NEUROLOGICAL

One of our friends Isabel decided she wanted to review the room too! She tried her first escape room a little more than a month ago but has since become addicted.

Service-wise, the folks at Escape City kept their composure amid a very busy corporate booking. We still got genuine customer service despite the number of people in the lobby. The folks were proud of this new room and they were eager to show it to us.

The staff warmly said “Welcome back!” when we went to pay – like I’ve mentioned before, I think recognition of previous customers is a hallmark of great customer service!

This was my first time at Escape City. When we arrived there was a group of 20+ people in the lobby area. The staff did a nice job of creating a friendly and welcoming atmosphere while getting everyone through in a timely fashion.

This was an intricately formulated room. You could tell a lot of thought and research went into this. When they say you get to explore different aspects of the brain, they certainly mean it.

Communication is crucial from the moment you enter the room. Not only did each puzzle lead to multi-step problem-solving with many moving parts, it was also imperative to work as a team which added another layer of complexity to the experience. If you complete your mission and save Lisa from her comatose, it would be very gratifying. You may even shed some tears.

When they say good communication is key to doing well in this room, they’re not kidding!

There are no locks in this room, which means there was a bit more creativity with puzzles in this room – they didn’t all lead to a set of numbers, letters, or directions. That said, I would say that this room is a little bit heavier on the words, so I hope your team has some strong left-minded people!

Escape City did a pretty impressive job adhering to traditionally accepted brain functions when designing puzzles for this room. They definitely didn’t adhere to the formula that I’ve come to expect from most escape rooms (i.e., find a pattern of numbers/letters, open a lock, repeat).

There was a decent mix of puzzle difficulty. Some were pretty straightforward and quick to solve, while others took a lot of manipulating and back and forth. There was also a natural progression to the order in which the puzzles were solved, and I appreciate this in a room.

Don’t ignore the clues to communicate when doing this room. A brain won’t function properly as isolated little units, nor will you!

If you’ve seen the promotional trailer for this room, you know how a certain portion of this room looks like (a black cube-shaped room with funky marquee lights). Yes, it looks as cool in the video as it is in person.

There was another portion that was a bit too colorful for my own taste, almost resembling a preschool classroom. I suspect they might have been inspired by Inside Out, but the end-result was just a patchwork of objects that made no sense.

Videos also became an integral element in this room. Beyond the look of the physical playing environment, you will notice that the production quality for these videos are top-notch, almost Hollywood-like.

There are a couple of different things going on with the room’s looks. I found it to be both tastefully whimsical and futuristic! Physically, it would also easily fit 10 people comfortably.

Certain parts of the room have a techy feel to them and others remind me of an episode of the 90’s TV show Art Attack, organized chaos so to speak. There’s a method to Escape City’s madness in sticking with this design, fear not.

This room is Escape City’s first 60-minute room. You will certainly need all the time you can get in this room. Time will fly by.

Solving each puzzle took a lot of time and buildup but the payoff garnered consistent and enthusiastic “Yes!”s from our end. I suspect you will most likely have the same experience.

With rooms like this (what exactly is “this”, you might ask… I can’t give it away! You’ll know what I mean once you do the room), there is the potential to be times when you might not be doing anything but waiting. However, I thought that Escape City did a fantastic job of filling up the 60 minutes with engaging puzzles to keep the whole team busy.

The puzzles kept our team busy from start to finish, there’s something for everyone to do at every point in the room. I didn’t want to leave when we were done, I felt so engaged with every aspect of what the room offered. I think I speak for everyone on our team when I say that we all felt very invested in Lisa’s recovery.

We went with a team of fellow speech-language pathologists. We lived through this theme. We stayed up late studying brain anatomy and physiology. Needless to say we were ecstatic to tackle this room.

Were we Lisa’s brain creatures trying to undo the damage of the accident? Were we the surgical team? No matter, because thematically, it didn’t disappoint. Although some components were a bit simplified to have mainstream appeal, it was still a theme well-maximized.

This was definitely not like anything we had seen before. This room does something that a few others in Edmonton do (hint: it’s the “this” that I mentioned above), but Neurological pulls it off the best, hands down.

Escape City had me at Neurological. I’m a bit of a neuro-geek having spent most of my academic career with my nose in a neuroscience or anatomy textbook. Personal biases aside, this was definitely a unique and refreshing theme.

Although we were very close to escaping but ultimately came up short, we still had a blast. This room deserves a #diamond. It takes classic escape room components and complexifies them so that the overall experience becomes a great mental exercise. (I needed a nap after this room.)

This is a #diamond for sure. It’s a very welcome addition to the small number of rooms in Edmonton that allow for larger groups in terms of both puzzles and space!

Can someone drop a piano on my head so I can forget the details of this room and do it again? This room is easily a #diamond.