Escape Room Review: The Society of Adventurers and Explorers finds fun

In The Society of Adventurers and Explorers (S.O.A.E), players take on the roles of explorers who have found the old abandoned headquarters of a long forgotten adventurer’s club. Inside are promises of adventure and excitement, so how can we possibly resist checking this game out? Did we “choose wisely” with this adventure or is this an experience that belongs in a museum? Read on to see what we thought!

The Attractions Magazine team was invited back to Edge Escape in Kissimmee, Fla. to try out their newest room, with a theme based on adventure, there are certain expectations we had going in and things we were hoping to see and S.O.A.E did not disappoint.

Thematically, the room features a lot of the tropes, puzzles, and props immediately associated with the adventure genre. Everything you’d want from an adventure theme was present, from snakes and staves, to maps and hats. Scenery and prop quality in the room ranged from very high quality and realistic to more abstract and hand-crafted. For instance, there were intricate and elaborate masks sitting next to a cartoonishly painted “bookcase” of books. Either approach is fine on its own, but the combination of the two styles together at times clashed. The props themselves all felt sturdy and were fun to use and play with.

Puzzle flow at times was a little off and felt outside of the logic of the world. While we enjoyed moving back and forth between the various rooms we unlocked, we found ourselves wondering why clues in an ancient temple might lead to unlocking a box in the adventurer’s club.

Puzzle solving instincts took over and we never had difficulty matching our solutions with the locks, but occasionally felt like we weren’t able to connect the dots of why the puzzle was linked to the lock it opened. The puzzles themselves were a fun mix of physical and mental challenges that seldomly felt like time sinks or unnecessarily complicated. None of the puzzles were entirely new or unexpected, but that didn’t diminish the fun of solving them. The room also employs clever uses of tech that serves to enhance the experience without feeling tacked on or sticking out like a sore thumb.

A few times we found ourselves just solving puzzles because we saw what looked like a puzzle, rather than having a specific in-game reason to try. Part of this might be chalked up to our team being experienced enough to recognize puzzle types when we saw them and just jumping in headlong before fully understanding the why of what we were doing.

A suspension of disbelief is always required for any escape room, but this room specifically had a few parts that left us scratching our heads. Each room seemed to represent more of a larger “adventure” theme or motif, so each room we unlocked or revealed felt more like a different scene of a movie rather than a logical extension of where that door might or should lead. Ultimately, this is fine (I’d rather jump scene to scene instead of actually walking through a jungle for hours), but the abstract movement felt more at home in Edge Escape’s Wonderland and a little forced in this experience.

Of the three rooms we’ve played at Edge Escape, Adventure is my least favorite. “Wonderland” had more interesting and unique puzzles and “Save the Magic School” had a higher level of craftsmanship, but that isn’t to say this was a bad room by any stretch, and instead speaks to the high quality and fun that Edge Escape rooms present.

The Society of Adventurers and Explorers is a solid room with fun puzzles and a great theme. Our team of four highly experienced players escaped with about 20 minutes to spare with no hints or nudges. Though we have to take the GM’s word on our time based on the fact that Edge Escape does not have any clocks in their rooms. Our quibbles aside, each of us left our experience having enjoyed ourselves and look forward to coming back to see what else Edge Escape comes up with next.

For information or to book a room for yourself, visit EdgeEscapeRoom.com.

We use the Morty app (www.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!