Did We Escape the Escape Room? A Review

Last week, we told you about the new "escape room" in Quincy, Behind Locked Doors. To recap, an escape room is where you're locked in a room with your friends or coworkers and have to solve riddles to get out of the room. It's all about fun and teamwork and finding out how unlike Sherlock you actually are.

After we posted about it, Toni, one of our salespeople, got into contact with Tyler Frump, the owner and operator of Behind Locked Doors to set up an event where we attempt to go through the rooms and solve the clues to gain our freedom.

I was super excited for this. Y101's Big Dog Jeff Dorsey was interested. Toni was along for the ride, Ben our DME was game, and we told Sam she had to or we wouldn't let her go on-air next week. So in less than a week, battling holiday time off, a winter non-storm and various winter related illnesses, we showed up ready to escape.

We stayed in the waiting room while everyone showed up, and luckily there was a giant game of Jenga to keep us occupied in our downtime (video below). Tyler explained the rules to us, what we could and could not do. Once we had an understanding of the rules, she led us to the first room.

Here's the thing about Escape Rooms... you're told there are clues all around. So immediately after she shuts the door, all five of us were "THAT'S A CLUE! THIS IS A CLUE! THAT'S A CLUE, TOO! I THINK I MIGHT BE A CLUE!" Your mind automatically goes into overdrive trying to figure out the riddles. We all immediately grabbed stuff to try and figure it out, and that was our first mistake. It's all about team work and solving the riddles together, so we should have taken in the first, obvious clue, and started from there. I think that would have given us a better start.

We got through the first room in about 15-20 minutes of our allotted hour. We rode pretty high on that into the second room. My advice? NEVER RIDE HIGH INTO THE SECOND ROOM! You will crash, and crash hard. We hit the second room and we just fell apart. We couldn't get it together or make the right connections in our brains from one thing to the next. We spent too much time on one of the clues, were off on another, and things just weren't clicking for us. We ran out of time so close to the final clue of room two, never making it to the 3rd and final room.

Tyler came in and walked us through the rest of the puzzles, and it seemed so obvious and I personally felt like an idiot for not seeing some of those things. It was a rough, aggravating hour... but oh man was it fun.

She told us that things will be mixed up with different clues and different things as the months go on, so even if you go through and conquer it in January, head back in March for a new spin on it, or a completely different room.

I'll definitely be going back. Again and again, for as long as my friends will want to join me, because this is my new favorite thing. I highly recommend you give it a shot. My advice though: Take a deep breath, calm down, and work through it methodically. You'll get the answers faster than if you just jump at everything not bolted down. Work together. And have fun.

Thanks, Behind Closed Doors for the opportunity! We'll see you again soon! Go to their website here to set up an appointment for your chance to escape the rooms.