LOCATION: Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Photo above is property of PanIQ Room Boston
Photos above are property of ESCAPETHEROOMers
📝 ETR DECODER
🔑 GAME: Cartel Crackdown
📅 DATE PLAYED: July 3, 2022
🎬 GENRE: Detective, Narcotics
🧠 DIFFICULTY (Based on 4 ppl): 7/10
👥 TOTAL # OF PLAYERS: 2-7 ppl (Ages 18+)
🕒 LENGTH OF TIME: 60 Mins.
💰 PRICE: $38.00 - $45.00/ pp (pending on group size)
☎️ BOOKING TYPE: Private
🔓 ESCAPED/ COMPLETED?: Yes
📖 THE STORY
It's 1989, you and your team have been investigating "El Alto", leader of the most powerful drug cartels in the world! You've dedicated years of research and surveillance to try to bring him down. Recent intel provided a connection between El Alto and the local police in Bermuda. This could be your only shot to gather the evidence you need to put El Alto behind bars once and for all!
Video above is property of ESCAPETHEROOMers
🎯 HIT THE BULLSEYE
If you really enjoy logic & deduction puzzles, this room has one of the longest ones we've ever experienced (this might not be your cup of tea but we actually really enjoyed that final moment when we got all the right pieces in the right places).
There's a cool mechanism later on in the game that really made us feel like we were in a meth lab.
Some props, especially that giant metal vault door, felt really authentic and added to the secrecy and security of this lab.
🧩 MISSED THE MARK
Some of the clues that were placed on some props at the beginning felt like red herrings. We wasted a good amount of time discussing what's missing and why certain things were labeled in a certain way. Since those have nothing to do with a puzzle, they should just be removed.
Because there were a lot of puzzles that involved mechanical maneuvers, only one player can work on it at one time. We did find that at times a lot of us were just standing around and cheering that one person on.
Some music to add to the ambience especially towards the end would've been nice.
There are puzzles in there that some groups might just have to bypass in order to get out of there as there's one in particular that needed a lot of precision. We actually had to eventually ask the GM to show us how it's done and it took them awhile as well. This mechanism could easily be tweaked to take in a bit "error" space.
🏹 TAKE A SHOT?
If you had a group of more than 3-4 people, I highly recommend playing this game at their Atlantic City location. The space is probably three times as big as this one. As a group of 4, we felt pretty comfortable in this room. If you bring a group of diversified players, it'll be really helpful as with our team, the girls were power houses with the logic puzzle where the guys were super talented (or just really lucky) at figuring out the physical puzzles. You only have one chance to lock up "El Alto" so make sure you choose your teammates wisely!
ℹ️ ADDITIONAL INFO
Street meter parking or parking lot near by
Lobby with seating available
Merchandise available for sale
Photos above are property of ESCAPETHEROOMers
(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 PanIQ Room Boston for comping our tickets for this game. Although complimentary admission was generously provided, it does not impact our opinion on the review whatsoever.
Comments