Well, we are back and we did not find all the clues/open all the locks in time. I thought we were pitiful, but the owner said we did ok for our first "Escape". It wasn't at all what I expected. I thought there would be trivia type questions you had to know the answers to, and there was none of that. (What a relief!) Absolutely everything you need to solve everything is there in the room for you. But it's not as easy as finding a key hidden somewhere. You had to find and interpret clues, which then got you to unlock something that contained another clue or two. There were 8 padlocks in the room, one of which we didn't even discover! Some were opened with a key, some had 3 or 4 number combinations, and one used letters to open the padlock. There were a couple things there to frustrate you, and they worked very well on me! There were some worthless numbers there to lead you own a dead end path, and I followed those, too.
And I definitely was not ready to start off with the light off in the room! The first thing you had to do was figure out how to get the light on. Until then you only had two battery operated restaurant table candles to use. Dummy me---I have a small flashlight on my keychain, with me at all times, and I use it alot----never even thought to use it while I was in the dark for the first ten minutes! But it was alot of fun. The owner gave us a couple of clues here and there over a phone, and at the end, showed us the rest of the challenge we hadn't completed. I think if we go again we'll do better because we now understand how an escape room works, and how the clues lead you. It's mostly about being very observant, not about what trivial knowledge you have rattling inside your head. Not a single "quilty" thing in that restaurant! I do recommend it for a fun time if you get a chance to participate in one. This one was $20 each and the challenge was timed at 30 minutes. Dh was glad he went, and planning how we can do another one with four other people.
