Review: Escape Rooms HQ - Crime Scene Challenge Rooms

RATING: 3 Keys RESULT: Win REMAINING: 10:13

Let’s play a game of Clue – only this time it’s not Colonel Mustard with the candlestick.

Story

Your CSI team is being called in to process a murder. We have several suspects in custody but who is the real criminal? There are only 30 minutes left before time runs out and we have to release them all. Can you work through the clues and gather enough evidence to make a case before a murderer is released on to the streets?

It is a classic game of Clue – only this one doesn’t have Colonel Mustard in the library with a candlestick. Detectives must figure out the murderer’s identity, his or her weapon of choice, and where the heinous crime took place. There is a similar case next door. Can one team prove once and for all that they are the better detective than their rivals?

Crime Scene at times made us feel like a real detective. The small details can often go unnoticed. However, there is not any sense of urgency – why must this case be solved in thirty minutes? It failed to fully immerse us in a story, and the grand finale falls a little short.

Scenic

We found ourselves in what looked to be a back alleyway. The sides of the space are made of red brick, and one of the walls has a bronze mailbox attached to it. On the ground there is a cliché silhouette of a man seen in all of the cheesy CSI movies.

At the end of the space, there is a chain-link fence with a padlock strapped around it. Behind the fence, there are a couple trash cans with locks on them… perhaps to keep the rats out? A defective streetlamp is seen in the distance.

Crime Scene is one of the smallest rooms I’ve seen. There are no hidden second or third rooms. However, the space works well for what the room is advertised as being – a thirty minute intro to escape rooms.

Puzzles

The puzzles in Crime Scene are simplistic and linear. There is not enough to do in the room for more than two players – even for first timers. Every step leads to the next in an intuitive manner. There is some light scavenging around the space and use of a black light. While black lights are overused in escape rooms, it makes sense to have one while playing detective.

Crime Scene also requires some observation and deductive reasoning skills to find the murder’s identity. Some details are easy to overlook. However, since the room is small, they are not impossible to find. As I made my way through the chain-link fence, I was able to gain access to the trash cans. There are some thrown away documents to decipher – hopefully this case doesn’t go cold.

Once all of the dots are connected and we were able to determine “the who, the where, and the with what”, there is a combo lock to input the answer. The ending of Crime Scene falls short because there could have been a lot of other interesting and exciting ways to input the final answer. However, the choice of using a combo lock was a somewhat lazy design.

Overall

Crime Scene is approachable for beginners, and the room is even advertised as being an introduction to escape rooms. The puzzles are simplistic, but there is a good variation on the types of activities.

Crime Scene has two identical rooms – each with different final answers to the murder case. Enthusiasts will have a good time racing one versus one as the room lends itself well to a competitive style game.

Most of the excitement of Crime Scene comes from the competitive mode. I was able to hear my competitor in the next room while they unlocked the fence and rummaged through the trash cans. I am not sure if this was done by design, but it adds a level of fun to know how far along the person next door is in solving the case.