I mentioned about room escapes in a previous blog. If you’d like to read, CLICK HERE as it gives a general idea about what an escape room is. This post is about a room escape that my friends and I went to called Captured LV Escape Room located in Bethlehem, PA. The LV stands for Lehigh Valley in Pennsylvania case anyone was wondering.
Captured LV holds four different rooms, the usual amount of escape rooms these type of places have. We were here before and did the Mayan Temple room, but didn’t make it out of the room in time. On this visit, we played The Brain Game, their game show themed room. The theme was different compared to what we have done before. Where most places you need to escape, here it’s not to escape per se, but to solve the puzzles and win $1,000,000. (It’s not really an actual prize. I feel I need to put this disclaimer in case someone thinks that you could really win a million dollars at this place).
Captured LV With other escape rooms that I’ve been to, the creators do a good job with trying to make the room feel like you are in the escape scenario that you chose. But some of them can feel like a Halloween decorated room. Captured LV Escape looks like some extra effort went into designing these rooms and creating an atmosphere. Though, it should be a warning that there are flashing lights on these rooms. You are given notice on their webpage if you are photosensitive or may be prone to seizures. I’m not sure if these effects can be turned off. You are greeted by a host or hosts that give you a rundown of the room you are entering and the dos and do not’s of the room. It almost blows my mind that there is a warning not to put your fingers in an electric socket. Music also plays in the room while trying to escape. Something that can add tension while trying to solve the puzzles. I may have annoyed my friends as I was calling up what each song was while I was trying to solve puzzles. But they should know what music was playing, be it the He-man and The Masters of the Universe theme, Dig Dug music, and many other songs. There is a monitor in each room that gives you a timer to let you know how much time is left and helps you with clues for your room if you are stumped. You only get two clues but get an extra one if you like and follow them on Facebook. Hints aside, it’s nice to have a timer and not have to keep track how much time is left on my watch.
The only aspect of Captured LV Escape Rooms puzzles that I can’t grasp is skill-based puzzles. I don’t think having these kinds of puzzles is a good or bad thing. I don’t mind skill-based puzzles, it could be the gamer side of me talking. I just wonder if this type of puzzle should be allowed. It’s a portion of the escape room that if you don’t have a skill required, then you can lose time or even the game itself. This has been the only place I’ve done types of puzzles.
The website for Captured LV doesn’t list the difficulty of any of the rooms. It would be nice to know how difficult each room is. Then again, I just don’t get how Escape Rooms gage the difficulty for each room. Low, medium and high can make sense to me, not the X out of 10. Maybe 8 out of 10 couldn’t solve the puzzle on their own? That’s my interpretation of it. The challenge is going to be different for everybody. I have a few screen grabs of a few different escape rooms I found on the internet shown below and listing difficulty.
If I can offer tips on Escape Rooms for anyone who is a beginner or maybe a veteran of escape rooms that have helped me out:
- Teamwork is essential. Don’t go off on your own, you all need to work together. Working by yourself can cause confusion in your group and cost time when you solve a puzzle on your own.
- When you are being shown a room, take the time to observe the room. Most of the time, I feel the host doesn’t give much more information that can help you and you can take the extra 2 minutes or so to observe the room and hints to solve puzzles. CLues are and can be written (literally on the wall)
- Sometimes, depending on the size of the room, don’t try to answer one puzzle as one group. If your group is big enough, break off into groups of 2 or 3 and work on solving puzzles. Your team can cover more ground and solve puzzles faster. Plus if someone is stumped in the group, you could trade-off with another team, and maybe they can solve something that you were unable to or vice versa.
I’d also feel I need to apologize to my friends. While solving the puzzles in this room, I was starting to get intense in my behavior. Maybe it was the music, lights, and the count down timer, but I did not use any of the advice I had previously listed. I didn’t mean to act the way that I did and go off on my own. I kind of felt bad that the host noted that my name was mentioned most of the time that we were in there. What I like about doing an escape room with others is not only the teamwork and building skills but the way that I can reflect on myself and how I work with others. So, thank you and again sorry. I hope I can grow from this and hey, we made it out.
If you wish to check out the website, CLICK HERE or click on the link below. Has anyone else been to other room escapes and got recommendations, let me know in the comments, thank you for reading.
Tom Moscato's Blog 