I’m not entirely sure how I got shrunk down to a tiny size, trapped in a drawer, and hiding from a madman who lives in the forest, but that is fairly typical for a Sunday evening in Los Angeles, isn’t it? At least, it is when you visit 60out’s HHLA location, which has three rooms currently open and more on the way. I was invited to check out their latest escape room, THE SMURFS (based on the IP of the same name), and also managed to snag a reservation for Hotel on Road 66.

I have loved 60Out’s escape rooms for years, having played many, many (MANY) of them. They have a certain mark of quality that a number of other escape rooms don’t; they’re always highly themed, expertly plotted, and a ton of fun. While that was mostly the case for these two rooms, there are some minor details that hold these from good to great.

Being as how this is HorrorBuzz, of course we had to check out a spooky room first! Hotel on Road 66 has a fairly simple story and some excellent good scares. While I’m always on the lookout for a live actor in rooms (and I was convinced this one had one), Hotel does an amazing job of setting up the creeps early on and keeping them going through the entire run time.

Surprising no one, the set is amazing. While we expect secret rooms & several twists these days in escape rooms, Hotel had such a GREAT “hidden” room that really impressed me. I won’t ruin the surprise, but when I opened a certain door for the second time, I was floored. Great design work!

The puzzles were great, albeit somewhat linear, causing our group some bottlenecking early on. But that said, each one fit perfectly into the overall theme, and often provided some great logic to get from Point A to Point B. Also, shout out to our game master for keeping the hints “in-game” with one of the creepiest whispering voices ever.

(As a side note, if you time using the public rest room juuuuust right, you can hear some creepy singing coming from Hotel on Road 66…an unexpected bonus that scared the hell out of us!)

After successfully escaping the Hotel, we moved onto the magical world of The Smurfs. As a kid, I watched the show often on Saturday mornings, so it was delightful to step into their world. And I mean that quite literally; the very first room in The Smurfs took my breath away with its scenic design. I loved it!

The room contained several other set pieces that we worked out way through, diving deeper into the world of The Smurfs. There was one room, where tasks had to be done without being spotted by Gargamel, which was a real nice twist on traditional rooms. Getting to interact with our favorite Smurfs (both as human-sized and Smurf-sized people) was a blast, and it really made the world come to life.

From there, the game followed a very linear puzzle order, which makes a lot of sense since the room is very kid friendly. While it won’t provide a big challenge for adult teams, your kids will have a blast. There was some “kid logic” involved, where some puzzles didn’t seem to really “click” for us, but overall we had a wonderful time.

I do haver two big complaints for these rooms, one that is an often repeated in several escape rooms: the lighting and the audio. Oftentimes, puzzles were hard to see due to the lack of light in the rooms. Or, an audio cue is so low that we missed it a few times. I understand the need for atmosphere and immersion in these things, but without being able to see or hear properly, it is very difficult to complete some puzzles.

All of that said, our team had a great time checking out the latest from 60out. If you’re looking for a great scary room to try, give Hotel on Road 66 a shot! If you want some kid-friendly escape action, The Smurfs is the way to go!