The service here has always been consistent (see reviews for Ninja House, The Lost Ship, and Ancient Egypt). Our game master seemed flustered because of how busy it was, but he still interacted with us as if he was a close friend.

EXIT Calgary has always had solid service. We were greeted by someone who seemed to be an employee in training, and even though there was a sudden massive influx of people as we were leaving the room, I thought he was able to deal with the crowd fairly well, considering I think he was the only one on staff at the time!

I actually disagree with Ben’s review below because I thought the puzzles here were new, at least compared to what we’ve seen so far from EXIT. The solutions were still numbers and letters and directions, but the execution was something I hadn’t seen before.

They did a good job taking advantage of the props in the room, in that what seemed like plain decorations eventually came into play. Overall, this room had a fair amount of all types of puzzles–searching, logic, and physical puzzles.

The puzzles here weren’t anything new – in fact, if you do enough EXIT rooms, you might start to see some similar elements across rooms. What I liked was that there was an extra layer of teamwork needed to finish the first part of the room. Another standout for me was that the clues were really great at pointing you in the proper direction to make sure that you’re connecting information properly.

This is my third (fourth?) time reviewing a prison-themed room. There isn’t really anything you can do with a prison cell. It’s most likely going to be a cramped room with writings on the wall and a toilet in the corner. It also gives the designers the excuse to get really cheap props and decor–most likely from a garage sale or a thrift store. The look of this room was appropriate for the theme.

There were some unique props here that we didn’t see in other prison escape rooms, and I think that’s because this room’s take on that theme is a little bit different (more on that below!). At the start of the room, there were some props that I thought were unnecessarily excessive, but once I had the chance to piece together the theme of the room, everything made a lot more sense!

This is the fourth room we’ve done at EXIT and this is also the fourth time we’ve had to use flashlights. It was appropriate here because the room had a certain eerie vibe, which was sustained throughout the hour by the overall darkness.

Usually the feeling of urgency to get out comes with wanting to escape from the prison cell which dissipates after you get the key to open the cell. Here, however, there was still a sense of urgency in the other portions of the room, mainly because of how the puzzles were designed.

This room had really good pacing! The major search puzzle was well-timed to keep that frantic feeling of pressure consistent. The music was appropriately eerie, and there were just enough large entryways to keep us guessing what was going to be in the next room.

Similar to look, there’s only so much you can do with a prison-themed room. You enter the prison, you get out. Like Ben said however, they added a historical element to the theme, so that it wasn’t simply prison-themed.  

The prison escape theme has been completely beaten to death in the escape room world. BUT, what I loved about this room was that it gave you more than just “get out of this prison” – there was an interesting historical nuance to this room that we haven’t seen at other prison rooms that we’ve done.

This gets a #platinum. I was hesitant to do this room because I really did not want to do another prison-themed room. It’s just been done to death. We did it anyway because it was the only room available when we were free. I’m glad we did because it’s probably the best prison room I’ve done.

I give this room a #platinum. I loved the pacing in this room and the nuanced execution of what would otherwise be a boring theme. EXIT Calgary continues to consistently deliver very solid rooms!