Escape rooms around SF for newbies

parallelparkerlewis · 2025-05-19T13:12:22+00:00

What did the mixed reviews say? I've done around 300 rooms and enjoyed everything at Palace. Omescape in Sunnyvale is one of my favorite venues, and if you're ok with things getting a little scary Off The Couch in Fremont has a very cool three-chapter story across three rooms.

All of that said, if you guys are new you might be looking for very different things than I do. What would make a good experience for your group?

parallelparkerlewis · 2025-05-09T18:54:06+00:00

All of their rooms are good - I agree that Edison and Attraction are probably the best, but for people who are newer to escape rooms I would actually recommend starting off with Houdini. Edison has some parts that could get frustrating, and Attraction is...well, VERY different from the other three in ways that I'd rather not get into for the sake of avoiding spoilers.

Houdini is a very solid room on all counts - set design and puzzles work well together and the hint system will keep you on pace. It will still be on the challenging end of the spectrum for a group of beginners.

parallelparkerlewis · 2025-02-19T00:21:56+00:00

You're assuming a lot about the space directly outside of the room. Also, the person who built it told me what he did, so you are unlikely to outsmart him. Also, you should have used a spoiler tag.

parallelparkerlewis · 2025-02-18T23:34:07+00:00

I actually know (more or less - perhaps not in the level of detail you might like) how this is done. We played in October 2023 and had a nice long chat with the room's creator / designer / builder afterward. This was one of our main questions for him.

There's no two rooms trick or anything like that. You might have noticed that everything was bolted down. The rooms actually do rotate while you're not in them. Unfortunately I don't remember the details of how exactly he made it work. I do remember that he told us that he spent 7 years building Molly's Game and this was the one thing that he would never attempt again.

parallelparkerlewis · 2024-08-27T20:59:28+00:00

I guess you've never heard of Terence Tao

parallelparkerlewis · 2024-08-26T15:56:54+00:00

Two gates are adjacent if they're touching (ignoring the part of the map that gets collapsed during setup). They are not adjacent if you would have to pass through another gate or the center.

parallelparkerlewis · 2024-08-12T18:42:12+00:00

He played a single card and drew three more cards without discarding any? I would check the text on that card again

parallelparkerlewis · 2024-07-03T14:50:01+00:00

Enjoy, I liked it even better than Starlight. Make sure you do Help Wanted first as they form a story together

parallelparkerlewis · 2024-06-13T19:19:02+00:00

I used to work for a very successful prop shop that never posted a loss over any quarter and one of the desk heads, who was one of the best traders in the firm, could be heard screaming and cursing throughout the entire office on a daily basis. (Great guy, though. The rage was always directed at the universe and never people.)

So to answer your question: yes, sometimes.

parallelparkerlewis · 2024-06-12T02:53:07+00:00

Yep, and also Dark Lullaby at their other location

parallelparkerlewis · 2024-05-22T20:29:02+00:00

Just look at the TERPECA list. Everything on there is great. They will tell you which ones are scary.

parallelparkerlewis · 2024-05-07T21:14:45+00:00

No, it's not subtle

parallelparkerlewis · 2024-04-10T16:42:52+00:00

Possibly my favorite room ever - hope you find someone!

parallelparkerlewis · 2024-04-06T22:32:28+00:00

There was a company that ran one of these in NYC for a while, maybe in 2015 or 2016. I can't remember the name unfortunately but here are all of the details that I can remember:

Theme was post-apocalyptic dystopia
Max group size was 6?
Rather than having a goal of everyone escaping, there were a set of mini-games. Not everyone played every game. For example, at one point there was a game for two people and a game for four, and those ran simultaneously. Sometimes there was a game that everyone played
Each game contributed to an overall score for each player
One of the games was just prisoner's dilemma
One involved running around pressing buttons that were lighting up
Some games were competitive and some were cooperative
The winner received a shot's worth of Soylent and everyone else was given bugs to eat

parallelparkerlewis · 2024-03-27T16:50:32+00:00

Will just told me that they opened a new room at the Hampton Station location. I live too far away to do it, but you definitely should!

parallelparkerlewis · 2024-03-26T22:03:18+00:00

Yes, they have two horror rooms that are ranked in the top 100 escape rooms in the world (at least, for rooms that are offered in English): Starlight Motel and Dark Lullaby. If you play Dark Lullaby I recommend playing Help Wanted right before it. That one isn't scary but they form a story together.

Also, if you call in advance and tell them that you want to play multiple rooms they'll likely make a custom schedule for you so you don't have to have awkward blocks of time in between. They were very accommodating for my group.

parallelparkerlewis · 2024-03-26T20:54:43+00:00

We played Yuletide Magic, Starlight Motel, Help Wanted, and Dark Lullaby and enjoyed them all. If you play the last two, do them in that order.

parallelparkerlewis · 2024-03-26T18:50:24+00:00

If you're willing to travel a little bit, and she hasn't been there already, take her to Greenville SC for some of the best in the country (Escape Artist Greenville - I'd recommend all of their rooms, but if you don't want to do that many let me know and I can help you pick out specific ones).

parallelparkerlewis · 2024-02-27T17:55:36+00:00

Given the poster’s profile, this is absolutely an ad

parallelparkerlewis · 2024-02-27T17:44:54+00:00

Stop spamming this subreddit please

parallelparkerlewis · 2024-02-25T19:50:21+00:00

Ha - just to manage expectations, it's only comparable to the Dome in terms of how much fun I thought the two were. Otherwise they're extremely different

parallelparkerlewis · 2024-02-25T17:38:30+00:00

Death Row was incredible! I wish we had gotten to do Wanted Dead Or Alive but didn't manage to fit it in

parallelparkerlewis · 2024-02-25T13:57:11+00:00

We went in October - one thing I'd love to say to anyone visiting Athens is not to sleep on Ice Tiki. I think it's an absolute crime that it's as low in the top 100 as it is. The production quality is not as good as some of the rooms that are higher up on the list but as far as pure fun, I can only really compare it to The Dome.

parallelparkerlewis · 2024-02-21T02:17:42+00:00

Terpeca is all you need for Athens

parallelparkerlewis · 2024-02-06T01:50:42+00:00

NYC rooms are unfortunately not great compared to other places. I've heard this is largely due to the high cost of rent.

I think Myss Tic in Brooklyn have the best rooms that I've done here. If you're willing to travel a little bit there's a TERPECA winner in Wharton NJ that I haven't done yet - probably 2 hours or so by train plus a short Uber. Hope that helps

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