They’re Coming… to Maze Rooms Culver City

Escape rooms used to be a room filled with plenty of puzzles and combination locks. Now, companies have taken this idea of transporting players to a new world – or even the same world but under much different circumstances. Players have gone into the past, under the sea, into the jungle, and even up into space. Escape rooms have turned into a booming business for team building, date nights, and just fun adventures for all.

Maze Rooms Culver City aims to push the boundaries of escape rooms, creating interesting themes and using great technology to really surround players with their given theme. They’re Coming, Maze Rooms’ latest endeavor, takes a more tongue-in-cheek approach and turns the escape room genre on its head. Players are not simply trying to escape here, but they’re also trying to keep something out.

A Novel Approach

Taking a meta approach like The Experiment, They’re Coming has guests who are there to play an escape room fashioned after Evil Dead fighting for their lives during a global zombie outbreak. With the area quarantined by the government and zombies closing in, players must find a safe bunker, barricade themselves inside for protection, and contact the outside for help escaping – all while bloodthirsty zombies close in.

The Guts

While They’re Coming has some combination locks, they make sense within the world that has been built. In addition to more traditional types of puzzles (i.e., finding hidden keys and codes), players must use what’s available to them for both defense and offense in some very fun interactive moments. The puzzles themselves are not particularly tricky, and many of them rely on teamwork, but it’s easy to get caught on a train of thought that is going in the wrong direction. For example, my group got stuck on a puzzle or two because we were making it more difficult than it had to be, as well as putting the wrong clues to the wrong puzzles.

Like the other two rooms at Maze Rooms Culver City – Dragon’s Lair and Jack the Ripper – They’re Coming has excellent set design and ambiance. The subtle growling of the zombies outside combined with the intense music design amps up the intensity of the experience, and given the zombie theme, there’s some slight gore and perhaps a jump scare or two. Observant players can find cheeky nods to several other zombie properties – Evil Dead/Bruce Campbell, Left 4 Dead, Red Dead Redemption and George Romero – which bring lightheartedness to the stressful situation. They’re Coming also utilizes video screens to further transport players to this zombie-ridden world.

The Glory

Overall, They’re Coming is more of an adventure than a puzzle-heavy escape room. While the puzzles are tricky but not impossible, this four-person room is probably an experience for veterans – newbies might find it taxing – but all will find it delightfully rewarding. With its fantastic production value, several very clever tech-heavy puzzles, and references to popular zombie properties, it is clear that the team at Maze Rooms Culver City loves creating new and different experiences – and they succeed! They’re Coming is a great challenge for true escape room enthusiasts and zombie lovers alike!

Try your hand against the zombies by booking They’re Coming here. Check out Maze Rooms’ many other offerings on their website and follow them on Facebook for announcements and discount codes. And don’t forget to check out our other escape room reviews here.