The Escape Artist is on the southwest side of Seattle in a very nice neighborhood with shops, restaurants, and other entertainment. Spend time before or after your game walking California Avenue.
We had to call the morning of our appointment to reschedule, and we were ecstatic that they allowed us to play the rooms the next day. The lobby is small, but they have a great post-game photo area. They'll ask you to put your phone and personal items in a locker. The Escape Artist's website is pretty ugly, but it gets the job done.
There was only one lady who served as both the host and game master at The Escape Artist, but she was nice, knowledgeable, and good at her job. She dramatically introduced us to the story of each room, and she continued telling us the story as she walked us from the main lobby to the room lobby.
The 13th Floor
Mike’s Difficulty Rating: 2 (out of 5)
Their Difficulty Rating: 36% Escape Rate
The 13th Floor is the world's first full motion escape room. Players begin the room in a very realistic elevator. As the elevator begins going up to the thirteenth floor, an earthquake happens, and the room actually moves. As with most elevators, the elevator is quite plain, but they were able to add enough puzzles to cause you to spend time escape the shaking elevator. It was a very fun experience. There were some very good generation two locks and puzzles in the elevator that added to the immersive experiences.
After you escape the elevator, you enter a second space that, with exception to one very fun surprise, was a little plain. The room has mostly generation one locks, and the generation one puzzles didn't really fit the storyline. There was also a blatant red herring in this room. The second spaced caused an anticlimactic feeling.
The game master was clear and helpful. Although I'm not a big fan of hint mechanisms that only allow one player to hear the hints, but the mechanism fit this room very well. There were helpful clues pointing each puzzle to the lock that it opens, and people who are good at searching will really enjoy the searching puzzle.
I gave this room a 4 out of 5 because they deserve a lot of credit for figure out a very fun way to make a room shake. It really is as fun as it sounds. If you're an escape room enthusiasts, the full motion room makes this room well worth your time.
Spell Struck
Mike’s Difficulty Rating: 3 (out of 5)
Their Difficulty Rating: 32% Escape Rate
Spell Struck is a very good room. The first area is very impressively designed. It looks great. The puzzles are a lot of fun, and the generation two locks are very well engineered. I won't say very much about the second area, because it is a surprise in the storyline, but I will say that it is very immersive. The decorations/props in the room are very well designed, and the puzzles are intuitive and fun.
There were also some great generation two locks in the second area that were a lot of fun to complete. There was a perfect mix of logic puzzles, map puzzles, riddle puzzles, etc. The ability to thoroughly search is a very important skill in this room, and it is immersive enough to make the search fun.
The hint mechanism was easy to use and clear. The game master gave real hints, not just more puzzles disguised as hints, but I don't think the game master could see us very well. A few of her hints actually led us to solutions that that we had already found.
When we completed the room, the game master celebrated with us! I'm not sure why so many game masters sheepishly enter rooms when teams complete them, but and excited game masters can help you leave the experiences with good feelings.
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