ESCAPE ROOM REVIEW – THE QUICK AND DIRTY
Play if… you’re a fan of children’s stories/fairy tales or you always wondered what was in Red’s damn basket…
Avoid if… you are scared of wolves, not into picnics, or don’t like your Grandmother.
THE BASICS
Number One Escape Room:
Address: 1775 East Tropicana, Suite 100, Las Vegas, NV 89119 (click address for Google Map)
Contact and Website: 702-528-1459
https://numberoneescaperoom.com/
The Room – Red Riding Hood:
Description (from the company website): Red Riding Hood is a suspect in a series of murders that you and your team of private investigators have been hired to investigate. In this very grim tale, your team mission is to go to Grandmother’s house to find out if Red went Hood in the Woods and partnered up with the Big Bad Wolf!
Difficulty (1-10): 3.5/5
Time Limit: 60 minutes
Cost: $40
Identifier: R1
Party Size: Up to 6
Staging Area: There is a very large lobby (this place is huge) and plenty of seating. There was a water cooler (if I recall correctly) and lots of swag for sale.
Metro Access/Parking: No idea how public transit works there; I was in town for work and just drove.
OUR EXPERIENCE
This is the video we took before we entered the room:
This is the video we took just after we completed the room:
Note: The ERG were given the opportunity to try out this room for free, with the understanding that we would continue to provide an honest review and follow the same process we’ve used on all of our other ratings.
Logistics:
Description of the room: You start off in the living room of Grandma’s house. There’s a table, rocking chair, a dead body…
Understanding of the Mission: Determine if Red is a serial killer who partnered with the Big Bad Wolf, or not
Did We Escape: Yes
Time Remaining: 3:15
Our Suggested Party Size: We were 2; I wouldn’t really recommend more than 4; it’ll get cramped REAL quick
Did the room challenge the entire team? Kinda
Members of our team (other than the ERG): Bobby
Worth the time and money? Eh…Kinda?
Where to Eat/Drink Before/After:
-
- Went out on the Strip after, so can’t really recommend anything. Sorry
| JASON says: |
|---|
| Overall Expectation (Summary) |
| In the few short weeks leading up to my work trip, I took a few minutes to do a little research on what rooms I would want to do and see if I could get any of my coworkers out there to join me. I had one brave soul who was up to the task (an ERV, no less!) and the timing worked out so that he could do this room with me.
It sounded… interesting… and as their name is “Number One Escape Room”, I figured I would take my chances and live to tell the tale, which you can read below. |
| Story (Rating) |
| This is one of the rare instances where the website is actually better than the in-person briefing. The briefing video we were shown was literally 14 seconds long and gave less detail than the website story as listed above. I will say, though, that the video is essentially the last line of the website story, so it’s got that going for it.
The story goes that Red is a person of interest in a string of murders and people want to know if she’s gone “hood in the woods” and partnered with the Big Bad Wolf. I don’t know whether I should point out that this sounds slightly racist. That said, that was it. Then we entered Grandma’s house. Rating: 5.5/10 |
| Mission (Rating) |
| Is Red in cahoots with the Big Bad Wolf?
That’s literally it. And thinking back on it, I can’t remember how we were supposed to find out that answer! I remember the ending not being what I thought it was going to be (meaning there was additional work to be done), but what I DON’T remember is an actual distinct answer or any proof. I know the implication is there based on what you see at times, however no solid proof to be found, which I kinda thought was the point? Rating: 7/10 |
| Puzzle Diversity (Rating) |
| There was a lot of hands-on type stuff in this room. The room starts off with an actual puzzle and something that is just as simple as it seems. The requires a little searching for pieces to it, but it’s pretty obvious what you will have to do. As you progress, there is a little ambiguity to some of the puzzles, specifically when it comes to anything with colors to match.
