Apple pie, shopping sprees, get rich quick schemes, junk no one wants, and mislabeling laughable crap as great: it’s pretty much the American dream.

Though posted within our Reviews section, this entry will not include a Key Rating. As a team, we at Escape Authority feel the correct thing to do is disclose that I was the Designer of this attraction on behalf of Chris + Creative. While I am excited to share its final results with you, our readers, I cannot officially endorse it – nor will we specify the venue’s location – in order to remain neutral to other games we have and will continue to review around the world.

Professor Bleehall’s Odditorium Emporium & Pie Shoppe is the premier shopping destination for any who crave the weird, the wild or the wacky. Every object sold here is a one of a kind treasure that carries the highest of values and demands a premiu… you know what, let’s just be honest:

This stuff is crap.

Like many things that claim to be “great,” Professor Bleehall is a fraud, and his shop is stocked ceiling to floor with absolute junk. Sure, there , may be one or two actual oddities mixed in – but that wasn’t by design; it’s probably just something that happened to be at the bottom of a bargain box he picked up at the nearby flea market. But, he’ll never tell you that; to the contrary, everything sold within Professor Bleehall’s Odditorium Emporium & Pie Shoppe is spun creatively to imply claims of a much higher worth. It’s the American way!

Say what you will about Professor Bleehall’s decorating tastes, but there’s simply no question that his shelves are well hung; they have to be – they’re cluttered with so much garbage that some are quite literally bowing under pressure. Every inch of every wall is stacked to the brim with stuff, and all of it is ‘for sale’ in this bizarre bazaar.

There’s toys mixed with weapons, real chicken skeletons, pictures of books, a bazillion easter eggs to some of the funniest pop culture references from The Simpsons, The Office and South Park, among others, “fine art,” dead animals, as well as left over food cartons from some of our actual on-site lunches during install (hey, even a designer has to eat!) and, well, actual garbage. That’s right; it wasn’t just a figure of speech that time.

There’s really only one word that can describe Professor Bleehall’s Odditorium Emporium & Pie Shoppe:

Strange

Unique

Over-whelming

Jackhammer

Merciless

Insatiable 

Opening the oddly colored door to the shop, contestants are immediately blocked by a poorly placed shelf seemingly about to tip over, stacked with knives, arrows, swords and adorable stuffed animals. (The trick to retail is putting the stuff the kids like up front.) Walking around it, the insane world of Professor Bleehall unveils itself like a really bad movie that nobody actually wants to watch- for example, Cats. A large sales counter, which naturally doubles as a pie display dominates the space. Objects of every imaginable persuasion, some antique, some cheap, some living and some dead line every available inch of shelf space.

A mysterious wooden cabinet is secured with not one but three padlocks. Its splintered doors are graffitied with ominous messages like “DANGER,” “EVIL” and “DO NOT OPEN!” Given the caliber of cursed objects carelessly left about unguarded, one can only imagine what lies within.

Behind the sales counter, separated by a tacky beaded curtain, is the shoppe’s warehouse. Dirty and covered in cobwebs, it’s full of dozens of locked crates of varying size and style, stacked all the way up to the impossibly low rafters. It is here that Professor Bleehall keeps his most prized Forbidden Objects – things that might make perfect prizes for a certain shopping spree contest – if you catch my drift. Also one of the boxes is wet inside, and another one has a giant spider living in it. His name is Wentworth Webweaver, and he’s a globe-hopping foodie who owns a restaurant. Pretty standard, really.

If you haven’t already figured it out by this point, there’s nothing normal about Professor Bleehall’s Odditorium Emporium & Pie Shoppe – and that trend continues throughout its puzzles in a very big way. For starters, this is not a traditional escape game; this is the world’s first Create Your Own Adventure Game™, wherein contestants have the ability to choose not only the way that they want to play, but what puzzles they want to solve, and in some cases, how they wish to do it!

I could try to explain it to you myself, but legally, I’m required to share this official letter from the corporate offices of Fussing/Feuding MS™, Inc. LLC, the parent company of Professor Bleehall’s Odditorium Emporium & Pie Shoppe:

The contest begins by releasing the devil – well, in plant form, anyway. A simple warm-up puzzle provides a foreboding warning of things to come as contestants open the three locks securing the large cabinet. Inside it is our host for the shopping spree, Hubert.

Now, I know what you might be thinking, “Oh, so Hubert is a puppet!”

NO. Hubert is a lot of things, but a puppet is not one of them:

A plant. Official time keeper. Comic relief. Uninvited commentator. A puppet. Hint system. 

*Hubert is also kind of a dick.

One way or the other, you’d better learn to love him, because you’re stuck with him for the remainder of the shopping spree. (Hey, we made it pretty clear that opening that cabinet was a bad idea; this one’s on you.)

