InTRAP is located in the heart of busy Whyte Avenue, home to pubs and drunks at night. I almost missed their sign when we were walking because we were distracted by all the screaming around us. We went downstairs into a basement and were greeted by the staff. Their lobby has that bachelor pad feel, complete with a dart board, couches, and a mini-fridge (with free water). The staff were not very chatty, and a bit on the shy side, but we still appreciated their lowkey friendliness.

Escape rooms are occasionally in very strange places because they need to have a space where they can comfortably host all their rooms. Being on Whyte, InTRAP luckily doesn’t have this problem.

The staff at InTRAP were prompt and friendly. They also had a really nice lobby (bachelor pad is a good way to describe it!). My favourite part was that they do polaroids if you escape, just like at GTFO!

I felt like a large portion of the puzzles were targeted towards younger kids (even though the room itself wasn’t). The puzzles had a linear structure, so you progress through the room nicely. I had issues with the puzzles because they felt more like puzzles you would solve in a scavenger hunt, especially those in the first half. It did eventually feel more like an escape room towards the last half, but something about the conceptualization felt amateurish.

A lot of the puzzles in this room lead to lackluster “…oh” moments instead of those exciting “OH!”s that you get when you solve a really good puzzle. Like Mr. P said, there was a heavy emphasis on searching (which, admittedly, I’m really bad at – I like having everything there and trying to figure out how all the pieces fit together).

If I could give one piece of advice to anyone who wants to try this room – get ready to break out your high school math skills!

In terms of look, prison-themed rooms are both a blessing and a curse. It’s a blessing because prisons are supposed to look empty so it takes no effort (and probably very little budget) to design the cell; it’s a curse because it’s hard to make a prison-themed escape room look good. Here, you get the usual bed, sink, and steel bars, which was fine enough. However, even when we got to the other portions of the room, it still lacked effort. One of my personal pet peeves is when a clue is handwritten when it doesn’t need to be. One of the clues here was written with a Sharpie, on a piece of plywood. Needless to say, it didn’t leave a good lasting impression with me.

It’s quite a plain room. Granted, prisons aren’t supposed to be the most exciting things to look at, but I think a bit more could have been done here.

Prison-themed rooms have that inherent feeling of immersion because you always start from behind bars. It’s just human nature that automatically makes you want to get out. This one is no different. I just wish the puzzles weren’t so lackluster.

I think Mr. P hit the nail on the head.

Something I wanted to add was that there was this strange sound from the track they were playing that broke immersion for me. It was this kind of buzzer sound that made me wonder if the game masters were telling us that we were doing a puzzle wrong (they weren’t, I think – pretty sure it was just part of the soundtrack).

I’d venture a guess and say this is likely the most common theme within the escape room scene. The word “escape” has been eternally attached to the whole notion of prison. They rely on this association and do not do anything with it.

The backstory to this room is a little bit odd in that it doesn’t have a lot of relevance to the room other than “you’re trapped and you need to escape”. (They tell you that your group will play two different sets of characters which ends up not being relevant to the room.)

This room gets a #bronze rating, mainly for its look and quality of puzzles. There were moments of good in this room, but they stay as moments and don’t really last.

This room gets a #silver for me as well. It wasn’t amazing, but it was entertaining enough for us.