SmartyPantz

Great rooms and the staff are fun! will be forwarding people to try their location. I have been back 2x now and will be 2 more times to try all the rooms!

My first experience with an escape room. We did spy’s and lies. Not knowing it is supposedly the hardest room. It was super fun! We didn’t finish but it was a great 45 min. The «host» was awesome and I will totally be trying another room! It is a great idea to bring a few friends and spend an hour having fun!

Good.
This was the first escape room for a large portion of our group and we completed The Morning Never Comes. Not a scary room which was good as some of our group was worried about that. We did complete it in record time and it felt like there could have been more puzzles, but the goal of the rooms is more about being immersed in a story rather than completing it in record time. There is no time clock in the room and no one actually enters your room to give you the hint. Instead we were equipped with a walkie talkie. An actor introduced us to the room and was our contact who gave clarification. I liked that if we thought something was broken we could easily ask for clarification at any point and it didn’t count as a hint.
The room set up was very cool and well put together.
The waiting room/​foyer was very simple and had some games to play while waiting including a big version of Jenga. There was parking in the area, it’s behind Grant Mac in a little bit of an industrial area. Look for the blue building and the entrance is on the East side.
It overall was a fun family bonding experience and we all enjoyed it. Next time we are eager to try a more challenging room.
Update: we completed the hardest room they have Spies and Lies and it was super good! Difficult but solvable. We completed it with only 2 minutes to spare!
Don’t forget to get your picture taken in the rooms after your done! A great keep sake and memory reminder of the fun had. The staff were awesome and helped set the room up so it was photo ready for us.

When we came to smarty pantz it was our 4^th escape room company in 24hrs. We had discovered escape rooms and went on a binge.
We got into the lobby and there were many places to sit and wait while our other members arrived, we played «guess who» and other games provided while we waited.
We finally checked in and waited for our host to come and take us to «morning never comes», our physic medium host came and took us up to the room and explained all the details, and gave us a back story to the room acting as a medium.
The room is amazing, very well decorated and really immerses you in the theme. We started and right away didn’t feel like we knew how to start, we found the first clue and didn’t know how to apply it. That was our fault we had over look something but we had stressed about it so much that it was affecting our experience. We went through the room and had many more frustrating moments to the point we almost just sat down and stopped playing, Partially think this was due to doing too many rooms in 24hrs, we were honestly burnt out but we love these escape rooms!!!
We did end up completing the room with 32 seconds left, it was bitter sweet for sure, we felt as though we had our butts kicked. I took time to think about the experience and if you had asked me outside the doors I probably would have said I wouldn’t be back, weird considering we had «won». But I thought about it after and smarty pantz checked all the boxes.
–Unbelievably designed rooms and effects
–Great customer service
–Good puzzles
–Unique experience
The way the clues are presented and what they try to get you to do makes you think in a different way compared to other companies IMO, I appreciate that now, not in the moment, but I do now.
I will be coming back to smarty pantz, they are a top notch escape experience company, next time we will be on the top of our game!!!

I think this may be my new favourite escape room establishment in YEG! They have a location in Vancouver so I am excited to see them expand!
The fee is still a standard $ 25 for 45 minutes.
When we arrived, we signed out wavers and then the guy at the front desk left for a couple of minutes and came back in full character, costume and everything! He then took us to our room and during the entire experience he stayed in character while on the walkie talkie.
I won’t give too many details on the actual room we were in in case you try it yourselves– but ours was CREEPY AF. I really liked how it was a lot more physically interactive. You had to crawl through a small space to get to a smaller room and we started off all locked together. You had to use items to reach other items. Haha it wasn’t *JUST* brain power and solving riddles to get you out. Sometimes you had to physically engineer how you were going to get out of a situation or solve a problem.
What didn’t I like? Well sometimes we got the combinations to locks quickly– but the locks were finicky so we thought we had them wrong. Pro tip: you can confirm via walkie if your code is right– do this! You might have the right code but it will take you 2 – 3 times entering it before the lock actually works! We wasted a lot of time trying to figure out one riddle when we had the answer right away– the lock was just picky!
Other than that, I had a fun time! I’ll be back!

Did the Thirst for Murder room with a group of 7. The whole experience was great. We really enjoyed the staff interaction which is something other companies just don’t do. The room itself was fun and required a creative mind. We solved it in about 25 minutes, but still really enjoyed our time. It was the first room we’ve ever escaped so that made it that much better.
Will definitely be going back to try the other rooms.

