Review: Golden Puzzle Rooms - The Vampire's Study

RATING: 1 Key RESULT: Win REMAINING: 9:26

Hi, I am here in this alley to help break a curse….I think?

Story

Around 500 years ago, the master set sail with Juan Ponce de Leon in search of the Fountain of Youth. What they found, instead, was the Tree of Life.

After attaining eternal life, they became greedy and didn’t want anyone else to discover the secret. So they chopped the tree down. Doing so, however, imposed a curse they must live with for all eternity.

For hundreds of years many have tried breaking the tree’s curse, but many have failed, and many have ended up the master’s dinner.

Soooooo……why am I here?

The object of your Vampire’s Study adventure is to solve the collection of puzzles while the Master is away and he will be back sooner than you think! He will be thirsty and looking for his next victim! Will it be you?

But….I mean….I don’t understand what would draw me in, narrative wise, as a logical reason for me to be entering this room. I haven’t even gotten to the location yet and already I am confused as to why this makes any sense at all. Also, what happened to Juan?

-Not a good start hopefully the scenic makes it better.

Scenic

NOPE! Not any better-

Where do we start? How about the entrance? The Vampire’s Study is the only room at Golden Puzzle Rooms and when we went we were told to go down a dark alley-

-in the middle of downtown Sacramento

-at night

-to a door with a puzzle piece painted on it……which was locked!

They also advised to grab a drink next door at the Pre-Flite Lounge (which actually has a richer story than this escape room, seriously).

So after finding the door to the venue locked, we grabbed a drink, came back, and a lady dressed as a housemaid opened the door and let us in.

Once we were given our *amazing* story, our game master opened the door to The Vampire’s Study and allowed us to enter the (not so) incredibly immersive world of the nameless vampire whom she served.

There were a couple of book cases, a small bar (but no alcohol to dull the pain), a coffin (because, vampire), a table or 2 and some pictures on the wall. An upholstered chair sat in the corner of the room and there was a second chair where our game master sat the entire game, stoically, until we needed assistance (it was a bit awkward).

Basically, after 500 years our captor(?) had a study that was the equivalent a single space office that you could rent out from any commercial property manager.

Take me away to your magical world…..

Please let the puzzles save this.

Puzzles

NOPE! Still not any better-

The puzzles here ranged from a high point of “OK” to a low point of “Why in the name of holy water and garlic would this be in a vampire’s study?!”

So basically, the same roller coaster of emotions I experienced while watching “Dracula: Dead and Loving It”. The only difference is Leslie Nielsen, I think, again I have no idea who the vampire in this game was.

This is the thing about this room, all of the puzzles where simply there because an escape room requires puzzles!

Narrative wise, I have no idea WHY these puzzles existed.

I also have no idea why the vampire’s assistant didn’t try to stop us from leaving, you would think he/she would be pretty mad if his/her help simply let his/her dinner waltz out the door.

Overall

So no surprise here but, this room was not good.

At NO POINT did I ever understand why I was standing in this study other than “Because, Escape Room”. Narrative wise, it never explained how we got there, why we were there, why we wouldn’t just walk back out the door we had come in (it was magically locked??), and most importantly, never once did anything in this room make me believe there was a vampire descending upon me to consume my blood.

I will say this, the lady who played our game master was incredibly dedicated to her role. When she spoke she was clearly playing the character to the best of her ability (which was rather well). She was the one highlight in a valley of low points.

But that really speaks to the issue with this room, if your in game actor/game master (who only sat in the chair and interacted with us maybe 3 or 4 times for a couple sentences at most) is the best thing I can talk about, you have a huge problem.

In my opinion, this game sole purpose of existence was to try and capitalize on the (at the time) new escape room market in Sacramento. It’s truly a wonder to me that they still operating today.

So if you ever find yourself in downtown Sacramento and you hear a voice from a dark alley try tell you about an escape room, trust your instincts and don’t listen! This is the escape room enthusiast’s equivalent to the windowless van that says “Free Candy” on it in front of school, sure it sounds like a great idea, until you find yourself locked in!