October 29

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Montreal – 2017/2018

Posted by on October 29, 2018 in Montreal | Leave a comment

So we’re trying something a little different, we’ve been to Montreal now for two separate trips, but rather than give reviews of each room at each location, we’ll summarize it in one sitting.
Overall Montreal has many amazing escapes, overall the attention to set design is much higher, with more emphasis on A-Ha puzzles (over task-based) .

Facility – Escaparium

Rooms: Chinatown Bombing, Tyranno Industries, The Game, Alice and the Mad Hatter’s Mad Hat’s Hat, The Wizard Four and the Book of Black Art

You can probably tell by the amount of rooms we did at this location we enjoyed it.  Escaparium’s rooms are easily the biggest and brightest that Montreal has to offer.  If you are in Montreal, this is a MUST SEE.  This would be our pseudo-ranking

a) The Wizard Four and the Book of Black Art
b) Tyranno Industries
c) Alice and the Mad Hatter’s Mad Hat’s Hat
d) The Game
e) Chinatown Bombing


Facility – A/Maze

Rooms: Pirate Ship, Military Facility

A/Maze has a number of facilities across Montreal, and it happened that the weekend we went, they had actors in the rooms.  The set designs were good and were appropriate for the theme, but the actors made the rooms shine.  The unfortunate thing is actors are not normally part of their games.  The puzzles were ok, but we had a number of tech related hiccups throughout both rooms.

Facility – Missions Morpheus
Rooms: Babel
MM was a fun and unique escape experience.  When you enter they offer you popcorn and the waiting room chairs are old theatre seats.  Babel shows off MM’s charm with very different and unique puzzles.  Puzzlers will love this room (and apparently their other offerings).  Set design overall is a scale back from other Montreal offerings, but memorable one way or another.

Facility – Find the Key
Rooms: Cabin in the Woods

FtK was a good experience.  The cabin’s set design was definitely on the higher end of what we’ve experienced in our travels.  The tech integration with theme and puzzles felt a bit forced at times, but mostly immersive.  The only hiccup we had was with a particular puzzle from an otherwise solid experience.

Facility – Ezkapaz

Rooms: Pop
Ezkapaz is located in downtown Montreal, not to far from the tourist trap known as Schwartz Deli (we weren’t crazy about their smoked meat).  Ezkapaz’s Pop room was a fun single room escape.  It was your average escape room offering that was light on tech and set design details, but the puzzles were fun and it felt 80’s unique.  We have been told to try some of their other offerings which we may do so in the future.

Facility – Sauve Qui Peut
Rooms: Vortex : Past, Dendera’s Secret

SQP is one of those hidden gems we’re so lucky that people told us about.  We went to the location at Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, which is roughly 30-40 min outside of Montreal.  Overall we enjoy small-town gems and SQP is no exception.  Compared to some of the other Montreal places, SQP easily blows them away in set design and tech integration.  If you know your french, it will definitely help because the intro videos are still french only.  The rooms however are largely language-less and intuitive.  We’ll definitely be making a trip back there, and think it is worth an afternoon away from the city.

Facility – Immersia
Rooms: Picadilly’s Cabaret, Weekend at the shack

Immersia is located in Laval and was recommended to us by a few enthusiasts.  One of the highlights of the facility is one of the owners is Olympic medalist Roseline Filion.  We wouldn’t say they are gold-medal games compared to many of the other offerings around Montreal, overall they offer a standard escape experience.  Some of the puzzles were interesting, but others seemed a bit tedious for our tastes.  If you happen to be in Laval, you can drop by, but only if you have lots of time.

Facility – Action 500
Rooms: Tomb of Anubis
Action 500 was not a great experience.  We were drawn to them because we heard they had purchased 13th Gate rooms (a well respected and talked about escape room company).   We were later told that our group of 2 could not play, with no advance warning and no compromises.  Customer service at Action 500 is abysmal at best, and the game itself lacks the polish we would expect of a highly talked about game.  If you have the money and time fly to the states and do the 13th Gate rooms there.
Overall:
If you had 1-2 days in Montreal definitely visit1) Escaparium
2) Sauve Qui Peut – If you don’t mind driving a bit out of town
3) One of either Mission Morpheus, Find the Key

If you have any questions (even food related) ask us!