LOCATION : Salem, Massachusetts, USA Photo above is property of Stained Hourglass Escapes Photos above are property of ESCAPETHEROOMers 📝   ETR DECODER 🔑 GAME : Witch's Hollow 📅 DATE PLAYED : December 15, 2025 🎬 GENRE : Magic 🧠 DIFFICULTY (Based on 4 ppl) : 5/10 👥 TOTAL # OF PLAYERS : 3-8 ppl (Ages 10+) 🕒 LENGTH OF TIME : 60 Mins. 💰 PRICE : $39:00 - $45.00/ pp (Min. 3 ppl) ☎️ BOOKING TYPE : Private 🔓 ESCAPED/ COMPLETED? : Yes 📖 THE STORY When an older woman in town hasn’t been seen for a while, you do the neighborly thing: pack up a basket of food and head to check on her. However, what starts as a thoughtful visit quickly turns into a magical predicament that asks you to make a choice and see it through. From the very beginning, the game lets you know that intent matters here… 🎯 HIT THE BULLSEYE Whimsy over wickedness . We adore games that lean playful instead of grim, and Witch’s Hollow absolutely embraces that energy. While there are moments of spookiness, the tone is far more mischievous than menacing. We wish more rooms would dare to have this much fun. Perfectly on-theme for Salem . If you’re going to play a witchy game anywhere, this is exactly where it should be. The magic-forward design, folklore vibes, and ritualistic elements feel tailor-made for a town steeped in witch history. Delightful character interaction . You get to engage with a wonderfully silly live character who plays a central role in puzzles, story progression, and hints. It’s one of our favorite aspects of the game. Importantly, this interaction is low-pressure (no forced improvisation or close physical contact) making it friendly even for players who are usually wary of live actors. Delivers the magic . While there are a few traditional escape room elements, much of the experience is powered by smooth, well-integrated tech that truly sells the illusion that magic is afoot! Meaningful choices. Both the opening and closing moments ask you to make decisions that affect your experience. These are implemented cleverly: minimal disruption to gameplay and flow, but noticeable differences in story and even a special keepsake at the end. We love the ability to meaningfully impact your own experience. 🧩 MISSED THE MARK We wanted more! There’s very little to nitpick here. Our main wish was simply that the experience lasted longer. The game smartly uses adaptive difficulty to allow for removal of puzzles or interactions to ensure success for its core audience (Salem visitors and newer players). However, enthusiasts will likely finish on the early side. Expanding the adaptive difficulty further by adding extra challenges or dialing up complexity would make an already excellent game even more satisfying for seasoned players. We were having such a good time, we didn’t want the spell to break. 🏹 TAKE A SHOT? " Witch’s Hollow " proves that Boring Office was no fluke. Stained Hourglass Escapes has a real knack for blending whimsy, creativity, and thoughtful design into a satisfyingly complete experience. This game delivers across the board: immersive and engaging, clean puzzle flow, clear narrative, and tech that enhances rather than distracts. We loved how the game empowers each group to make decisions that tailor their experience. And it was just SO. MUCH. FUN. There’s a clear sense that this was made by an enthusiast who genuinely loves the craft and that care shines through in every detail. It’s very family-friendly and suitable for beginners, but there’s plenty to enchant enthusiasts too. It’s well worth the drive out to Salem! We were absolutely entertained and enthralled, and we can’t wait to see what spell they cast next. 🔎 HINT It’s a playful room! You won’t get to play pin the tail on the donkey, but you might get to take a chance on a different carnival game. ℹ️ ADDITIONAL INFO There is metered parking available right in front of the clearly marked location. If you come during high tourist season in October, parking may be hard to find, especially after noon. The spacious lobby is beautifully decorated with hanging pieces of colored “glass”. The owner takes accessibility seriously, and makes sure that the rooms are flexible, adaptive, and accessible for people of varying mobility. There are bathrooms, lockers, and room to hang coats. 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 Stained Hourglass Escapes for comping our tickets for this game. Although complimentary admission was generously provided, it does not impact our opinion on the review whatsoever. #DaveBristol #IRLescaperoom #Magic #EscapeRooms #StainedHourglassEscapes #USA #Massachusetts

