RATING: 2 Keys          RESULT: Loss          REMAINING: X:XX

Poseidon’s fury is no match for ours after just forty-five minutes on the lost continent.

“But afterwards there occurred violent earthquakes and floods; and in a single day and night of misfortune all your warlike men in a body sank into the earth, and the island of Atlantis in like manner disappeared in the depths of the sea.” – Plato

Your team has been working for nearly a decade chasing the legends of the lost city of Atlantis. Most have called you crazy, but the chance to end their jeering has finally come. The same phenomenon that pulled the entire island of Atlantis down to the bottom of the ocean has occurred once more, and to the shock of the entire scientific world, it brought part of the island back to the surface! However, this situation is temporary. By all estimates, the earth will right itself in just 45 minutes, giving your team one chance to gain access to the ruined city and come out with its treasure.

You have 45 minutes to find a way into the city, discover its treasure, and get out before Atlantis is lost to the bottom of the ocean again… taking you along with it.

From a story perspective, Atlantis Rising instantly stands out as a completely unique theme. Games themed to the fabled lost continent remain somewhat rare, so explorers will likely find themselves drawn in by that first impression alone.

Once the expedition begins, the narrative itself is admittedly light; Atlantis sunk, now it’s back, but it will submerge again in just forty-five minutes, because escape game. For the remainder of that time, adventurers will be more solving tasks in a lightly themed space rather than being immersed into a cinematic storyworld.

Atlantis Rising’s footprint is on the smaller side, yet surprisingly, only half of it actually evokes the theme of the lost continent. Investigators begin in what more loosely appears to be a mine shaft. with only the doors to the presumed Temple of Poseidon giving the slightest hint this voyage will lead beneath the waves.

The finale chamber is a bit more on point, crafted in white-washed stone dripping with seaweed-like vines. Ancient symbols adorn the walls, and a large pyramid-shaped offering shrine dominates the center of the space.

With few exceptions, Atlantis is illuminated with harsh white lights making the space both exorbitantly bright while also hindering the illusion that this is an aquatic kingdom soon to once again be submerged. A more theatrical lighting scheme could give fathoms of improvement to the realism of the chamber.

At long last, the mystery of Atlantis has been solved. It was in fact these very puzzles that sunk the fabled lost city centuries ago! Ok, that’s probably not true to legend, but it certainly could be.

Atlantis Rising serves as a cautionary tale that labeling a game as “hard” doesn’t always mean it’s difficult. This is certainly one of those instances where the puzzles are often so lacking in intuitive direction that the biggest challenge is finding the intended thought meant to exist within them. Simply put, illogical and challenging are two very different things in the escape game world.

As with all games at their Las Vegas location, it should be noted that Atlantis Rising has 45 minute time limit. While seasoned players might long for a more traditional hour, there can be great value to the occasional shorter experience. Without requiring quite as much of a commitment, it could be enough to convince a first time player to finally give escape games a try. There’s also the financial value of it coming with a bit of a lower price tag as well.

We mentioned previously in our review of The Haunted Manor how some guests may find PanIQ Room’s hint system to be a bit frustrating. Clues are often pre-typed and provided over a monitor, and can sometimes take longer than one might like to be delivered. What results can sometimes be asking for a specific clue only to be told something completely unrelated.

On our specific visit, the frustration began with our game master, who, it would seem, was not paying as much attention to our team of explorers as they probably should be for every group of guests. Each time we needed to ask for a hint – which was much more often than usual thanks to some of Atlantis Rising’s less than intuitive puzzle flow, it took the game master multiple minutes to answer. That in itself is frustrating for guests in an experience where they’re literally paying by the minute. It’s made much worse when the hint you finally receive is something that’s already been completed – as the game master should have known were they paying proper attention at all times.

Worse than that, PanIQ Room has a ‘cool down‘ period of a minute or so before guests are even allowed to ask for another hint – whether or not the first one they received even applied to their progress. Imagine waiting several minutes to receive a clue you’ve already completed, then having to wait another minute to ask again, only to wait several more minutes to finally receive that subsequent hint.

Longtime readers of Escape Authority know that for our team, escape games are about the experience. Wins and losses really don’t matter as long as we’re having fun. That not withstanding, being literally single-digit seconds away from completing the final task when time runs out, knowing we probably lost a collective eight or nine minutes of a forty-five minute game to an inattentive game master and a terrible hint system is going to leave an unpleasant taste in your mouth.

At the end of the day, perhaps Atlantis sinking to the bottom of the ocean wasn’t such a bad thing after all.

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Venue: PanIQ Room

Location: Las Vegas, Nevada

Number of Games: 7

GAME SPECIFIC INFORMATION:

Duration: 45 minutes

Capacity: 7 people

Group Type: Public or Private / You may or may not be paired with strangers depending on your choice of ticket type.

Cost: $21.60 – $27.60 per person depending on date selected and your choice of public or private booking.

We thank PanIQ Room for inviting us to play this game. Although complimentary admission was generously provided, that in no way impacts the opinion included within this review.