Beat the Room Escape Room: Spoiler-Free Review

This is the second venue we explored in our escape room journey, where we brought two other puzzle-loving members of our family for their first escape room experience ever. Once again, we were not disappointed and already look forward to coming back to try all the remaining rooms. 

Beat the Room - Rocklin

Rooms: All the rooms we've tried so far have been fun, immersive and engaging. Some are single room (did not feel cramped) and some are multi-room.

  • Captain’s Quarters: 2–8 players, Intermediate-Beginner (as rated by venue)
    • Pirate-themed single room with great, immersive setting, fun props and plenty of puzzles to occupy four people, though it also would have been doable with two. We finished surprisingly fast, not because the puzzles were overly easy, just because we had a lot of clever people working on them.
      • Solved with 4 people in 25.12 minutes, 0 hints! (Top of the leaderboard!)
  • Bitten: (90 minutes) 4–10 players, Expert
    • Vampire-themed multi-room that was spooky but not scary. Has some dexterity-based tasks as well as thoughtful and creative puzzles tailored specifically to the room/set, which made it super fun. Definitely enough puzzles for four people, possibly more depending on your team. 
      • Solved with 4 people in 81.18 minutes, 4 hints! (3rd on leaderboard!)
  • 221 Baker Street: (50 minutes) 2–8 players, Intermediate 
    • TBD
  • Chasm: 2–8 players, Intermediate
    • TBD
  • Deep Space: 2–8 players, Intermediate
    • TBD
  • The Lab: 2–10 players, Intermediate
    • TBD
  • Initiation: 2–8 players, Intermediate/Challenging depending on ending 
    • TBD 
  • New York Noir: 2–8 players, Challenging - ranked by points vs. time 
    • TBD

Vacaville

  • Sherlock: (50 minutes) 2–8 players, Intermediate/Challenging - revamped 221 Baker Street
    • TBD
  • Prohibition: 2–8 players, Intermediate/Challenging
    • TBD
  • Krampus: 2–6 players, Intermediate/Challenging - SCARY
    • TBD
  • Plundering: 2–8 players, Challenging
    • TBD

Cost: Rooms vary in price ranging from $88–130 for 2 people (more for the 90-minute experience with a minimum of 4 people). Save 10% by paying for your next room after your first!


Gamemasters: Team was kind and helpful, answering questions and such. When starting rooms, a staff member would give you the intro complete with accent and/or tone appropriate for the theme—very fun! They also stayed in character when delivering hints during the game.


Puzzles: Very fun and challenging, but also intuitive and approachable. A good mix of riddle-style quandaries, lock/combo/key set-ups and manual/tactile puzzles, all themed to the room and with a good range of difficulty.


Timer: So far unique to this venue, there were no visible timers or screens to show you the countdown of your quest. Instead, you could either ask for a time call or, for the longer room, they would announce 30-minute increments. Final times are exact as the gamemaster tracks you on a stopwatch.


Hints: I believe hints are unlimited but they count them for tallying the leaderboard. Hints are requested verbally by speaking aloud and delivered audibly in character by the gamemaster. Hints were helpful, attentive and not overbearing.  


Leaderboard: This venue tracks the top 9 teams for every room, updated monthly. This is cool because it gives you more of a chance to make the board against the pro teams out there. Speaking of which, we topped the board for the pirate room!


Lobby: Very cool, big waiting area with clocks all over the wall, Sherlock-style wallpaper, posters advertising their rooms, and room-themed objects on each of the tables. Lockers are under/near the leaderboards. Some of their rooms are actually in another building in the same parking lot.


Photo Ops: We were allowed to take our success photos in one room but at the photo screen of the other. No signs to hold, but they had fun props and capes you could wear to spruce up the scene.   


Overall Fun: Delightful! Great themes/settings, intriguing and unique puzzles, great staff, plenty of rooms and challenges to explore.


TLDR: 5/5, would escape again


Looking for more escape room fun? Check out my full list of NorCal Escape Rooms with links!

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