detail and really loved the build on a level rarely experienced. The props are solid, high in production value and well maintained. The atmosphere was incredible, with creepy music playing and a literal rain-and-lightning storm blasting the windows.  

The puzzles are pretty challenging and always feel in-the-story. A highlight is their variety: Physical exploration? They have that. Smart intellectual brain-twisters? They have that too. Suspenseful interactive theatrics we wish we could describe but better not as the surprises are just too much fun? Yep. 

There are some very unique puzzles in here that, even after playing countless rooms all around, we have never seen before. The challenges are just hard enough that groups newer to playing will still have a chance to escape, but it is still fun and rewarding for veterans. Enhancing the difficulty is a sense of impending doom: There is a good amount of scare factor that includes a live actor in the room. The actors (in this case, a creepy performer named Jessie) are really good and play the characters really well.

Our group had fun the whole time and the progression of the story through the room kept us entertained. We left feeling satisfied that we escaped the study with our lives. After the first impressive run through, we revisited this room with newbie friends. Even knowing the surprises, it was fun to bring new people who have not played to see their reactions to the twists and interesting puzzles. This is one of our favorite rooms of all time: it’s different, has just enough challenge, is engaging, and fun.

Final Verdict:

9.4/10

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