LOCATION: Mashantucket, Connecticut, USA
Photo above is property of Spellbound Escapes
Photos above are property of ESCAPETHEROOMers
📝 ETR DECODER
🔑 GAME: Temple of the Laughing God
📅 DATE PLAYED: June 14, 2019
🎬 GENRE: Adventure
🧠 DIFFICULTY (Based on 4 ppl): 7/10
👥 TOTAL # OF PLAYERS: 2-8 ppl
🕒 LENGTH OF TIME: 60 Mins.
💰 PRICE: $36.00/ pp or $250.00/ private
☎️ BOOKING TYPE: Public/ Private
🔓 ESCAPED/ COMPLETED?: No
Video above is property of ESCAPETHEROOMers
Today, we are at the Foxwoods Resort and Casino in CT! We are not here to gamble but to try out the fairly new escape room company called Spellbound Escape Rooms & Adventures. Currently they only offer one game and it’s called “The Temple of the Laughing God”. They are located on the 2nd floor of the Tanger Outlets. For parking, the closest one to Spellbound is located in the Grand Pequot Tower parking lot (self-parking is complimentary). When you see the escalator and the Zoltar - Fortune Teller Machine on the outside, you’ll know you’ve arrived.
Right when we entered, the lobby décor had a magical vibe with its green marble floors (it kind of has a “Wicked” feel to it). One of the owners even dyed her hair to match the emerald green on the floor! There’s plenty of chairs for you to rest while waiting for your journey to begin! The game master who helped us sign in was in character from the beginning. Once we were all cleared with the paperwork, he led us down a dark hallway with a single lantern. On this adventure, we brought some backup with us and we had a total of four players exploring this ancient Mayan temple. Legend has it, it contains the spirit of a vengeful, unknown god.
As we entered the temple, we immediately acknowledged the set design and props that were cleverly implemented for the puzzle challenges. Everything felt real and true to form. The storyline definitely kept us engaged the entire time and most importantly it all made sense! We were able to divide and conquer right away as there was a few places to start exploring individually. We liked how they incorporated the ancient characters as part of the puzzle design. We can see why this is a family friendly game as there’s features where the kids would easily be able to complete and be “wowed” by. We definitely felt like we were in an “Indiana Jones” movie during parts of the game. As escapees who’s played a good amount of games by now, it’s not very difficult from a puzzle aspect but since our friends only tried a few, we had a good time playing with them. There’s one particular puzzle at the beginning and at the end that gave us a little bit of an issue and I wonder how groups that get mixed together do on these as we find that it’s actually better to just let one person handle the puzzle. The other people may just have to stand around and watch him/her when it gets to that point. It might be more beneficial to just let one person try as we realized by having everyone crowd around that person didn’t really help speed up the process.
Overall, we had a great time at Spellbound and we can’t wait until they release their two new games that they have planned for the near future. If you want to save some money and not lose it in the casino, Spellbound is definitely where you want to spend it!
Photos above are property of ESCAPETHEROOMers
(If you do decide to try this game, give us a shoutout or tag us on social media so we know you heard it from "ESCAPETHEROOMers"!)
Disclosure: We thank Spellbound Escapes for comping our tickets for this game. Although complimentary admission was generously provided, it does not impact our opinion on the review whatsoever.