First, until I see or hear otherwise from after it’s open, I really don’t think they combine any groups. You’ll have groups of people actually fighting / screaming at each other.
However, if they try it, at most I can see them putting parties of 2 with other parties of that size or singles.
Escape Rooms are cooperative and too many people can’t work well with strangers.
The press release says they can customize them, but IME it’ll be how like The Void operated. You’d follow the same path, but just add an extra obstacle to keep the additional player busy.
(If you’ve ever ride Hagrid’s solo and want a motorbike seat, you’ll see how “cooperative” most strangers are!! )
I appreciate your view/input because as someone who has never done one of these the idea that we wouldn’t get to do ours on our own if we wanted is disappointing. The $50 seems steep and definitely the $150 is steep. I look forward to hearing from you once it opens etc. Thanks.
I’ve never done solo, so I’m panicked a bit about it. My niece is moving down to do the Disney College Program on 1/9 so I’m hoping she can join me at the park at least one day (and ideally, the OIM one night), but I’m not counting on it.
It’s funny, escape rooms should be up my alley. I love logic challenges and puzzles. But the one time I did an escape room it was too stressful. If it was not a timed experience I would probably enjoy it more. Everything else about it is fun.
Universal has clarified that they MAY add people to get the rooms up to six people. The rooms “can” hold up to eight people.
That “may” is a big deal as it really means they aren’t going to add people unless they have sold out of timeslots or a solo player shows up. (and I’m wagering the first party has some discretion about allowing a stranger to participate)
Again, I’ve seen what happens when you try to add / combine players in this situation and it never works. Someone always wants their money back because another party’s member “ruined” something or didn’t give another player a chance to interact.
The Game Master wants you to succeed. We had benchmarks with timestamps you were “supposed” to be at during the game. While we weren’t supposed to jump in unasked, we could after those benchmark passed chime in with, “Would you like a hint?”
Most people will take it - especially if you are spoon feeding them the answer. They just need a nudge to know where to / what to look at
People enjoy the game more and recommend it to others if they win. Very few people go home and say, “I paid $50, felt like a loser and can’t wait to go back!”
I truly only let people fail if at the start of the game the insisted on no hints or if they were really unruly / wild teens
Yeah, I’ll wait until they’ve opened and you get a chance to see the operation before making a firmer decision. However, the price point and even the possibility that other people could be put with us are two very big hurdles at this point. It’s unfortunate because I was really curious about these when they were announced. Also, I’m with @Jeff_AZ that a timed experience is less than appealing in general. But I guess that’s the nature of the beast
My DW actually wants to go. Our only chance will be on the opening day. I saw times this morning, but now the app freezes up. I’m going to keep trying!!
The only day we could go is our last park date - Friday. (The first day it is open) However, it’s already sold out! In some ways I’m relived as it’s going to be the first day & it’s going to be full of vloggers. Plus, nothing ever works right on opening night! (That’s what I tell myself!)
When I worked at an Escape Room I couldn’t get my wife to come down. (We had to do the rooms as guests before working them to experience it and the challenges).
I was blown away when she wanted to actually go!
I’ll check for last minute cancellations / opening, but it looks like this will be a February activity!
So, I’ll pop in with my first escape room experience - just a week or so ago. My DD wanted to do one for her 10th birthday. That’s pretty young, but we took her and 4 friends (and DH, DS15, and me). So 8 people, mostly under 10. It was timed, but like @darkmite2 said, they were really good about giving us small suggestions to keep us on track. We didn’t really pay attention to the time limit - which I think helped the stress level stay down.
We finished with 1.5 minutes left!
All of this to say, I’m sure the people running something at Universal will be really good about reading the group and making sure you finish in the allotted time. 8 people was a lot, but it worked for us because we could split into teams with an older person and one or two younger. With 8 adults, I think it would be an issue.
We had such a good experience that DH and I are going back with a couple of friends to do one of their more difficult rooms.
I’ll be curious to hear how this is at Universal. Maybe it goes on our list for spring break!
I’ve been obsessing over pictures of the place. The more I see it, the place looks very “screen” based. At a lot of places you interact with psychical objects / set pieces. Here’s there’s walls of screens.
IMHO - That’s how they are going to make it scalable / random. A puzzle could be solved with either 2 - 6 people pushing the buttons on the screen. Some video puzzles may not play every time. If a room has an “A-B-C-D-E” path to a solution, you’ll probably have random set of the same style of puzzle which may have 2 - 3 different solutions to the same path - " A2-B1-C2-D3-E1"
At my place, we had a room that really NEEDED 3 people to psychically interact with the puzzle as it was in multiple areas and required multiple actions to happen at once. Screen based play is going to make that much easier.
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