Throughout the contest, shoppers must buy Forbidden Objects from Hubert, using Professor Bleehall’s patented custom currency, the Oddinero. Like Itchy & Scratchy Dollars, most other places won’t accept it, and even the Odditorium Emporium & Pie Shoppe doesn’t honor Oddinero on some Tuesdays. And if you foolishly arrived without your own Oddinero in hand, worry not! Hubert is always happy to send annoying humans on fool’s errands to earn some, through a series of more than two dozen bonus puzzles.

Once you’ve gotten enough Oddinero to actually participate in the shopping spree, there’s some forty official puzzles to tackle – but only a small portion of them will ever be used in a single game. Each is a stand-alone task that yields a prize if completed correctly. Every puzzle begins with purchasing a Forbidden Object from Hubert – but the catch is that contestants have no idea what they’re actually buying until they’ve paid for it. That’s how they get’cha. With so many different Forbidden Objects available, there’s a wide range of easy, medium and hard challenges – and the respective prize for each varies in value depending on how much work contestants need to put into winning it.

Don’t worry; returns are accepted for a small restocking fee, and a personal shopper service is available for those who want to pick their difficulty, also for a small fee. (We’ve got bills to pay!)

The value of each prize only counts towards contestants’ final score if it is placed in the correct spot on the Prize Redemption Shelf. This may sound pretty straight-forward, but, come on, has anything else been up to this point? “Convenient” tags hang from the shelf describing which prize belongs where; the only problem is they’re presented with a bit of a, ahem, marketing spin. Sure, a prize my look like a plastic spork pulled out of the trashcan – but figuring out what Professor Bleehall is misrepresenting it as is all part of the fun. Or it’s annoying. Whatever. This whole contest is rigged anyway.

Unlike Professor Bleehall’s questionable business philosophy, a Create Your Own Adventure Game™ really is all about choosing how you want to play every aspect of the experience. There are so many layers available to contestants that this shopping spree really never will play out the same way twice. Beyond simply picking the puzzles that make up the game itself, guests have the ability to decide if they want to activate an added layer of difficulty that involves a dynamic time clock. Remember how we said Hubert is the official time keeper of the shopping spree? Well, he’s also corrupt. Every time a contestant feeds him Plant Food™, he’ll add minutes to the clock equal to the number of ounces he just guzzled down. Plant Food™ can be bought, found or straight-up stolen. Hubert doesn’t care; he’s a growing sapling. But there’s a catch (as usual) – choosing this layer of the experience starts the shopping spree with just 17:30 on the clock – so you’d better get to bribing!

Another layer allows contestants to play head to head, in an every-shopper-for-themselves bonanza. By marking prizes with colored tokens, the final scores will determine who worked the hardest. Or, you know, who cheated the most – because stealing prizes is a totally viable, and entirely encouraged course of action. This head to head shopping spree requires players to always keep one eye on the prize shelf; you never know when Granny Lala might steal credit for finding that spork!

There’s also the obvious layer of this game’s stand-alone puzzles. Without any connection from one task to the next, puzzles can constantly be changed and added, giving this game a lifespan that no average escape room could compete with. Even in its base incarnation, with the understanding that I created this game and every single puzzle within it, it took me two hours and five minutes to play through everything. Think about that; two hours and five minutes worth of content when you know every single answer, and walk in pre-programmed with knowledge of each puzzle’s mechanic. We’ve since learned that without any additions, there’s enough content for at minimum, four to five full play-throughs before ever repeating a single puzzle!

Much like an onion, what makes Professor Bleehall’s Odditorium Emporium & Pie Shoppe truly special is its many layers. And much like an onion, this game may also make you cry.

And like every good store owner, Professor Bleehall values his repeat customers. That’s why he’s created an official Customer Loyalty Card™, which is presented to each contestant at the end of their shopping spree. Hubert marks off completed puzzle tracks, allowing returning contestants to know with certainty that their next experience will be completely unique. All they need to do is pick different Forbidden Object doors. Or, they can look “really cool” in front of their friends by speed running through the Forbidden Objects they’ve already solved to get a higher score. Whatever. Again, the whole contest is rigged anyway.

Professor Bleehall’s Odditorium Emporium & Pie Shoppe already has multiple locations on both coasts of the United States, with several more currently in the works. For those who do not live within a day’s drive of one of his brick and mortar stores, online shopping is available through Professor Bleehall’s website, www.OdditoriumEmporium.com. He’ll never actually ship you any merchandise, but you’re still welcome to send him money.

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Creator:  Chris +

Number of Games: 23

GAME SPECIFIC INFORMATION:

Duration: Can be scaled to suit each installation; recommended 45 minutes

Designed Capacity: Can be scaled to suit each installation; recommended 6-10 people

More Photos: -> click here <-

Chris + exclusively owns the intellectual property rights to Professor Bleehall’s Odditorium Emporium & Pie Shoppe Create Your Own Adventure Game attraction.

To inquire about its availability for your venue, email Chris@Chris.plus.