Escape Room Herndon - "The Magician's Workshop"

Updated: Jun 8

LOCATION:  Herndon, Virginia, USA

Photo above is property of Escape Room Herndon

Photos above are property of Escape Room Herndon

📝 ETR DECODER

🔑 GAME: The Magician's Workshop
📅 DATE PLAYED: February 28, 2021
🎬 GENRE: Magic
🧠 DIFFICULTY (Based on 2 ppl): 5.5/10
👥 TOTAL # OF PLAYERS: 4-6 ppl
🕒 LENGTH OF TIME: 60 Mins
💰 PRICE: $28.00/ pp
☎️ BOOKING TYPE: Private
🔓 ESCAPED/ COMPLETED?: Yes

📖 THE STORY

As an apprentice for one of the best magicians - "Carter the Great", you've become aware that his biggest rival - "The Great Danton" is preparing to unveil his newest trick during tomorrow's performance. According to "The Great Danton", his newest trick will destroy not only your career, but "Carter the Great" as well! Your mission is to find out what this new trick entails and the source of it's power before it's too late!

Video above is property of ESCAPETHEROOMers

🎯 HIT THE BULLSEYE

Magician themed escape rooms are fun but definitely quite difficult to make if you want to achieve "magical moments" for the players. We've also played a lot of magician-themed escape rooms by now so it's quite difficult to find ones that'll give us those "wow" moments. As soon as we started "The Magician's Workshop", the first "reveal" already got our attention. We knew there's going to be many surprises waiting for us on this magical journey.
The set design felt like you've entered the magician's workshop where you'll see the common props that magicians would use like cards, wands, crystal balls etc. but there were other props that we've never seen before in a magic themed room. One prop (you'll know once you play the game) gave us such a profound effect that we still think about it till this day. It's just a really beautiful centerpiece that "lights" up the entire room.
We love it when a storyline isn't just about escaping! "The Magician's Workshop" reminded me of Christopher Nolan's "The Prestige" in that there's a strong rivalry between both magicians, Between the set design and the storyline, we felt like a character in the movie sneaking in to the backstage of the theatre searching for secrets.
Although there is a good amount of tech in this room, as you venture further along you'll discover a variety of different types of challenges from traditional to physical puzzles. Every item that was utilized in the game had its purpose (and stuck with the magic theme) and unraveled secrets as if we were performing magic tricks.
The finale was phenomenal. The "room" performed a magical act that we still can't figure out how it's done till this day. I guess we'll never know since a magician never reveals his secrets (If any of you think you've figured it out, feel free to indulge us with an email).

🧩 MISSED THE MARK

Much like the other Escape Room Herndon games, it's hard to nitpick on what "missed the mark" for us. The overall experience was amazing from the beginning to the end! If we had to make a suggestion, we would love to see some more puzzles added to a transitional space during the game.

🏹 TAKE A SHOT?

One thing is for sure, we can always rely on an incredible experience at a Ravenchase escape room location! At Escape Room Herndon, we've played their famous "8-Bit Escape" game back in 2019 and before playing "The Magician's Workshop", we premiered our first episode from our new series - "Escape Down Memory Lane" where we live streamed our play of "Room 213"! All of the games were so much fun and unique in their own ways.

If you're a fan of magic and love unexpected surprises that will keep you scratching your head and asking yourself repetitively with "how did they do that?" (even days after playing), then "The Magician's Workshop" is for YOU! This game will make you feel like a real magician and only through solving puzzles while doing magic trick will you be able to claim that final reward!

Above photos were provided by Escape Room Herndon

BOOK NOW

(If you do decide to try this game, give us a shoutout or tag us on social media so we know you heard it from "ESCAPETHEROOMers"!)

Disclosure: We thank Escape Room Herndon for comping our tickets for this game. Although complimentary admission was generously provided, it does not impact our opinion on the review whatsoever.