The awesome people over at Puzzle Workshop invited the Nerd Reactor crew over to try out their newest Escape Room, Scarlet Starlet. Now so far, we (NR) have been making the circuit all around SoCal checking out the latest and greatest in Escape Rooms, so it would definitely make sense that we’d try out this newest one. As for Puzzle Workshop, they’re a group based in Irvine that are comprised of designers from Blizzard Entertainment (yes, the same Blizzard that made Overwatch and WoW).
Scarlet Starlet is the 2nd Escape Room created by these guys, with the first being The Illuminati Room. As for us, our team consisted of Arvin, Kate, Mark, Mike, John and myself, all of which can somewhat be dubbed Escape Room veterans. It just so happens that our particular group is the same that made it out of The Illuminati Room together, so needless to say, there was some high expectations hanging over our heads.
The theme/story of the room is centered around a fictional Hollywood actress by the name of Ruby Valentine that’s gone missing. It turns out she was kidnapped and as a new detective on the case, and it’s up to you to find her and her kidnapper. You’re given 60 minutes and are only allowed a team comprised of 4-6 people. There’s a monitor in the room letting you know of time remaining, and also gives hints if your team happens to be stuck for a bit.
Starting off in Ruby’s room, there are puzzles and clues that will lead you to the perpetrator (and escape). Working in pairs, we proceeded to dissect the room and attack from all angles. The puzzles overall were challenging, yet fun and definitely kept us all on our toes. There wasn’t a point at which we were stagnant, as we kept a good consistent pace in progressing through. I think a few times a couple of us had to switch up on puzzles in order to get fresh eyes, which is great strategy to have.
In the end, we were able to catch the kidnapper and escape the room with 17 minutes remaining. Scarlet Starlet was definitely a fun and challenging room that I really enjoyed. For anyone that has been skeptical of participating in escape rooms due to a horror stigma they carry, this is one to try out as it’s non-horror. I’d highly recommend it to anyone that happens to be in the Los Angeles/Orange County area.
For more info on Scarlet Starlet and Puzzle Workshop, you can check out their site at PuzzleWorkshop.com.
from Nerd Reactor
0 comments: