After doing so many escape rooms, some of them start to blend together: the theming starts to look the same, the puzzles are all variations of the same ones we’ve done time and time again, and repetition seems commonplace. But then, you play one that pleasantly surprises you, and you walk away from it with a big smile on your face.

One such game was “Den of the Occult” at Escapedom in Los Angeles, CA.

The game started off with a pretty hilarious backstory about the wizarding world, an evil wizard named Maya Conway, and Slotherin, her house of choice (and yes, Slotherin does come complete with an amazing logo). Your goal within the room is the find the crystal of death before she can release it upon the world, and also the 5 elements of the Earth, in order to escape.

While the theming of the room isn’t much to look at, the actual execution of the game is incredible. Hell, I stopped noticing the theme, honestly, because I was so enthralled with the puzzles themselves. I’d say 80% of the puzzles located within it were something we had not encountered before, and provided us with a bit of a challenge. Each one was unique in its own sense, and had us all working together to solve them.

Of course, each of them followed along with the “wizarding” theme, and fit nicely into the overall story. Some, we even over thought a bit, leading us to make them more difficult than they needed to be, with the solution being much easier than we originally thought.

The second half of the game was a bit more themed, and was a nice surprise to see it all laid out before us. The latter puzzles were much easier to do, as some of us were able to crank them out quickly, while two of our party were still working on some of the initial ones.

We only had one gripe, and that was the “penalty” of adding 5 minutes onto your final time if you ask for a hint; I do not feel like any final escape room time should be over an hour, but that may just be me. We’ll just tell people it took us 52 minutes to get out of the room, as opposed to an hour and two minutes, and no one will be the wiser!

Overall, Den of the Occult was a fun challenge, and definitely surprised us all with the fantastic puzzles it contained. So much so that we want to head back again to check out their second room, The Lair, and see what new surprises await us in there. Kudos to their puzzle team for such a fun experience.

Escapedom may seem unassuming at first, but it is definitely great fun, especially for escape room aficionados. I highly recommend you check it out.

You can find out more about the Den of the Occult, and Escapedom, at their website: www.escapedom.com