Photo above is property of ESCAPETHEROOMers Company: The Curious Correspondence Club Game: Chapter XXII: Crossroads Country: Canada 🇨🇦 Language: English Type of Game: Tabletop Game 📬 Genre: Mystery Date Played: January 1, 2023 Difficulty (based on 3 players): 8/10 Size of Team: Unlimited (Age 12+) Time: Unlimited (Suggested: 60-90 Minutes) Price: $21.95 (free shipping in North America); Monthly Subscription: $19.95/Yearly Subscription: $179.00 🆃🅷🅴 🆂🆃🅾🆁🆈 Journeying through the mountainous terrain and climbing along the rocky trail, you reach the Great Valleys. Surrounded by the breathtaking landscape of mountains, trees and rock, the Nexus confirms that you are in the right place. As you enter the nearby village of Luska, a man recognizes you right away and pulls you aside. Handing you a package left by his great aunt, he tells you that she travelled and roamed these lands her entire life and if she hid something here, all the information you need to find the next disc are in this package. 🆃🅷🅴 ❞🅻🅾🅾🅺🆂❞ Opening up the CCC envelope, you find many curious items including a pamphlet similar to the one you would find at a national park, wooden signs, a translator wheel for the local language, a language board and more. Photos above are property of ESCAPETHEROOMers 🆃🅷🅴 🅶🅰🅼🅴 🅿🅻🅰🆈 After reading the novel-quality introduction and checking out the beautiful sketches on the envelope, the tone was set to play the game. The set up for CCC games is that there are 5 puzzles and the solutions of the 5 puzzles will help you solve the final meta puzzle. For this game, there is a lot of information that you will have to read. One tip is to pay attention to the details of the text. There is always a clue there to help you along to solve the puzzles no matter how cleverly blended into the text it is. There were a few puzzles that after rereading a few times, the eureka moment hit us. One of the things I always love with CCC is once you know the final answer and head to the website, you can input the final answer and if you are correct, you are rewarded with an outro video to close off the chapter of the adventure. Photos above are property of ESCAPETHEROOMers 🆃🅷🅴 🅿🆄🆉🆉🅻🅴🆂 The range of puzzles were a mix of logic, ciphers, and some that required some eureka moments. We found this game to ramp up nicely as there were a couple of puzzles we recognized and were able to solve right away with a few others that required some reading and rereading to get us to that eureka moment. One complaint we did have with this game was that one of the puzzles was based around a cipher but the text we were looking to translate had a different style than the decoder, which made for some difficulty in matching them up. The hint system for this game requires you to go to their website and for each puzzle, there are 2 hints before providing you with the solution. For this game, we found the solutions to be more straight forward than their other games. Since the introduction stated that the solutions were to be 6 letter words, it was easier to tell if we had gotten to the correct solution or not. Photos above are property of ESCAPETHEROOMers 🅲🅻🅾🆂🅸🅽🅶 🆃🅷🅾🆄🅶🅷🆃🆂 "Crossroads" was another fantastic chapter in the CCC universe. There were some nice eureka moments in the game with the clever cluing in the text. The pamphlet and translator wheel were things I could imagine picking up in a National Park as well as the 3D signpost really brought the game to life. This time around, there were 3 of us playing together and found that there was a lot of overlapping information, so it was difficult to solve things separately. A tip here was to have your camera phone on hand so you could easily snap a picture of what you need to solve your puzzle and hand off the information. Any puzzling nature lovers would easily get on board with this game. With the season 2 ending coming up fast, the story started to take an exciting turn and we cannot wait to see how the story continues. (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 The Curious Correspondence Club for providing us with a sample of their game. Although a complimentary experience was generously provided, it does not impact our opinion on the review whatsoever. #MatthewLui #AtHomeGames #TabletopGames #PuzzlesByMail #SubscriptionGames #Mystery #Canada #TheCuriousCorrespondenceClub