There were enough padlocks in the first 2/3 of the escape that I’m calling attention to it; additionally, it felt like an equal number in the final 1/3. More on that later. There was yet another puzzle (actual puzzle pieces, but not your typical 1000 piece style), I believe a few RFID items, but everything else was some sort of 3 or 4 digit code, right down to the end. The only things that stood out as ‘different’ were the large blade and the small door. I won’t say anything more about them other than the fact that the former didn’t see to fit in the room and the latter was a bit of a stretch. Rating: 5/10 |
| Puzzle Complexity (Rating) |
| I don’t want to say that there was much that was terribly difficult, however, and I’ll touch on this later, one of the puzzles is…destructive. (You shouldn’t have to take anything apart in an escape room. It’s just as bad a faux pas as needing outside knowledge. Well, I guess I don’t have to talk about it later now.)
That said, there was just a LOT to do in here, and having only 2 people to do it was our biggest problem. Some of the puzzles were stupid simple. Others were just more time consuming than anything. One of the things we stumbled on was just something we overlooked, and the subsequent clue we got was not only delayed, but irrelevant because we had already solved the puzzle that the clue was for. *****SPOILER ALERT***** One of the final puzzles frustrated me because it was basically find these items, put them together in a specific order, and you’ll see a number to enter into the final door. *****END SPOILER ALERT***** I would put the difficulty range at 1-7, which is a damn decent spread. There’s also a… cheap thrill towards the end that you may hear from the lobby but not know what it is until you get there. You’ve been warned. Rating: 8.5/10 |
| Flow/Cohesiveness/Uniqueness (Rating) |
| It’s obvious from the moment you walk in the room that there’s a second room: There’s a door that is unmistakably a door leading to a second room. The room is built out well, and looks (more or less; it’s kinda small) like Grandma’s house (I mean, as much as you could possibly know what it’s like based on a fairy tale). Living room, bedroom, the usual. There’s some items in each room that lend themselves to the visual, so that’s all good.
The puzzles, however, don’t add anything to the story, which was a bit of a disappointment. I would have much rather liked to know some things about what Red was up to than just seeing, well, just the one thing you’ll see. The puzzles, while being somewhat clever, just didn’t do anything to push the story along to the point of the room’s Mission and the final puzzles seemed like they were just there for the sake of being there (though they did involve other fairy tale characters, such as the Three Little Pigs). Rating: 4.5/10 |
| Fun/Amusement (Summary) |
| I think I ended up being more frustrated with the going back and forth between rooms thinking we missed something and the lack of communication with the GM (see below). The best part was the last area because of the cheap thrills. (I mean, come on, who doesn’t like those?) |
| Game Master (Summary) |
| I have a fleeting suspicion that our GM for the game was not paying us the attention we deserved. Firstly, there were multiple instances where we were waiting for a response to a question/clarification. Second, one of the clues we were given was to a puzzle we had already solved (well, it was to open something that gave us a clue to something we already solved, so that’s the 2nd clue in the post-room video I alluded to). Thirdly, due to the way the room was set up, there’s a mic/camera in each room and, as we were going back and forth between rooms, our GM burst into the room and told us to “stop going between rooms when asking for help because I can only listen to one microphone at a time”, which would have been fine had he (1) told us this before we began and (2) not been overly RUDE to us about it. Only one other time have I had a GM burst in on us, but that other one was at least not her fault that she had to do it…
This is also the longest GM summary I’ve ever written. |
| How Helpful Were Any Clues Given, if any (Summary) |
| As I just said above, 1 clue was helpful; 1 was not. And that’s the reason why… |
| RAGE Meter OR ERG (pronounced URG, as in “we should have known better”) Score |
| This gets a 2 fist rating (annoyed). I don’t mind asking for clues (sometimes), but when I do, it better not be to (1) something I didn’t ask, (2) something I already knew, or (3) leading me to something I already solved, as I mentioned above.
Rating: 👊👊 |
ESCAPE ROOM GUYS’ OVERALL SCORING 6.1/10
Final Thought: The room started off just fine, but was quickly soured by the lack of responsiveness. It has plenty of potential and some minor tweaks could easily increase the score of this room. I really wanted to like it, and I believe you can see that in the post-room video, but the glaring faults are hard to overlook. There are 4 other rooms at this location (and I plan on going back for Claustrophobia), so look out for that review in the future.