January
27
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Escape Trip 2019 – Houston
Continuing from our New Orleans trip, we knew we wanted to visit Houston for one particular room Strange Bird Immersive’s – The Man from Beyond. We found out too late that their renovations were still in progress, so we were bummed. Instead we got to hang out with Haley and Cameron Cooper (the braintrust behind Strange Bird) who were THE nicest people ever (and this is coming from a Canadian).
We also got to play a few rooms with our friend Eugene Byon (@eybyon on Twitter) who is a gameshow fanatic (he’s appeared in 5 different shows) and a first time escaper!
Facility – The Escape Game
Rooms: Gold Rush, The Playground
We’ve heard a lot about The Escape Game as one of the largest chain of escape rooms out there. Considering we had a few other chains on our belt we were surprised to see the quality of the set design and polish their games. There were a few instances we needed a minor hint, but overall the games were very smooth. We enjoyed the Playground, which received David and Lisa’s Prestigious Golden Lock award and we’d say it rightfully deserves it. Eugene who had never played any rooms before thoroughly enjoyed it, and was key to cut our time down with his trivia knowledge (even though the info was available). I would say the Playground needs a solid team of 4 to get everything done cleanly. End-to-end the experience was professional and thorough, even their sign-in waiver process was borderline invasive (joking?).
Facility– Escape Again (in Sugarland)
Rooms: The Hike
Bummed that we didn’t get to play The Man from Beyond, Haley and Cameron gave us the next best thing, time to play rooms with us. Escape Again is a great mom-and-pop operation (if you read our reviews you’ll know we prefer these) with a lot of heart and a lot of spunk. The Hike is a well constructed fun experience. It doesn’t have the bells and whistles the The Playground had, but we would still recommend it for a good time. They also gave us a sneak peek of their wizard room (which should be done by now), which had superb set design details that might make 13th Gate blush.
Facility – Houston Escape Room
Rooms: Granny Codebreaker
the tldr; Granny Codebreaker is NOT something we would recommend. But we had a fun group so at least we have those memories!
Overall:
Everything is much bigger in Texas. The food, the triple decker highways, distances between different parts of the city and especially the generosity of our new friends (Eugene, Haley, Cameron). The escape rooms on the other hand are nothing out-of-this-world but the experiences would be on par with most major cities.
We want to thank and give a shoutout to some friends who gave us great advice and hung out with us. Thank you David and Lisa from Room Escape Artist, Haley and Cameron Cooper and Eugene.
Escape Games Review 
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