Escape Room LA: Atlantis

Escape Room LA is a veteran in the escape business. But they haven’t been upstaged by the younger companies that seem to open new rooms every other month. Instead, they focus on quality over quantity, with their Alchemist being one of my Top 5 escape rooms ever. Its follow-up, The Pyramid, is a remarkable feat of production design and immersion. Now they introduce Atlantis, a room I’ve been anticipating for at least 9 months.

The short version: it’s fantastic. If that’s all you need to know, stop reading and buy tickets now. For the rest, I’ll go into more details. As always, I won’t give away any puzzles, but I will discuss aspects of the puzzles and decor that you may prefer to keep as surprises.

Submerged in Color

As with The Pyramid, there is a preliminary section that acts as a gateway from the real world to the fantastical. This allows players to get into a mental groove and warm up to the theme. Most importantly, I believe, it sets players up for a Grand Reveal. At this point, the theme fully comes to fruition and you’ve left the real world behind entirely. It’s a joyful moment where your eyes want to absorb everything at once. Of course, they can’t, so you end up roaming around the space, finding new details in every corner.

Presentation is one of the main draws of escape rooms, and Atlantis is simply gorgeous. Of course the theme informs the color scheme, with a lot of blue, but it goes further. Numerous custom sculptures, art, lighting, and audio effects all reinforce the underwater theme. Greek and Minoan civilizations also influence the look of the fabled sunken city. Not that the room aspires to strict realism. It’s a fantasy world, and Escape Room Creative Director John Hennessy knows it. He says, “Atlantis is the most beautiful and most elaborate game we’ve ever created.” I even said at one point during the escape that I just wanted to hang out in the room. It would be a really fun lounge, with a comfy chair and a drink in your hand.

Swimming with Possibilities

Puzzles are the other crucial component of a good room. Atlantis wins here too. There is a wonderful variety here, including some surprises. They use a multitude of senses, and even use one of my favorite puzzle tricks, that I don’t see enough–a callback. They pull off an impressive trick on at least two puzzles and maybe more, which is offering 2 methods of solving. Everyone thinks differently, and having multiple paths to the correct answer is a way to accommodate more types of players and reduce frustration if you get stuck.

The technology used in the room is well-integrated into the theme. There are a lot of electronics behind the scenes but the room doesn’t feel like science-fiction. It’s all in service of the ambiance. The use of colors and custom artifacts and devices worked seamlessly, with one small exception.

Sailing Through the Storm

That small exception probably would have worked too, except it wasn’t set up when we entered. Considering the room wasn’t open to the public yet, this was a non-issue. In fact, I only saw two minor issues in the whole room. One puzzle has a very sensitive interface and we struggled with it for quite a while. We thought we might have done something wrong, until we got confirmation that we had really solved the puzzle and just needed to be more precise with our solution. Also, one (very cool) puzzle near the end has an easy shortcut that players can take. I am not a fan of “brute forcing” any solutions, but this puzzle makes it tempting to do so. I suspect many teams may use this shortcut and deprive themselves of a fun moment from the correct method.

Eight is the maximum capacity for Atlantis, although I would prefer six. My game was supposed to have four people, but two didn’t show up. This left my friend and I, both escape room aficionados, to go it alone. We got one or two small nudges from the in-room game master, another Escape Room LA trademark. Escaping with just over a minute remaining shows it can be done with just two. On the whole, this is a bit easier than The Pyramid but still challenging enough. I think I was stuck less often because the puzzles all make logical sense.

Diving In

I have been recommending Atlantis to everyone since I played it. It’s good for groups with a wide range of experience. Seasoned escapees will enjoy the smooth flow of the puzzles. It’s big enough that everyone will have something to do. Everyone will be wowed by the look of the room and the fun surprises in store. Atlantis continues Escape Room LA’s standard of top-tier rooms. If you haven’t been before, this is the perfect place to start! Escape Room LA is located at 120 E. 8th Street, Los Angeles, 90014. Tickets are $33 on weekdays and $39 on weekends. More information, including booking, is available on their website here.

All photos by Benjamin Jet