Lockdown is located in Red Deer, the midway point between Edmonton and Calgary. They have two locations that boast several rooms, which was surprising to find out given that Red Deer isn’t a big city. Regardless, more escape rooms for Ben and I to try.

The lobby reminded me of my local video store where I would rent VHS tapes back in the day. It was cozy and welcoming enough. The staff working there was accommodating and provided hints in a non-judgmental manner. Good overall.

BEN

We stopped by to do a room here on the way to Calgary one weekend. The people here were nice, and they were very accommodating of us even though we got in a little bit late.

I thought the puzzles here were just okay. The vast majority of them were generic–those types of puzzles that you would encounter repeatedly if you have done quite a few escape rooms. There were moments of creativity here and there, but for the most part, the puzzles were too simple for my liking.

I liked the puzzles here – there was a good mix of them, including one physical puzzle that I really enjoyed. Unfortunately, there were a few puzzles here that are on my list of escape room pet peeves (blacklight anyone?) which kind of dampened the experience. The iffy puzzles for me were moreso in the second half of the room.

The title and the room description on the website would have you thinking you are going to be locked up in a freezer. You get just that– a bare freezer with silver-colored walls. This was fine, but what I didn’t appreciate was the use of props that shouldn’t be in a freezer (canned goods, cakes, peanut butter to name a few). I was fine with the bare freezer look, but I thought the small props looked cheap (probably because they were literally recycled).

I liked the freezer bit. It was appropriately freezery. I didn’t think it was too bare like Mr. P. It reminded me a little of Dairy Queen, actually! There were a few other quintessentially freezery things that I think could have been in there though.

I had two distinct experiences in this room. During our first half here, I was immersed, particularly because I had an alarming sense of urgency to get out. Why? We were actually in a freezer–where it was cold. Yes, they actually turn the temperature way down. Needless to say, it was cool.

The other half wasn’t so great. It became just another generic escape room in a cramped space with a window overlooking the outside, which took me out of immersion.

Mr. P got it right. It was freezing in the freezer, and I just wanted to get out. But once we got out, there wasn’t a lot of driving force to make us move faster – it was much more leisurely puzzle-solving from that point.

Again, there were two themes here. The main selling point for this room is the fact that you are trying to escape from a literal freezer. That is a fantastic and innovative theme. After that though, the experience becomes something else, and that something else was very meh.

I think there was maybe too much going on in this room. You have to escape, but there’s also a bomb, and you’re in a freezer. I would’ve been pretty happy with just being stuck in a freezer, but I felt that the add-ons diluted the experience a little bit.

Overall, I would give this room a #silver. It was fun being in a freezer (despite the cheap props), but once you get over the novelty and move on to the second half, the experience becomes very disappointing.

This room gets a #gold for me. Like Mr. P said, the first half was fantastic, but the second half was a little bit off.