KELLER’S MAGIC EMPORIUM

Who is the magician’s apprentice?

Website: Escape City
Address: 5916 104 St NW, Edmonton, AB T6H 2K3
Private Booking: No
Price: $25 per person
Duration: 45 minutes
Linearity: Linear
Group size: #medium
Player Level: #rookie
Features:
- #puzzleheavy
- #frightfest
Premise: “The greatest magician needs a new apprentice. Will you make the cut before he makes the time disappear?”

RATING	PAULIE	BEN
Service
Puzzles
Look
Immersion
Theme


Service	PAULIE The service was pretty standard. The staff collected our fees, narrated the backstory, and gave us hints. The staff at the time who was working reception was incredibly friendly and enthusiastic.
BEN This was our first time at Escape City. The staff were very friendly and our game master gave us a nice clear introduction. The lobby is a bit bare with only a sitting area, but we don’t go to escape room places for their lobby!
Puzzles	PAULIE The puzzles were good. They were all intuitive and did not require a lot of time for thinking and connecting. What did require our time was actually solving them. We had to acquire codes by rearranging props, reading messages, and manipulating what was in the room. This is the room’s major strength–having puzzles that everyone can do, because you don’t have to have done a lot of escape rooms to figure out how to connect clues to puzzles. You just have to have the patience (rather than escape room experience) to do them. There was one puzzle involving personalization that we enjoyed so much we were talking about it for days.
BEN The puzzles here were cute! They were simple but effectively done – you had to put in just enough thought that the solutions felt intuitive, but not too much that it was frustrating.
Look	PAULIE I agree with Ben. With “magic” being the theme, they could’ve pulled from so many references. But alas, I’m not reviewing what they didn’t do, but what they did do. I thought the portions in the room had a particularly sinister feel amidst all the whimsical props. It was like a magic fun house gone wrong. (Not quite AMERICAN HORROR STORY: Freakshow level, more like Willy Wonka gone wrong.)
BEN When I hear “Magic Emporium” I think of something crazy and whimsical. This room was about 3/4s of the way there – I think they could’ve done a little bit more to really capitalize on the whole magic idea.
Immersion	PAULIE Like with anything else in this room, the feeling of immersion was good. I felt tense at the start and in the end, thanks largely to the puzzles. I even screamed loudly at one point.
BEN What I loved about this room was how it felt more and more urgent that you needed to escape as your progressed. There were a lot of factors that contributed to this feeling, but I don’t want to get into it here. I invite you to head over there and check it out for yourself!
Theme	PAULIE The theme is supposed to be magic, and sure, there were magical elements in this room, but some were your run-of-the-mill puzzles that did not have anything to do with magic. There was even a point–no, a period–in this room that felt completely unnecessary just in regards with the theme and the atmosphere.
BEN I LOVE the idea of a magic emporium, and while I really enjoyed what they did do in the room, I wonder if there was even more that could have been done. I also wasn’t too keen on the story since it felt kind of forced, but that might just be my personal taste.
Overall	PAULIE I would give this room a #gold rating. Not bad, not exceptional either. Solidly good. B. My main issues were with the theme itself, but overall, I would still recommend this room to novice escape roomers.
BEN I would give this room a #platinum rating! This is a great room for first-timers and escape room veterans alike because of the good mix of puzzle difficulty and the overall engaging atmosphere. We went to this room with my two brothers who hadn’t done an escape room before, and they liked it so much that we did another room (The Great Discovery) right after!

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Service

PAULIE

The service was pretty standard. The staff collected our fees, narrated the backstory, and gave us hints. The staff at the time who was working reception was incredibly friendly and enthusiastic.

BEN

This was our first time at Escape City. The staff were very friendly and our game master gave us a nice clear introduction. The lobby is a bit bare with only a sitting area, but we don’t go to escape room places for their lobby!

Puzzles

PAULIE

The puzzles were good. They were all intuitive and did not require a lot of time for thinking and connecting. What did require our time was actually solving them. We had to acquire codes by rearranging props, reading messages, and manipulating what was in the room. This is the room’s major strength–having puzzles that everyone can do, because you don’t have to have done a lot of escape rooms to figure out how to connect clues to puzzles. You just have to have the patience (rather than escape room experience) to do them.

There was one puzzle involving personalization that we enjoyed so much we were talking about it for days.

BEN

The puzzles here were cute! They were simple but effectively done – you had to put in just enough thought that the solutions felt intuitive, but not too much that it was frustrating.

Look

PAULIE

I agree with Ben. With “magic” being the theme, they could’ve pulled from so many references. But alas, I’m not reviewing what they didn’t do, but what they did do.

I thought the portions in the room had a particularly sinister feel amidst all the whimsical props. It was like a magic fun house gone wrong. (Not quite AMERICAN HORROR STORY: Freakshow level, more like Willy Wonka gone wrong.)

BEN

When I hear “Magic Emporium” I think of something crazy and whimsical. This room was about 3/4s of the way there – I think they could’ve done a little bit more to really capitalize on the whole magic idea.

Immersion

PAULIE

Like with anything else in this room, the feeling of immersion was good. I felt tense at the start and in the end, thanks largely to the puzzles. I even screamed loudly at one point.

BEN

What I loved about this room was how it felt more and more urgent that you needed to escape as your progressed. There were a lot of factors that contributed to this feeling, but I don’t want to get into it here. I invite you to head over there and check it out for yourself!

Theme

PAULIE

The theme is supposed to be magic, and sure, there were magical elements in this room, but some were your run-of-the-mill puzzles that did not have anything to do with magic. There was even a point–no, a period–in this room that felt completely unnecessary just in regards with the theme and the atmosphere.

BEN

I LOVE the idea of a magic emporium, and while I really enjoyed what they did do in the room, I wonder if there was even more that could have been done. I also wasn’t too keen on the story since it felt kind of forced, but that might just be my personal taste.

Overall

PAULIE

I would give this room a #gold rating. Not bad, not exceptional either. Solidly good. B. My main issues were with the theme itself, but overall, I would still recommend this room to novice escape roomers.

BEN

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I would give this room a #platinum rating! This is a great room for first-timers and escape room veterans alike because of the good mix of puzzle difficulty and the overall engaging atmosphere. We went to this room with my two brothers who hadn’t done an escape room before, and they liked it so much that we did another room (The Great Discovery) right after!

Completed: July 8, 2016
Escaped: Yes (4 people)
Our Time 0:43 (/0:45)
# of hints used: 2