Pharaoh’s Tomb

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I love ancient civilizations. The innovation, accomplishments, and even day-to-day life of their people, I love it all! The first escape room I attempted had a Mayan theme, and I loved it so much that now I’m an escape room reviewer. Obviously not every room I’ve attempted has involved an ancient civilization theme, but when I heard one of the rooms we’d be reviewing at Vertigo Games was called Pharaoh’s Tomb, I was excited.

Vertigo Games, located in North York, is easy to spot. If you happen to miss their sign, the window decorations will definitely draw you in. The facility is quite large, offering plenty of parking on the outside and an ample waiting area beyond the entrance. The staff were welcoming and eager to have us take part in their rooms, though since some of us were early we had to wait for the rest of our team to appear. There wasn’t much to occupy us while we waited, though the water was much appreciated. Once the rest of the team arrived, we headed into Pharaoh’s Tomb. The story was a little lackluster, but luckily the list of rules was short and we got into the room pretty quickly.

The room seemed to be built solidly, and I was very happy to see hieroglyphs adorning the walls of Pharaoh’s Tomb. The set design was minimal, which left a lot of space for the team to move around in each space, and a couple of the set pieces were decorated (quite nicely) to match the theme. The staff mentioned their original plan of using sand, which would have been awesome for authenticity, but I agree that it would cause too much of a mess!

For this reviewer, the sense of Immersion in this room started off fairly strong, but dwindled towards the end. Walking into a room decorated to match the theme is always a great starting point, and dealing with thematic puzzles is part of what helps continue that feeling. Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough to keep us occupied, and we found ourselves waiting on a number of occasions for bottlenecks or reveals. By the end, we were happy to be escaping Pharaoh’s Tomb.

Considering the size of Pharaoh’s Tomb, there weren’t many Puzzles available to us, and only a couple of those were thematic. There weren’t any leaps in logic, and nothing was broken, but it felt like we were retracing our steps more often than we were solving something. There was an aspect of the room that was new to me and was pretty cool, but again it wasn’t something that required solving per se.

I really wanted to have FUN in this room, mainly because of my fascination with ancient civilizations. I can’t say that I enjoyed it as much as I thought I would. As with Immersion, the level of FUN started off higher than it ended, but there is a lot of potential in this room. The addition of more thematic puzzles would likely remedy any boredom that was felt, and the addition of some visual clues to point out items that are usually missed would keep groups from backtracking for a large portion of their time in the room. I’m curious to see what changes or additions are made to this room, if any.

I would recommend this room to groups who are looking to try their first (or second) escape room or groups that are looking to bring their children; more experienced escape artists will likely find Pharaoh’s Tomb somewhat less enjoyable.