ESCAPE ROOM REVIEW – THE QUICK AND DIRTY

Play if… you have a thing for people in uniform.

Avoid if… you aren’t a member of the NRA.

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THE BASICS

Escape Room Live Glover Park: – LOCATION CLOSED

Address: 2300 Wisconsin Ave. NW, Suites G-102, Washington, DC 20007
(Entrance is DOWN the stairs off of Hall Place NW) (click address for a Google Map)

Contact and Website: 800-616-4880
http://www.escaperoomlive.com
[email protected]

The Room – 13 Hours (temporarily replaced Double Crossed):

Description (from the company website): This room was a temporary room associated with the 13 Hours movie. As such, the description is no longer available on the site, but our military team was dropped behind enemy lines to complete a mission and find the target of an upcoming attack, radio the coordinates to base and then request an evacuation.

Difficulty (1-10): unlisted

Time Limit: 45 minutes

Cost: $28 + tax per person but use ERGUYS15 when booking to save 15% off per ticket.

Identifier: T1

Party Size: Up to 8

Staging Area: The lobby to this location was downstairs in what I believe is the basement level of the building. There were couches and some games to keep you busy.

Metro Access/Parking: Tenleytown and then the bus down Wisconsin Avenue, or Dupont Circle and the bus up Massachusetts are your best bets. There’s no metro right by, so you’ll have to drive and find a place to park. Probably better to Uber/Lyft.

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OUR EXPERIENCE

Logistics:

Description of the room: The room itself was small but packed with goodies: Bookcases, maps, cigars.

Understanding of the Mission: We had to find the target for the attacks and then radio in the coordinates and request an evac.

Did We Escape: Yes

Time Remaining: 6:43

Our Suggested Party Size: Doesn’t matter anymore as this room has been replaced, but 6 people worked well.

Did the room challenge the entire team? Yes

Members of our team (other than the ERG): Dennis, Dennis’ wife, Chris and Dalia.

Worth the time and money? Yes

Where to Eat/Drink Before/After:

• Old Europe. Authentic German food a few minutes walk. Been there twice.
• Slate Wine Bar + Bistro. We stopped in right after for drinks. Good selection of wine flights.

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Our Scoring:

