Escaped It!

Room Name: The Other Side

Business: Extreme Escape – Stone Oak

Location: 434 N Loop 1604 West ste 1204 San Antonio, TX 78232

Date of Visit: April 7, 2019

Number of Players: 2-8

Our Group Size: 4, we recommend keeping groups under 6

Official Description: Supernatural forces have taken over a small town and you’re their only hope. Venture into a dark dimension in hopes of finding the lost boy, but tread carefully as creatures await your arrival…. will you survive The Other Side?

Difficulty (official): Extreme Escape uses several scales to give an official difficulty, including puzzle savvy and intellect. This rated on the medium to high side on all scales.

Difficulty (experience): Easy

Time to Escape: 50:00

Review: Our group was full of 80s babies and Stranger Things fans, so when we saw this one listed on Extreme Escape we were ready! “This is going to be fantastic,” we squealed all the way from breakfast to the room. We were looking forward to something special.

Luckily, the room was close to our breakfast spot. It was easy to find the shopping center but the Extreme Escape sign blended in with the building and it took us a bit to find its location. We were greeted promptly and ushered to our room. The first thing that we noticed was knotty pine and a CRT television for hints. That was all we needed to get into the 80s mood. It wasn’t until the introductory videos ended and the timer started that we noticed how bare the space really was. While I’m not huge on having a space full of red herrings, this room required more decoration to really make it feel lived in.

We solved the first couple of puzzles fairly quickly, and soon came to a conclusion: this room was both entirely linear (with only one puzzle to work on at a time) and presented as a task list. As soon as we finished one puzzle we were immediately directed to the next one. We’ve done task-list-type rooms before (Houston, We’ve Had a Problem) but the latter had more puzzling and critical thought required to complete the required actions. Here, however, the room spoon-fed answers to us. One puzzle and clue stood out as incredibly creative, and we just wished that same creativity extended throughout the rest of the game.

When we made it into the second act of the escape, we again faced ideas that needed better execution. The puzzles were extremely hand-holdy with not enough to work on simultaneously as a group of four. This room could have benefited from more than just dim light and a couple of “spooky” props to provide an immersive experience. One puzzle could have provided a good fright, but it was quickly resolved. We just didn’t feel much of the urgency that the second act was desperately trying to provide.

This is a good room for beginners and families. This isn’t a room in San Antonio that must be done by enthusiasts, but it is something to check out if you have some free time or are huge Stranger Things fans.

Hints Used: Our game master gave us a couple of unprompted hints. These were due to technical failures and a reminder about a missed lock.

Clue Quality : The clues were overly generous. There was really nothing that we had to puzzle over. I was annoyed with one lock because of a spelling error in the solution.

Puzzle Creativity: There was one standout puzzle with a satisfying conclusion, but the rest of the puzzles were standard for escape rooms.

Rating: 2.25 / 5

Fear Factor:  A very mild scare in the second half of the room may frighten younger children.

Things to note: This location is located on the second floor of a shopping center. Elevators are clearly marked if needed and located on the other end of the building from the stairs nearest the escape room. Parking is ample and free. Extreme Escape offers frequent Groupons for both of its San Antonio locations.