RATING: 4 Keys         RESULT: Win          REMAINING: 12:12

Another day, another psychopath that’s captured us and threatens to kill us if we don’t escape. You’d think they’d learn to pick someone else by now.

Psycho Room’s story is a fairly average one. A killer is on the loose, wreaking having throughout the city and nothing the police force has done seems to be enough to stop him. Naturally, it’s now up to us to solve this case, bring the psycho to justice and save the day.

We’ve found his lair, but, well there’s just one little problem. He planned for that. And now we’re trapped, seemingly destine to become his next victims.

Honestly, for as many killers as we’ve stopped by now, you’d think we’d be more careful to not keep falling for these traps, but here we are.

CAPTVT really shined in the scenic department. Their sets were great, and really set them in a class above much of the LA market. Psycho Room spanned multiple rooms throughout the killer’s home, including a hidden space where he held his victims before they ultimately met their grisly fates.

The space was dark and inherently unwelcoming – almost to the point of being actually scary. And if the space didn’t get you, the jump scare effect behind a sealed door certainly would have!

But though the sets and decor were of top notch quality – there was something missing to truly carry CAPTVT to the next level: background music. Or audio of any type beyond the preshow video, for that matter.

Can you imagine watching an epic adventure movie with its score muted? Music subliminally paints the picture for us, and without it, we’re left with a certain awkwardness that is difficult to embrace. That awkwardness was Psycho Room – a game that otherwise could have been one of the best in the market suffered because of one poor design choice.

We escaped Psycho Room in roughly 30 minutes – and honestly, it’s really not because the gameplay was necessarily easy – but rather that each step really built logically off the one before it, with everything flowing in a smooth and intuitive way.

Puzzles connected to the killer and his victims, culminating in a giant map of the city wherein we were left like detectives to connect points of crime scenes together with colorful lengths of string, eventually spelling out one of our final codes. It’s a puzzle we’ve seen many times since in games elsewhere, but honestly CAPTVT pulled it off in a far more natural, organic, story-driven way than we’ve ever seen again.

At the end of the day, CAPTVT was a venue with fairly great potential that just never quite managed to apply that final layer of polish. On so many levels they were so close to something special, and each time they fell just inches short.

Unfortunately CAPTVT has permanently closed and as such, we’ll never be able to fully experience the “what ifs” for what could have been from them. We’re glad we were able to have the chance to visit before it was too late, and do have some fond memories of our time there. But ultimately, while they had some good or even great games, they just missed connecting those last few dots.

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Venue:  CAPTVT

Location: Los Angeles, California

Number of Games: 2

GAME SPECIFIC INFORMATION:

Duration: 45 minutes

Capacity: 6 people

Group Type: Public  / You may be paired with strangers.

Cost: This venue has permanently closed.