This room started as a bucket list goal for the Escape Junkies but ultimately ended up as 1 of the biggest disappointments that we’ve experienced as a group. The Caretaker is not the hardest escape room in the USA, its not even the hardest room in the building. With all of this said, The Caretaker is not a bad escape room, it’s just a victim of its own hubris. We expected to be wowed by the difficulty of this room, and win or lose have a memorable test of wits that we could base all future escapes upon, instead the whole experience felt unsatisfying. In fact, I would argue that AEG’s own Lost Tomb of Monthu was more challenging by a pretty wide margin. Having completed my fair share of challenging escape rooms, I never felt like the difficulty reached the level of hardest in the nation. Finally, this may sound strange, but the fact that we escaped this room with around 6 minutes on the clock was a bit of a letdown. The story was also somewhat of a letdown for the more narrative focused members of the group as we had pretty much figured out the ending before we made it through the 2nd room. The most interesting puzzles in The Caretaker are the more mechanical ones but those are spread too far apart and too few to overcome the less interesting aspects of the room. The difficulty is artificially inflated because of poor lighting or tedious word search games that only serve as timesinks. The White house is vacated, and the President has been escorted to a safe rampart. An armed troop of paramilitary has infringed the White house. The Caretaker is a challenging room but not in the way one expected. Crisis At 1600 is an adventure escape game designed and conceptualized by America’s Escape Game. Unfortunately, The Caretaker failed to live up to the hype. With that claim comes expectations of challenging and innovative puzzles that would put any reasonable group of players to a 1 of a kind test. The elephant in the escape room needs to be addressed because America’s Escape Game made a point of putting it on the poster advertising the room -“Hardest Escape Room in the USA”. The carrot at the end of the stick, a chance to conquer the “Hardest Escape Room in the USA”, kept the adrenaline pumping as every joyful moment of progress contrasted with the steady loss of clock. Personally, I believe 4 is the perfect number based on the amount of space to operate in, but 5 didn’t make me feel claustrophobic. Because this room was designed for smaller groups there was something for everyone to do to contribute to the escape effort. The little details in the props surrounding the cabin provide a sense of believability needed in a horror-themed room. It’s not easy to make a believable outdoor space while indoors, but AEG’s designers did a masterful job in making the forest area feel real and alive. Most of the games at AEG Orlando score well in the room design department and The Caretaker is no different.

America's escape game