Recently went to the escape room, spies and lies with my family. We have been to escape rooms across Canada and were pleasantly surprised by this experience. We really enjoyed how immersive the whole experience was, and how detailed the rooms were. We loved the staff, they were so hospitable and truly made this experience go beyond a regular night out. We also loved the puzzles in the waiting area. The only thing that prevents me from giving them 5 stars is the fact we only had 45 mins to solve the puzzle where as other places give you an hour.

Good location, just behind Grant Mac so there is an abundance of free parking in the evenings. There’s a nice big reception area when you walk in and its appointed by some nice mid-​century furniture (someone must’ve had fun hitting up the thrift shops!). There are a bunch of little games for people to keep themselves entertained as they wait for their party. As opposed to other escape room places, these guys have entire closets for your group to keep their stuff in; particularly useful now that people are wearing their heavy winter coats.
Smartypantz appoints an in character host (who was pretty entertaining) and communicates to you via two way radio. Some people may not like using the radio, but I thought it was quite a clever way to get clues and effective. The room was well done, better than most other escape rooms in the city; I.e., it actually felt like a ‘real room’. The puzzles were fairly intuitive and logical, which is a key factor for me to feel immersed in the realism. The ‘special effects’ of the puzzles was also well done; similar to that at GTFO.
Good staff, good rooms, will definitely go back again. The reception area was a bit chilly and the rooms themselves were a but toasty, so layer up.

Really good escape experience! Much better than some other places I’ve been to. Excellent attention to detail, and reasonable level of challenge in puzzles. Most of the puzzles have to do with the story as well, which really enhances the experience – they aren’t just random. Super nice space as well. I will never go back to Mayfield after going to this place.

This is the type of place that is super hard to write a review on — for one you don’t really want to give away anything and also I kind of feel like a bit of compare an contrast would really change mine. But, I haven’t been to any other escape room places and can’t compare and contrast.
I found the place to be really clean (always a plus in my books) and the staff to be quite friendly. While we didn’t think there would be any parking, there turned out to be quite a bit in front of the building.
In terms of the actual escape ‘experience’, I’m a little uncertain if I enjoyed it or not. Especially when you put a monetary value on it (though, to be clear, I won a gift card and went with my friends for free). I found that because everything was in one room with no clear «do a, then b, then c» type of order, everybody just ran wild and did their own thing. To some extent, that would be the fault of the group. But I think with these escape games there needs to be a bit of an onus on the company to make things logical. In the end, there wasn’t much cooperation within my group, and I think that was at least partially the fault of the room not allowing it or providing the resources for everybody to be able to be involved. I also found that just about everything we discovered or did was more by accident than any sort of puzzle solving.
I don’t know. I would definitely do one of these again, but I’m not exactly dying to.
(also, yes, we did beat the room)

Really well done escape game. The rooms are really wonderfully decorated and the games are well thought out. You can be doing different clues at once so that not everyone is all over one clue. In a nice location downtown by Grant McEwan with plenty of parking

Nice convenient location downtown, just behind Grant MacEwan. Plenty of free parking nearby.
The twist to this escape room as compared to the others is the integration of a live actor that guides your play. The actor sets the story, and gives you clues as the character he is playing. We really enjoyed this feature. We had one particular actor that was really good and never broke character even while we were laughing our butts off as he set the storyline.
As for the rooms themselves, the design is done very well. The puzzles are not too hard and fairly straightforward. The only downside is that they are single rooms (so far, anyway), although I guess the positive side to that is that passing a single room actually seems doable in 45 minutes. Smartypantz has banished the traditional ring a doorbell and someone comes to give you a clue style, and they do not have a timer in the rooms.
A few things I don’t like about this place:
1) They will not allow you back in to the room if you leave it for whatever reason. Pretty sure punishing people for having to go to the bathroom goes against some sort of human rights legislation.
2) You have to prepay online with your booking. — sometimes shit happens (ie) a friend flakes out, you get called in to work, etc) Not a fan of that, if I have to swallow the costs myself.
3) No clock in the room to keep track of your play time. I personally like to know how much time I have, and space the two hints out accordingly.
The price is the same as all the others — $ 25 plus tax per person. Hoping that prices will start going down now that there are so many of these places popping up.