Esxoss (“es-kuhsos”?… “ek-sos”?… “es-sos”?) Manway is located right across Chinook Centre on the second floor of an unsuspecting building. The lobby had very cool digital artwork on the wall. The staff working there was a bit timid but still cheerful.

BEN

The service was friendly and prompt. Our gamemaster gave us hints that were appropriate and not too overt. Overall, I would say that Esxoss Manway hit all of our benchmarks for good service!

This room was very high-tech. The answer to the first puzzle made us go “Whoa” but unfortunately the abundant use of technology did get old after awhile. A lot of it was unwarranted, including a very mind-boggling use of lasers that was just there and served no purpose. The puzzles were creative for sure, but in a heavy-handed way.

The puzzles here were, in a word, strange. Although we did manage to solve all of them (with some hints), it always felt like a tossup as to whether or not we had the right answer. I think that when you’ve solved a puzzle, it should be very obvious that you have the right answer, and that wasn’t how I felt at all in this room.

This room was expansive, and probably the biggest room that we’ve ever done. It doesn’t distract you with a lot of unnecessary objects just for the sake of filling up a big room. What’s necessary and relevant do stand out. There are several authentic centrepiece props here that became a part of the game.

My main issue is that everything was very… odd. This room had 4 portions, and it felt like we did 4 different rooms. There was no cohesion at all. (See: Christmas tree + lasers + Big Ben in one room)

One of the things that struck me about this room was that it was massive! I think we could’ve easily fit 2 escape rooms in this space. Unfortunately, I don’t think that space was used to its full potential. There was one area that was almost completely empty, and although it did seem artistically purposeful, I would’ve liked to have more to interact with.

Something that I did like was how the décor was so different between different parts of the room. It was exciting to explore such disparately decorated spaces!

This room started off great, with a very clear mission for its players. However, the focus of the progression plummeted right away–along with my interest.

There were some cool parts of the room where we had to interact with the physical space in interesting and new ways to progress. Cool tech is definitely one of Esxoss Manway’s strengths.

Overall though, I just found the room really hard to get into because the puzzles and the theme were really confusing.

I realize the theme is all about being in someone’s dream, so maybe that explains why everything was just a mishmash of very strange components that had nothing to do with each other–just like anyone’s dream. I still would’ve liked to see some focus amid all the chaos.

Like I mentioned above, I was quite confused by the theme. It was set up at the very start, but I don’t know if it was really built on as we did the room. The theme felt incohesive, but maybe that’s because I wasn’t really sure what it was.

#bronze – The overall theme for this room was just bizarre that made for very disjointed puzzles and a confusing setting.

#bronze – There’s some really interesting tech and physical mechanisms, but the puzzles and theme unfortunately turned me off of Dreamweaver.