Operation: X-13

This was an impromptu night of “get out and do something fun” and well we enjoy escape rooms so I looked around at a few places we haven’t gone to yet, I came across Trapped’s Operation: X-13 I mean when you advertise with a line like “You will encounter lasers, alarms, explosions on this mission” how could we say no! It fit the bill to say the least.

More about Operation: X-13 on Trapped’s website.

Props & Decor:

It’s an office setting so the props and décor were fairly well done. While it is an easy theme I will critique a bit… If you know what some rooms and devices look like or would be setup it makes it a bit hard to get into the suspension of disbelief mood. Beyond that I think they did a great job of incorporating some hints/puzzle mechanics with the various props and décor. Some weren’t very obvious either which I really liked. Err I should say not in a bad way, as they were apt for the theme.

Puzzles:

A lot of the puzzles were subtle which while not many were difficult for our collective skillsets it me feeling accomplished nearly every step of the way. The way they integrated the location aspect of the theme specifically using items that would be in an office environment was great.

Theme:

This is something I’m on the fence about because I can’t tell if it’s a me issue or the room. Part of the theme remained throughout. I always felt like I was trying to break into a place and get “something” however I forgot what we were supposed to be stealing, that’s a big part for me because I remembered in the beginning they made a big deal over the formula needed to be stolen. Another factor about the theme was a bit odd that there weren’t any people in the spaces we could access but then we needed to contact inter office departments… for some interactions. Was the office closed for the night or just oddly empty?

Overall:

If you want to feel like you’re breaking into an office to get some incriminating blackmail on the owner of a company be it because you’re a disgruntled employee or you’re looking to take the blackmail back this is the type of escape room for you. Not exactly the theme but that’s where my mind wandered once I was in the moment. Not only is it fun but the way they interacted with us and even the bonus puzzles and such were a lot of fun. While we had some issues figuring stuff out due to how vague the implementation may have been in a few places it was a lot of fun and usually stepping back for a moment was enough to figure it out and if not well the hints were quite helpful and not just scripted hints which I thought was great.

Lastly I wanted to give a quick shout out as it’s been awesome for finding other escape room blogs which have given us ideas for future visits among other tidbits of info. If you’re curious you should check out: Top 35 Escape Room Blogs