MindBreak Escape - "Fairly Odd Tales"

LOCATION:  Norwich, Connecticut, USA

Photo above is property of ESCAPETHEROOMers

Photos above are property of ESCAPETHEROOMers

📝  ETR DECODER

• 🔑 GAME: Fairly Odd Tales

• 📅 DATE PLAYED: September 15, 2019

• 🎬 GENRE: Fairy Tale

• 🧠 DIFFICULTY (Based on 2 ppl): 4/10

• 👥 TOTAL # OF PLAYERS: Up to 8 ppl

• 🕒 LENGTH OF TIME: 60 Mins.

• 💰 PRICE: $24.99/ pp (Public)/ $200.00 (Private)

• ☎️ BOOKING TYPE: Private

• 🔓 ESCAPED/ COMPLETED?: Yes

Video above is property of ESCAPETHEROOMers

MindBreak Escape took over Ultimate Escape Room in CT and reopened it last year. You can read our reviews on Ultimate Escape Room's games - "Lost In Space ( formerly "Alien Abduction")", “Secret Agent” & “Quest for the Throne” for more details on this location. They have not changed much in those rooms so if you have played them before, you probably want to check out their new games instead. The one that just opened is called “Fairly Odd Tales”. They also have a brand-new room coming soon called “Houdini’s Great Escape”.

“Fairly Odd Tales” was a room inspired by the Grimm brothers. The story was that because of Grimm brother’s success, their very oddly creative siblings started to write children’s books as well. The siblings have made a big mistake with their first book, “Secrets of The Moon Howlers” as they exposed things they shouldn’t have. This made the wolf pack leader - Fang really mad. He is now taking village people hostage and we must go through the enchanted forest to save them!  

Since we’ve played at Ultimate Escape Room before, the layout of this room was familiar to us as it used to be the room for “Quest for The Throne”. Our recommended group size for this room is 2-3 people. It would be nice to explain in the debriefing of where we were starting off as initially, we thought we were entering the enchanted forest. The room we entered felt like a character’s home and there wasn't much space to work with in there and we saw the developer trying to create some separation for the progression of the storyline. If that’s the case, then the next area should not be visible yet so there can be a “wow” factor as we go through to the next area. This room could definitely be played by new escape room players as the puzzles were not as challenging. The fairy tale stories were cleverly written so it was nice to have a clear guidance to follow along. One puzzle in the next room did stump us as we did not know where to input a certain answer. It would be great if there were some indications of placements as initially, we thought that area was “not in play” due to the exposed wires. One surprise we found later on was that if we had found this one particular clue and solved it, we would've been able to skip the entire last room and be able to get out just by using the simple clue. We actually spent most of our time on this final puzzle and really liked how it was a three-step puzzle and had fun solving it. We feel that this wasted the developer’s hard work at creating the actual puzzles for the players and added confusion for the experienced players. We don’t think an alternative escape puzzle was necessary here. The décor and props used could have been a bit more updated and detailed since we noticed that they have utilized some of the old furniture from the previous escape room. We are all for salvaging and reusing pieces, but when the remanence of the puzzle from the other room was still on the furniture piece, it creates confusion for players (we knew it wasn’t in play mainly because we played the other room before). There was also another part of a puzzle from the old room that was not taken down from the wall. One other puzzle was explained to use later that the players would just have to get it by luck as there’s no actual direction in the game play to direct them to do that certain action to trigger a solution. We feel like with better game flow and some tweaking in the room design, this storyline could be very fun and engaging for the players.  

We look forward to seeing MindBreak Escape’s new creations and if you happen to be in Missouri, they do have two locations (St. Charles & Columbia) with different games that you can try out.

Photos above are property of ESCAPETHEROOMers

---

* We regret to inform this company has closed its doors *

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

#CiciCao #IRLescaperoom #EscapeRooms #MindBreak #FairyTale #Connecticut #USA