JASON SAYS:	MIKE SAYS:
Overall Expectation (Summary)
Well, I hadn’t seen the movie, so I had no clue what kind of tie-ins there would be. I figured there would be some sort of military paraphernalia (sat-phones, ruck sacks, etc.), and I was actually right!	A good military story based on the mission was an interesting premise, so I was pretty psyched to do this.
Story (Rating)
Play a game of Keep-Alive, but this time it’s with your LIFE. Rating: 7/10	We are a military unit that is dropped behind enemy lines and have to survive for the next 60 minutes, in a reference to the movie “13 Hours” Rating: 8/10
Mission (Rating)
Multiple objectives are always a plus; I think we had to discover the targeted location, relay that to a remote team, and get to the LZ for a pickup. (And by LZ I mean the door. lol) Rating: 8/10	You need to figure out the targets of the attack, radio the coordinates to base and then request an evacuation. Love the multi-objective mission! Rating: 9/10
Puzzle Diversity (Rating)
This room was surprising in the number of new puzzles we encountered. And it spawned Rule #4. There were your typical buzzkills in the room, but those were quickly overshadowed by some laser-hot stuff. I enjoyed the delicateness (almost literally) of a few of the puzzles.  Rating: 7/10	There was a wide variety of puzzles here, and we had two newbies with us in the room, so the easier puzzles were a good way to introduce them to the workings of the room. I loved the military-theme focus of  some of the puzzles.   Rating: 7/10
Puzzle Complexity (Rating)
The aforementioned Rule #4 was one of the issues we encountered in this room. That got us stuck for a good number of minutes. Another of the puzzles ended up being broken by the previous group (we wasted another good deal of time fighting with the puzzle until we insisted the GM come in to try it himself). That actually led into something else timing out, costing us more time. Rating: 7/10	I don’t remember any of the puzzles being overly complex. We did have a user-error moment when someone forgot she was in possession of something that would help us solve one of the puzzles, and then another issue with the actual props of the puzzle itself. It gave us a totally different solution, which frustrated us until we had to ask for a clue when we were completely stuck and unable to move any further along in the mission. Once we followed the directions of the GM, we realized that we were solving the puzzle correctly and called on the GM to come and test the working of the puzzle. Turns out, the previous group slightly broke the prop, which gave us a totally different solution. The GM did apologize for that and confirmed the correct solution for us. What was more frustrating was that this solution was the path to the next puzzle that had a timed-delay for wrong solutions, so we didn’t get out as fast as we wanted. Rating: 7/10
Flow/Cohesiveness/Uniqueness (Rating)
Having not seen the movie, I can’t really comment too much on how well it fit in as a movie tie-in. However, the room was plastered with maps, books, (oddly) shoes. Everything in there was used as a clue to a puzzle. Pretty cool. Additionally, the gear you see us wearing in the photo (well, the vests at least) we were given before entering the room. Hey, first time for everything. I thought it was a nice touch. Rating: 7/10	The room was decorated in a fashion that led me to believe that we were a military strike unit that was dropped behind enemy lines to figure out the target of an attack. The clues worked well to lead us along the experience until we solved the mission. This was also the first room that we were given props to were BEFORE the photo, and got to wear them in the room itself to lend to the experience. That was kinda cool. I do dislike, however, a puzzle that has a penalty delay for wrong answers, especially if the delay would mean that you can’t solve the mission in the time remaining. Our GM re-set the puzzle once we encountered the broken prop, which is why we were able to solve the mission with the time we had remaining. Rating: 8/10
Fun/Amusement (Summary)
I probably had fun, aside from the broken prop and the Rule #4 issue. Still haven’t seen the movie, same as Mike.	I had fun. I wanted to see the movie (still haven’t seen it, by the way) and this was a great temporary theme for a room.
Game Master (Summary)
Come to think of it, I think this might have actually been the first time we met Eric. He’s been our GM for 3 (if this was him) escape rooms from Escape Room Live and he was tending bar at ERL Georgetown and recognized us. Definitely my favorite GM of all those we’ve encountered.	Eric was great. We had him as our GM in Old Town for Sherlock and were surprised to see him at this location (this was only our 4th room, so we weren’t familiar with all the companies and their multiple locations at that time. We briefly wondered if we were being stalked due to our comments on the Wizard room – Big Brother IS watching!). As mentioned before, the GM can make or break your experience in the pre-room briefing, and Eric just gets you FULLY invested in the mission and backstory.
How Helpful Were Any Clues Given, if any (Summary)
I think we asked for 1 clue as well as confirmation on one that turned out to be broken. The one clue we got was helpful, but not in that you’re stupid, here’s how to do it kind of way.	We asked for one clue, and eventually got frustrated enough with the broken puzzle to lead the GM though our thought process on the puzzle and exactly what we were doing. Once he determined that the puzzle wasn’t giving us the right solution, we were able to move on once he gave us the solution we should have gotten.
Anger Level Score	ERG (pronounced URG, as in “we should have known better”) Score
Only thing I was angry with was the need for Rule #4. 😛 And the fact that one of the puzzles was broken. Felt kinda vindicated when the GM came in and said, yep, you were right. hahaha Rating: 1/5 Fists	Just a little bit. Our team member being in possession of the item that would have solved one of the puzzles was definitely a head-slapping moment (which, as my esteemed counterpart points out spawned Rule #4, and we make sure we tell newbies in the room this rule to this day). Rating:  ?‍♂️ ?‍♂️ FacePalms – 2/5

ESCAPE ROOM GUYS’ OVERALL SCORING: 7.5/10

Final Thought: While only a temporary room, this was a fun way to blend a popular movie with an Escape Room experience. Having a blend of veterans (who had done THREE previous rooms… yeah, that was veteran status back then LOL) and newbies was a good fit for this room. Looking forward to trying out some other specialty-themed rooms in the future.