Escape Room Review: Escape Artists’ Dream is a surreal and puzzling adventure
In “Dream”, players have been implanted into the subconscious of a serial killer and must retrieve a secret password and also find a way to escape. Was this room a dream come true or a waking nightmare? Read on to find out!
After recently trying out one of Escape Artists’ rooms in Sanford, Fla., the Attractions Magazine crew was invited to their Baldwin Park location in Orlando to check out “Dream”.
The setting and theme of Dream is immediately reminiscent of sci-fi films like “The Cell” or “Inception”, but was a completely unique setting that no one on our team had seen before in an escape room. We really enjoyed the theme and the unique benefits something like this brings to escape rooms. Being inside a subconscious that was fighting back to keep its secrets gave immediate reason for all of the puzzles and random locks we found throughout the experience. It also allowed the room to flow between completely different locales and styles with the explanation that these rooms were just decent facets of the killer’s subconscious.
While I’m generally more than willing to let this particular complaint go because otherwise there isn’t a game to play, it was refreshing to find this problem immediately solved in a way that made sense for the setting. Without spoiling the specifics, each room that we unlocked and gained access to had wildly different styles and themes and kept the experience fresh throughout. Another fun aspect of Escape Artists’ rooms is they all link together in various ways thematically. For this room specifically, the killer had been referenced in other rooms and the password being stolen is the password players need to start Escape Artists’ cat burglar themed room. While the knowledge of these references is not strictly necessary to enjoy the game, it does serve to reward players who return to try more games at this location.
There were a wide variety of puzzles in Dream, many of which defy quick and easy categorization and would only apply to rooms with these specific themes. It’s hard to say much more without venturing into spoilers, but while most puzzles featured at least a few familiar elements and we were quickly able to figure out what we had to do, exactly what needed to be done was completely unique which is always a good thing. Also, most puzzles had at least a fairly logical flow even if that logic was “dream” logic. Generally, it was intuitive which pieces went to which challenge. Escape Artists has a rule (not uncommon) where once something is used to solve a puzzle, it won’t be used again. This does make it easier to keep track of most important things since you can just discard them when finished, but do note this includes red herrings from puzzles. I only mention it so you don’t find yourself carrying some useless pieces for the entirety of the room. (Of course I didn’t do this, how dare you even suggest such a thing … )
One other issue, similar to the other Escape Artists room we’ve done, was that several of the puzzles had slightly finicky activations and while we had “solved” the puzzle, we weren’t quite manipulating things correctly to complete the puzzle, and therefore had to receive nudges to help us understand how exactly to operate the puzzle.
Accessibility is one place where this room unfortunately falters a bit in a few ways. The description on the website says, “At least one player on the team needs to be agile. In addition, crawling may be required.” In practice (and again without touching on spoilers) what this means is that one puzzle requires a certain amount of dexterity and if failed, means a different logic puzzle must be completed (this was fine and honestly a good way to include a dexterity puzzle without limiting who can complete the challenge based on physical ability.) But, this also meant that crawling was necessary at least once in the experience and one particular room was completely inaccessible without the ability to either crawl or climb over something. Elsewhere, crawling was required and several more puzzles would have to be solved before an alternate access to the room could be opened.
After going through the experience, I can’t see a way someone in a wheelchair would be able to participate in much of this room without missing out on large chunks. It also meant that crawling was necessary several times to backtrack and gather clues and, as a team filled with adults, this was occasionally rough on the old knees. Elsewhere, moody, dark, colored lighting was used when caused us (again adults in our 40s) some difficulty seeing code dials on small locks, recognizing the color of locks that were part of the reset and not meant to be solved, and causing extra difficulty to our colorblind player.
We were ultimately able to escape the room and these issues didn’t cause us too much of delay, but it’s never fun struggling with a challenge due to the lighting and desire to not have to crawl back through an opening to recheck for clues. There also wasn’t a great deal of feedback when we completed the game and were unsure we had truly finished for a bit until the game master came down the hall to let us know we escaped. We were told this was because the end involved a “return to reality” and so therefore didn’t have a grand finale. I personally think they could still get away with a bit more fanfare on completion, lights changing/fading or more sound effects maybe.
In the end, this is a strong escape room filled with unique puzzles and settings. Our team of three highly experienced escapers completed the 90 minute room in just about 60 minutes with no clues and only the aforementioned nudges. The website suggests 2-4 players for this room, which seems small compared to typical standards and the 90 minute time limit, but due to the tighter spaces and limited branching puzzles, we found three players was just about perfect. We typically had plenty to do for each of us, including drawing straws to see who was the bravest one to try certain things. (Oh yeah, there might be a few jump scares in this room.) While a bit further from Orlando’s tourist district than we typically play, this room was certainly worth the drive.
For more information or to book a room for yourself, visit EscapeArtistsOrlando.com.
• We like to use the Morty app to track and rate all of our escape room experiences. You can find our reviews featured in the editorial section of any room we’ve done. And of course you can follow us on Morty at @Attractions!
