LOCATION: Cherry Hill, New Jersey, USA
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📝 ETR DECODER
🔑 GAME: Top Secret Mission
📅 DATE PLAYED: July 7, 2019
🎬 GENRE: Mission
🧠 DIFFICULTY (Based on 2 ppl): 8/10
👥 TOTAL # OF PLAYERS: Up To 12PPL
🕒 LENGTH OF TIME: 60 Mins
💰 PRICE: $30/PP
☎️ BOOKING TYPE: Public
🔓 ESCAPED/ COMPLETED?: No
Video above is property of ESCAPETHEROOMers
Amazing Escape Room is a franchise with 11 locations currently in the states of NJ, NY, CA and PA. They also have a sister company called “Bury the Hatchet” which is an axe throwing company which also has many locations. Today, we visited their Cherry Hill location. There’s plenty of parking outside this complex. We’ve visited their Montclair & Philadelphia locations before and comparing to those, this one is on a much larger scale. The lobby is very spacious with plenty of seats for guests to wait around. They recently added a life size Deadpool figurine so make sure you get your camera ready!
We are very excited to try their brand new “Top Secret Mission” room as we will be the very FIRST players to enter this new room. We really appreciate the team (especially Issabella R., General Manager of the location) that worked super hard to get this room ready for us to review. We were debriefed by our game master that Top Secret documents are being leaked and we must investigate and find out who the mole is and the method that he’s using to leak these secret documents out to his contact in the outside world.
As we entered, we felt transported to a military base and since the other operatives were out training, we started to search their belongings in hopes to find clues to help us discover the mole. The set design and lighting was all very on point. We thought theme music was extremely loud but wasn’t sure if that was intentional or not, but it might help if they could lower it especially if there’s a large group of players playing. Mainly because they might have to converse back and forth and it’s quite hard to hear. In the first area, we felt the puzzles were more linear so we had to work together on most of them. With just the two of us, it was a bit challenging as it is a spacious room (please note our rating for difficulty above is based on 2 ppl). Later, however, we had to divide and conquer. We're not sure if its because of a technical problem in their game master’s control room that day or not, but the clue giving time frame was quite long at this location. This made us a bit frustrated especially when this is a new room and we thought perhaps it was still in a beta testing phase for some puzzles. So asking for hints and receiving it quickly would have created a smoother game flow. We did not end up escaping with just the two of us. The game master had to come in a few times to assist with a few puzzles as some didn’t work right away but we understand since it’s still considered in beta test phase. There is definitely a lot to do in this room and you shouldn't waste any time after you enter. Even though the props used were inline with the story line, the puzzles felt a bit weak and there were a few we still don't understand how they operated and why the solution is what it is.
Hopefully they’ll be able to debug the hint system and let clues get to the players faster as this is definitely a very immersive room and by making the gameplay smoother, we think the players could have a lot of fun working together to stop the mole and his evil scheme! And as for us, on to the next challenge – “Night at the Museum”.
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(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 Amazing Escape Room (Cherry Hill) for comping our tickets for this game. Although complimentary admission was generously provided, it does not impact our opinion on the review whatsoever.
