Overview

Hype:

Escape Room Rocky Point is an escape room in Puerto Penasco, Mexico. They have great set design and horrible puzzles. Their customer service is the worst I've ever encountered anywhere.

Time:

Fees: Admission

Recommended Ages:

	0-3
	4-11
	12-19
	20-49
	50-69
	70+

Recommended Months to Visit:

Jan

Feb

Mar

Apr

May

Jun

Jul

Aug

Sep

Oct

Nov

Dec

Features:

Escape Rooms

Links: https://www.escaperoomrockypoint.com/

Getting There

Navigate to 31.303866, -113.548431.

Location

Closest City or Region: Puerto Penasco, Mexico

Coordinates: 31.303866, -113.548431

View larger map

June 9, 2021 Trip Report

By Jeremy Dye

Trip Members

Jeremy Dye, Tara Dye, Todd Coons, Caleb Coons, Broox Sorensen, Dixon Sorensen, Rix Coons,

Story

Wonderland Room

I reserved tickets for the Wonderland Room about a week in advance. Tara and I asked around to see who else wanted to go with us, and we had several others join us. When we got to the escape room, the door was locked and no one was there. Todd called the number on the door and spoke with them. They said they were closed. Todd said that we had a reservation, and they said they would be there in 10-15 minutes. It took them more than 30 minutes to arive, and we were stuck waiting in the heat on the sidewalk outside their building for almost an hour. The game master was nice, and we waited while she got the room ready to go. She showed us how to open locks but failed to tell us that she would give us only 3 hints if needed. We were prepared to come back and play all 3 rooms on our trip, but the first room was so bad that we had no desire to come back.

We entered the first room and were overwhelmed by the number of combination locks that were used. There were no less than 8 locks visible, many of them with the same number of digits. The theming was cool, but the individual puzzles and the puzzle flow were both very lacking. The room was entirely linear, which was not very fun for a large group like ours because most of our people didn't have anything to work on during most of the game. We got hung up on a counting puzzle because we were supposed to count objects that were hidden in the room, and we didn't find some of the hidden objects, so our totals were off. Side note: a good puzzle design should never mix hidden objects with counting because the player has no way to verify if they have all the objects and it results in a poor player experience. We also got hung up on another counting puzzle because we thought it was a direction puzzle and not a counting puzzle. We solved the cake puzzle correctly and tried to input the answer into a combination lock, but it didn't work. The game master told us we had two of the digits flipped, but her answer violated the puzzle. Her answer was very obviously wrong, and our answer was very obviously right per the English version of the puzzle that we had. I can only assume that the Spanish version of the puzzle had two of the numbers flipped compared to the English version.

We finished the first room in about 45 minutes and unlocked the second room. There were another 8-10 combination locks scattered around the room. We had no idea where to start and honestly weren't really having any fun. We spent the next 15 minutes moping around the room not doing anything because we had no idea what the next puzzle was. Because the room was linear, there was only one puzzle we could work on at a time, and that one puzzle was obscured in such a way that none of us could find the puzzle. Come to find out later, the game master already gave us our 3 hints, and was unwilling/unable to provide us any more direction.

When our time was up, the game master came in and told us where the next puzzle was hidden. We asked if she would be willing to walk us through the remained of the game, and she said no. It seemed like the game master felt she was justified in failing us and that we failed because we were failures and not because there was anything wrong with the room design.

In summary, we spent most of an hour standing in a room that had cool decorations wondering what we were supposed to do next.

Pros

Room decorating and theming was very well done.
Lighting was adequate.
Room was climate controlled.
Puzzles followed theme of room.

Cons

Game master was almost 1 hour late.
Game master did not explain 3 hints limitation.
Puzzle flow was linear, so most of the players in the group had nothing to do.
The puzzles felt contrived.
Way too many combination locks, and many of the locks had the same number of digits.
One puzzle was verifiably wrong.
One of the puzzles was lost in translation. The key word "mirror" didn't match what we think of as a mirror.
Puzzles were poorly designed. The most frequent style of puzzle used in the room was "Read some obscure text and try to guess what the game designer was thinking. Count the numbers of items and guess what order the numbers fit into the combination lock."
The player experience wasn't designed well.
There were very few satisfying "aha" moments.
There were no clear puzzle entry points with clear objectives and rules and constraints.