Underworld

Lock Down


  • Location: Las Vegas, NV
  • Number of Players: 2-10
  • Cost: $
  • Props & Decor:
  • Puzzles:
  • Theme:
  • Overall:

Written by: The Bat

Underworld

We’ve made it to the underworld somehow, Hades has no time for mere mortals and hints that asking the other gods for help might lead to our freedom.

Props & Decor:

Did we feel like we had actually descended into Hades Underworld caverns? Not really. However, while the décor was obviously carved and painted foam, fake flowers, and well painted walls, it was well put together. The first room definitely expressed the theme, but the second one seemed to deviate in a way that the imagination has to stretch a bit to make the connection.

The Dragon’s 2 Cents

As the Bat said the first room looked and felt like the Underworld, after we go through the puzzles there however the second room just felt like a Greek mythos puzzle room. I am rusty on my Greek mythos but I don’t really remember the other gods wanting to mess with the Underworld and other than Zeus generally stayed as far away as possible.

Puzzles:

We chose an easy level room this time, mostly because we liked the idea of the theme. That being said, the first puzzle was incredibly vague in its connection. We messed around for a good 10 minutes before having to ask for a hint to get us started. For a beginner player, that could be very disheartening. Most of the puzzles after that ran well, all locks and tricks were fully functional. One faded picture made a counting puzzle a bit challenging, but we did not get overly stuck on any part after the beginning. The hint system was over a walkie talkie, and the game master gave concise and relevant instructions. And, without giving any spoilers, I thought the last puzzle was especially fun; it even made me laugh a bit when I saw it.

The Dragon’s 2 Cents

This is probably the Game Dev in me but for an “easy” room I expected puzzles that would hold my hand so to speak. In some cases this was achieved but most of the time we had to fumble through the puzzles. Now maybe I should have taken “easy” to be Dark Souls level of easy, however I don’t think most people sign up for Dark Souls when they pick an escape room rated easy. I was hoping for intuitive puzzles that once I completed one I got to the next and so on, a simple linear progression if you will but instead we got some puzzles that did this and some that seemed shoehorned into the mix that didn’t seem to fit the theme as much. The more I think about it, they say a picture is worth a thousand words so I’ll sum up my feelings with this meme:

Theme:

This part may repeat a bit of what I said in the décor section. They did stick to the Grecian theme, but not necessarily the Underworld part. I had expected a darker, more threatening idea throughout.

I’m not sure this part belongs here, but I was a bit disappointed in their intro video. It was just a bunch of stock footage thrown together with a voice over of the synopsis from the website. The stock footage was hardly even relevant to the voice over and not at all to the game itself. The game master gave us the instructions for the game, and he did well, but the video was a bit pointless. It seemed like it was thrown together because every escape room has a video.

The Dragon’s 2 Cents

I shared similar thoughts as the Bat does, if the theme was Greek mythos then they nailed it. A part of me was hoping the Ring-esc video was foreshadowing with how random the video was but alas there wasn’t. One thing I felt was a little too thematic for an “easy” escape room was how vague some of the puzzles were as a result of trying to incorporate them to the theme.

Overall:

While I was expecting a bit more of a creepy, Underworld vibe, we were able to lose ourselves in the game. The challenges were easy enough to solve but not so easy we felt cheated. I would say it is a fun, lighthearted room for beginners, as long as you don’t attempt to take the theme or the lore behind it too seriously.


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