RATING: 4 Keys RESULT: Win REMAINING: +4:38
“Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.”
– Dr. Seuss, seconds before the Weeping Witch sucked out his soul
[probably]
The Weeping Witch is a spirit that lures people close by mimicking the sound of a woman crying. When people hear its wails, they follow the sound into the darkness, thinking someone needs help. Once they get close enough, the Witch attacks and slowly sucks the life out of its victims.
If you choose to enter Madam Ruby’s study, that is what is awaiting you. Will you be able to banish the evil spirit and end your family curse before the Weeping Witch consumes your soul?
A well-known mystic dabbling in the occult, Madame Ruby has made it her goal to find a way to overcome the curse of the legendary Weeping Witch one way or another. Locked away in her study, few have seen Ruby of late – but is that because she’s so focused on her mission or because… it’s already too late?
For years, her family has been haunted by The Weeping Witch – a heartless demon that fests on the innocent souls of the compassionate. As the story goes, once you hear her crying in the darkness, it’s already too late.
Cross Roads Escape Games brings the legend of The Weeping Witch to life in a chillingly realistic fashion. A combination of startling physical effects, theatrical sound, lighting and a live actor who gets way too close for comfort while lurking in the darkness truly crank up the scare factor.
Now, it’s up to the Witch’s latest victims to stand with unflinching nerves of steel in the shadows and face this terror up close while solving the mystery of how to contain her. It’s that, or, you know, have your soul consumed like all those foolish enough to try before.
The curse of The Weeping Witch has been set loose in Madam Ruby’s study – primarily a single room space with somewhat modest decor. Naturally, Ruby has some secrets yet to be discovered, but they do little to expand that footprint.
It’s important when bringing an attraction’s storyworld to life that the scenic be instantly recognizable – allowing visitors to understand its premise even if they hadn’t read the game’s written story prior to arriving. This is a bit of a challenge with Madame Ruby’s study. The modest decor kept within doesn’t fully evoke the tone of a mystic seer’s private space – a place one might expect to find all sorts of magical objects and whimsical artifacts.
The dominating focal point of the study is a large machine powered by a heavy crystal. Madame Ruby believes that finding a way to energize it may hold the secret to banishing The Weeping Witch once and for all. And none to soon – as the malevolent spirit becomes more powerful, she begins to take physical control of objects in kept around the room, causing them to react in startling and unexpected ways.
The majority of The Weeping Witch’s challenges flowed intuitively – even in the dark. There were, however, a small number of tasks that were perhaps cursed by the witch to be a bit unclear.
Thankfully, Cross Roads Escape Games has brought to life a clever interactive hint system that makes asking for clues all the more fun. But as with every curse, there is of course some bad news as well. Would-be protectors of the spirit world may be asked to for an inane and oftentimes immersion-jarring favor first – for example – to tell the character a joke. There’s just no scenario where we endorse asking guests to jump through hoops to receive a hint, no matter how light-hearted the intentions may be.
Where The Weeping Witch truly shines is when it lets go of some of its more standard escape game-flavored puzzles, and shifts focus to interactive tasks clearly designed to banish its titular demon. Those moments are equal parts engaging, cinematic and downright awesome.
Perhaps we entered Madame Ruby’s study with too lofty of expectations. The Weeping Witch’s legend is a strong one that often echoes through whispers of Southern California’s most recommended games. To be clear, the total package experience is great, and The Weeping Witch’s theatrics are compelling and more times than not objectively frightening.
Perhaps the missing ingredient in this potion is a bit more focus on those cinematic moments. Banishing the witch is nothing shy of epic, but some form of direct interaction with her earlier in the game could both raise the sense of stakes while also further flushing out the sinister character’s motivations. For example, we found ourselves wishing that, rather than just solving an escape game puzzle to hold off the witch a bit longer, perhaps someone could have been made to approach her in the shadows with some type of offering to would bide just a bit more time to get Ruby’s machine online.
It’s also worth noting that The Weeping Witch has quite a lot to do. Although Cross Roads Escape Games was kind enough to make special accommodations for our smaller group of two, we’d highly recommend you tackle this curse with a larger number of teammates – perhaps even more than the traditionally required minimum of four.
Curses and critiques aside, Cross Roads Escape Games has from its inception striven to constantly reinvent the wheel, and we love them for that. It can be so easy to take the ‘safe’ design path by going with something that’s been seen before. That path is never an option here. Every attraction we’ve experienced at Cross Roads Escape Games, no matter how big or impossibly small, has been an incredibly unique breath of fresh air for the industry. If that’s their curse, we hope it never gets lifted.
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Venue: Cross Roads Escape Games
Location: Anaheim, California
Number of Games: 3
GAME SPECIFIC INFORMATION:
Duration: 60 minutes
Capacity: 8 people (minimum 4)
Group Type: Private / You will not be paired with strangers.
Cost: $42 per person
We thank Cross Roads Escape Games for inviting us to play this game. Although complimentary admission was generously provided, that in no way impacts the opinion included within this review.
