It’s been a while since my close friends, and I went to an Escape Room. It’s not that we didn’t want to do one, we just couldn’t find the time to get everyone together. I had a birthday a few weeks ago and something that we started to do a few years ago is find an activity of our choosing and get together for that person’s birthday to do it. Well, also besides this being my friends late Christmas gift, I decided to want to go to Electric City Escape in Scranton, PA.
Located in the Board of Trade/Electric City Building in Scranton, PA, there are 4 different rooms available. These rooms cost $25 a person or less depending on the size of your group or various ways of saving with proper ID (college military, etc.). Three of the rooms that they have Escape Coal Mine No. 109, The Final Act: Houdini Experience, and Escape the Art Heist fit 2-8 people. There is a fourth room Doctor’s Study. It’s the largest room that fits 6-16 people. Like Captured Lehigh Valley Escape Room that we did last year The Brain Game, The Doctor’s Study wasn’t an escape room to escape from, but a “who done it” mystery. This is the only room that right now is a private room and you need 6 people at least to do this room. It still has the same rules and theme as a traditional escape room, but instead of escaping, you need to figure out who realized the virus into the room.
***SPOILER WARNING***
The following article contains spoilers from this point on.
The ambiance of the room was pretty good. I did get a small feeling that we were in a coal mine. This room did have some ambient sounds that did enhance the mining aspects of the room. Mostly by providing noises like the dripping water you could hear from inside of a cave. This was multi-room escape room so there may or may not be puzzle solutions that are in both rooms taht you will need. There was an opening dialogue that was well acted and set the mood and timer for the Escape Room.
The primary feature of the room I liked was at a certain point, we had to split up into two different groups. There were 3 boys and girls and were split up as such, so it worked out. I liked this, and I’ll give credit to the designers because this had to make us work more as a team to progress to the next area. Since both areas had clues and solutions that each side needed to progress, it made us work together to find clues at each section that we were in for better team building. It one of the better ways that promote is team building since you have to work with each other to progress.
The only downside to the room was the lighting. I did get the ambiance of the room with suppose to be like your are trapped inside of a coal mine, but there was a point that we had to use our torch lights on our cell phones to see the clues or read something. There were some short times that the room lights would go off and it would be dark for a few seconds. I didn’t appreciate it going dark. Again, I get it’s an ambiance effect for being in a mine, but not when you’re trying to solve a puzzle and try to escape a time-based room.
One aspect that was a discussion after completing the escape room was false puzzles and solutions. We ran into the issue of finding clues that we thought were answers, but it turned out to be nothing. While some of my friends in the group hate this idea since it could waste time trying to solve problems or find answers to nothing, I don’t mind them. I’m going to guess that it’s for a puzzle piece that was used previously and became a decoration for the room, but maybe the answer or the clue wasn’t properly removed. That they could also be from a puzzle that may be from a prior time when they were used in a room or for future use. I notice on the webpage that they do update the rooms. This makes sense and an excellent way to get people to keep coming back to try the room again with a different layout. Besides, I feel if you are paying attention while playing the room escape, then you should be able to tell the difference between the real clues or the fake ones.
***End Spoilers***
You are given two hints for each room. You can get more hints, but by doing so, it will take away 5 minutes from your one-hour time limit. You are given an extra clue if it’s a special occasion. Thanks to my birthday, we were able to escape with 50 seconds to spare. Overall, I did enjoy Electric City Escape and Escape Mine 109 as did my friends. We were told that this is the most challenging Escape Room they had. I had a great time here, and I am going to come back here when I can to try the other available rooms. If you are interested, check out there website: Electric City Escape.
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