Photo above is property of ESCAPETHEROOMers Company: The Curious Correspondence Club Game: Chapter XXIII: Destination Pt. 1 Country: Canada 🇨🇦 Language: English Type of Game: Tabletop Game 📬 Genre: Mystery Date Played: February 7, 2023 Difficulty (based on 1 player): 7/10 Size of Team: Unlimited (Age 12+) Time: Unlimited (Suggested: 60-90 Minutes) Price: $21.95 (free shipping in North America); Monthly Subscription: $19.95/Yearly Subscription: $179.00 🆃🅷🅴 🆂🆃🅾🆁🆈 As you race up the steps, you can barely recognize the place due to all the chaos; M.B. Franklin Museum of Natural History. As you reach the top, you run into a familiar friend, Arjun, who debriefs you quickly as he leads you down the hall. Starfall agents have converged here, believing that the last dial is hidden in the museum somewhere as well as discovering a secret lab underneath for unknown purposes. With many Brightstar agents trying to fight them off, Arjun leads you to the surveillance room. Sitting you down in front of the CCTV screens, he needs you to dispatch the Brightstar agents to the appropriate locations to take down the Starfall operatives and get their keycards to access the underground lab. 🆃🅷🅴 ❞🅻🅾🅾🅺🆂❞ Unsealing the envelope, I was greeted with the story written on the envelope with a list of the contents on one side and a QR code to the hints on the other side. Investigating the contents, I find some interesting paper items that include security screens, trading cards and pieces of a pamphlet. Photos above are property of ESCAPETHEROOMers 🆃🅷🅴 🅶🅰🅼🅴 🅿🅻🅰🆈 After reading the narrative, I was immediately sucked into the urgency and struggle of the story. The narrative is fantastic. If you have been following along for all of Season 2, you will not be disappointed. You do not need to know the story to play but you will exponentially get much more out of the game if you do. This game was a little different from CCC’s standard flow from previous games as there were additional puzzles on the front end before leading to the non-linear puzzles that lead to the meta puzzle. There was a lot of great content packed into this envelope. Though there was no 3D item to be built, this game did have the standard CCC feel in the game with a “card scanner”. One new addition in this game were the trading cards of key characters from previous chapters. Photos above are property of ESCAPETHEROOMers 🆃🅷🅴 🅿🆄🆉🆉🅻🅴🆂 As a big fan of trading cards, I loved that some of the puzzles revolved around something similar to a collectable card game (CCG). The overarching story and goal of the game was clued well but I did find that some of the more detailed signposting lacking with the puzzles. Once I read one or 2 hints for the first puzzle though, the entire game fell into place. There were a nice variety of puzzles that ranged from logic to eureka to matching. The puzzles were set up to be played non-linearly which would help with a big group but I found that with CCC’s use of all the sides of the paper, coordination is key. The back of a puzzle someone would be working could be required for a different puzzle. One tip would be to have people bring their phones so they can take a picture of the text to read and hand the paper off to others. The hint system for this game requires you to go to their website and for each puzzle, there are 2 hints before providing you with the solution. For this game, I found the solutions were only obvious once you completed all the puzzles and noticed the pattern, but I was not sure if I had the solution correct looking at each puzzle individually. Photos above are property of ESCAPETHEROOMers 🅲🅻🅾🆂🅸🅽🅶 🆃🅷🅾🆄🅶🅷🆃🆂 "Chapter XXIII: Destination Pt. 1" was an absolute blast to go through. This game had the right amount of difficulty, and they were able to translate the feel of an action movie into the puzzles. As a big fan of trading cards, I really enjoyed how they were able to make some fun puzzles with them and incorporate them into the game. This would be a good game for a small handful of veteran solvers. This would not be the first CCC game I would dive into but one that rewards you if you have been following along season 2. This penultimate chapter had me on the edge of my seat and has me anticipating the final chapter. (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 The Curious Correspondence Club for providing us with a sample of their game. Although a complimentary experience was generously provided, it does not impact our opinion on the review whatsoever. #MatthewLui #AtHomeGames #TabletopGames #PuzzlesByMail #SubscriptionGames #Mystery #Canada #TheCuriousCorrespondenceClub

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