Unmasked

This was part 2 to our double-­header escape day for ERA. I must admit, I love back to back escapes; the first one gets you in the mood and builds the anticipation for the second room (not that I ever need more reasons to be excited for an escape). Between rooms we grabbed some more popcorn and I had a coffee, which I hoped would put my mind at 100% for the room, whereas I think it just put my nerves 100% on edge! For future reference, be careful how you use caffeine and escape rooms!

Pre-Room & Customer Service:

9.5/10

One of our other team members had already completed Unmasked, so I had a pretty good idea of what I was getting into, and was excited to see what was hidden behind the mask! Furthermore, if you are not familiar with any of our other reviews of Freeing Canada, they have a notoriously good record of customer service, they have a great pre­-room lounge area, oh and FREE POPCORN!

Room Quality:

9/10

I concur with our previous review on the surprising quality of this room; it is really well built, with quality decorations and puzzles. One of the most impressive aspects of this room was the ability of the designers to create a room that fit so well with the story. This was an aspect everyone in our group liked. This room was well thought out, well designed, and well executed which made the experience very enjoyable.

Immersion:

9/10

The background story on the website gives a bit of background into the story behind the room:

Two years ago, in order to prove the possibility of merging the genes of human and animals, a top biology graduate had bought a huge amount of embryos from the black market. However, his dreadful experiment was discovered by his junior schoolmate. In order to conceal the secret, he killed her and disposed her body in a special site. The police still have no clue about this and has been classifying this as a regular missing person case. As biology postgraduates, you each received a threatening SMS a few days ago ordering you to proceed to a mysterious underground operation room to uncover a dark secret. If you fail to achieve the mission within 45 minutes, a thrilling nightmare will be awaiting!

This is reiterated with a pre­recorded soundtrack before the room that sets the mood for the room. I know another team member was a little frustrated by the story line, but I tend not to get caught up in the semantics of how a serial killer goes about covering up his crimes – maybe our team member knows more about it than he lets on… :O!

Puzzle Design:

8/10

One of the most frustrating aspects about reviewing escape rooms is describing all the great details of the room without giving away any puzzles. Unmasked is one of those rooms I find this to be particularly applicable to. We did struggle with some of the puzzles, as they were not linear, which made it difficult. We were jumping around from puzzle to puzzle most of the time, which was a little frustrating. There was one puzzle that did really bug me, as I felt the puzzle layout led to a confusing conclusion. We also ran into some bottlenecking at points which was a little frustrating. This is a tough room to complete in an hour; you will need a very skilled escape team. That being said the puzzles themselves were well varied, fit the theme, and followed a reasonably logical succession.

Overall:

8.9/10

After this room, during our parking lot debriefing, many members of our team kept describing the wow factor within this room. Again, it is difficult to describe without spoilers, but I will say that this was a pretty adrenaline filled room for me (maybe it was the coffee?). Overall, this was a great room; it had exciting portions, with good puzzles, but was just a little tougher than I expected, so be prepared! I would recommend this room for experienced escapers, but not children, or caffeine­-fuelled, jumpy mid­-twenty year old men with high pitched screams!

As Always, Happy Escaping!