This was my fourth room at Nashville Escape Game, and my first at the Third Avenue location. The location is very well marked. I really like the big lock sign! You either know what it is and that it's awesome, or you don't know and you say "What's that?" Parking is a pain downtown, no matter where you are, but there's a garage not far away. Honestly, with the price of parking, I think I'd just park somewhere further out and take an Uber next time!
I did this room with my wife, my dad, and three tourists from LA. I don't often end up doing rooms with strangers, so I was a little apprehensive, but this one worked out nicely. We ended up making it out, with several minutes left on the clock.
At this point I've done four rooms with Nashville Escape Game, and four with other companies around the country. Invariably, NEG does by far the best job with scenery, depth, and immersion. I suspect they spent more money on their rooms than other places, and it shows in the quality of the gameplay. Not that the other game rooms are bad! You can do a perfectly good room on a lower budget. Money's not everything, but in some areas, it really helps!
While I will not give any hints to solving puzzles, I will be describing some minor details about the room. Nothing I say will help you solve anything, but it will tell you some vague details that aren't obvious when you first walk in. If you wish to remain utterly surprised by everything, stop here.
NEG does their usual job of setting up the backstory in a well-made, concise video. The gamemaster tells you immediately that a couple things in the room are not to be touched or are irrelevant, but from that point, almost everything else matters.
From minute one, I have no complaints about this room. Zero. The atmosphere is perfect, the decor is extremely well done, the reveals are unexpected, and the puzzles are both unique and fit perfectly with the theme. At best, I have some minor observations.
There is one puzzle near the end that I'm not sure most groups would solve. We had an engineer and an actuary, both of whom do math puzzles for fun. It still took us a couple minutes to solve, even once we were told how to do it, which itself was completely not obvious. Perhaps I underestimate the average Joe, but I genuinely wonder how often people get stuck on that one...
Also, do not nail the nails in! You'll know what I mean when you get there. The game master had to stop the clock and come in to help us, which is never what you want.
Oh, and at one point something went off prematurely... I think it may have been manually triggered from outside the room, and designed that way. But I really wanted to push that detonator, consarnit!
While I will not give any hints to solving puzzles, I will be describing some minor details about the room. Nothing I say will help you solve anything, but it will tell you some vague details that aren't obvious when you first walk in. If you wish to remain utterly surprised by everything, stop here.
NEG does their usual job of setting up the backstory in a well-made, concise video. The gamemaster tells you immediately that a couple things in the room are not to be touched or are irrelevant, but from that point, almost everything else matters.
From minute one, I have no complaints about this room. Zero. The atmosphere is perfect, the decor is extremely well done, the reveals are unexpected, and the puzzles are both unique and fit perfectly with the theme. At best, I have some minor observations.
There is one puzzle near the end that I'm not sure most groups would solve. We had an engineer and an actuary, both of whom do math puzzles for fun. It still took us a couple minutes to solve, even once we were told how to do it, which itself was completely not obvious. Perhaps I underestimate the average Joe, but I genuinely wonder how often people get stuck on that one...
Also, do not nail the nails in! You'll know what I mean when you get there. The game master had to stop the clock and come in to help us, which is never what you want.
Oh, and at one point something went off prematurely... I think it may have been manually triggered from outside the room, and designed that way. But I really wanted to push that detonator, consarnit!
Ultimately, I loved this room. It had a great mix of puzzles, and didn't use any of the usual tropes. Whoever did this room did it right.
Rating: 10/10
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