Escape Room Review: Save the Magic School is a magically good time
The Attractions Magazine team was invited out to Edge Escape in Kissimmee, Fla. to see if we had what it took to Save the Magic School!
In this escape room, the titular magic school has been cursed with a … well, curse that’s probably going to do something very bad if your team of plucky young wizards doesn’t find a way to stop it! Players have to find the secret passage in, make their way through the school and finally disarm the curse. And of course you only have roughly 60 minutes to do this in. Think you could make it through?
Escape Room Review: Save the Magic School
First off, to address the setting itself, this room certainly features a school of magic that is similar, yet legally distinct from any other big brand magic schools you may be thinking of. In fact the similarities to Harry Potter are readily apparent to anyone familiar with the books and movies, but ultimately it doesn’t really matter. The scenic and puzzle design are delightful throughout and serve well in enhancing the overall escape room experience for anyone wishing to spend at least a little time in a magical world. And it’s a “magical” world made possible through Edge Escape’s consistently clever use of technology. Magic spells are cast and objects come to life through sometimes subtle and sometimes not so subtle interactions with the world.
Scenically, the room leans heavily into the aesthetic made famous by the Harry Potter franchise. There is a stately and regal feel to some of the rooms with castle walls and grand pictures, as well as some slightly more whimsical areas. Prop design and construction remain a highlight of Edge Escape’s rooms with objects that are intricate, yet solid, and feel good to pickup and manipulate.
One game puzzle combined some of our favorite props ever in an escape room with integrated technology to form a fun little puzzle. A consistent element of Edge Escape rooms is the desire to make room transitions interesting and as such, this room, like their Wonderland room, contains a section intended for players to crawl through. Those unwilling or unable to crawl are still able to complete the experience with a quick jaunt around and though an accessible door.
Puzzle design was good and varied, if often on the simpler side, which makes sense for this room as we’ve found Edge Escape’s rooms to primarily focus on the immersion and fun of their experiences. We particularly enjoyed the large amount of hands-on puzzles that let us play and collect rather than just sitting with locks and solving math problems.
Our team of experienced escapers did manage to break the sequence of puzzles at one point by just being a little too familiar with certain types of puzzles. This led to a situation where, when we eventually completed a puzzle we were intended to complete first, multiple sound cues and audio files all played at the same time causing a bit of a cacophony. This is a minor quibble and in fact, most people will probably never encounter this issue by solving the obvious puzzle first which we were a bit too hyper focused to notice. We did have one other technological blip which caused a certain element to not perform exactly right. Without getting into spoilers, we were able to make do by using our cellphones to take some quick pictures and we brought this up to the owner afterward and he promised to address it.
For our experience, Save the Magic School was a fun, if simpler game that still provided our veteran crew a delightful time. We got out with a good amount of time remaining, but as with all Edge Escape Rooms, there is no clock in the experience, and at no point were we probably in any danger of not escaping in time, through the careful observation of unseen game masters. Enthusiasts and those concerned with times and records should inform the employees ahead of time to ensure a less guided experience.
For more information or to book tickets, visit EdgeEscapeRoom.com.
We like to use the Morty app (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!
