Puzzle Break

My team and I did the Carnival Escape and had a blast! I’ve never been disappointed by a Puzzle Break room — and this one did not disappoint. It was the right amount of concurrent puzzling for all 12 people, and it definitely felt like the right time frame. Definitely a great weekend mental challenge for you and your puzzling-​inclined friends!

After seeing Race to Escape on TV, we gave Puzzle Break in Seattle a shot to see what the experience would be like in person. It was fantastic! Everyone had a lot of fun.
It’s a little spooky going in, as you’re essentially entering long tunnels into what feels like an abandoned warehouse. The organizers did give occasional hints (if requested) but the puzzles still weren’t anywhere near easy.
We got out of the room in a little under 45 minutes with 10+ people, which we were told was quite good. Good communication was stressed during pre-​puzzle preparation. Despite my fiancèe and I not knowing anyone else in our group, everyone communicated well. We also appreciated the patience of the organizers in answering everyone’s questions.
Tip: Get there on time!

I’m reviewing this as the organizer of a corporate teaming event at Puzzlebreak’s 10^th & Pike location.
The puzzlebreak staff communicated promptly, and effectively, at all times. They made the process easy and were well versed. They offered appropriate hints throughout the process.
The experience itself was a really fantastic team event. It was fun, gave people something to focus on, and was a great way to get to know each other in a more casual environment. I also love that it was appealing and fun for all types of people in our office – from the hard-​core mathy and puzzly types to the people who were absolutely sure they’d be a liability. People are already lobbying for puzzlebreak instead of a fancy lunch for our holiday party, and we didn’t even crack the room.
I will say that the room décor is pretty campy and I can see where some feel that for $ 550 for 90 minutes of fun you might expect a little more glitz & glamor. But, it didn’t particularly bother me.

We went to Puzzle Break for a work morale event. We were split into 2 groups. It was so much fun and had us all working together to try and get out of the room. It is definitely challenging and makes you think! It seemed that everyone on the team really enjoyed it. One person (who has been with the company for over 25 years) said it was one of the best events he has gone to! The only reason I didn’t give it a 5 was that it was unbearably hot! It was a warm day and the rooms got a little hot and stuffy with all those people inside. A few more fans around the room would have been good. I’d still go back and try a different room next time. Highly recommended!!!

This was pretty epic. i won’t give out any details so you all can experience the frustration of trying to solve nearly impossible puzzles.
We thought our group was pretty smart… We tried 20,000 leagues under the sea and didn’t even come close.
Happy Puzzling!

This was an amazing fun team activity. Our team hasn’t stopped talking about it. A high quality activity thst in an atmosphere that engages and challenges everyone! Staff was exceptional every step if the way! Thank you

Had to write a review of Puzzle Break in Seattle, WA as their escape the room experience was by far and away better than others I have tried. I love the whole escape the room concept so I was happy to try out a game while in town for work… and I am very happy I did… The place was so much nicer than other escape rooms I have tried and the details of each room and gameplay (including the clues/​puzzles) seem to much more thought out and creative…
I definitely understand all the 5-​star reviews now as it is definitely warranted. Hope to be back to try a different room if I’m ever in the area again. Would have this trip if work did not get in the way.

I didn’t really know what to expect at first when I signed up to go for my friends birthday. But I had a lot of fun, I would recommend to anyone! It was a fun scavenger hunt type group puzzle where you definitely need to communicate and work together as group. We went as a large group and had 2 other people in our group that we didn’t know, but that definitely didn’t matter. You could totally go with a small group of people or with a larger group of people.
The staff is really friendly and helpful. They will answer questions if objects are part of the puzzle or not and will provide tips if you need them. Otherwise, you wouldn’t even know that they were in the room. The set design is really neat and well put together.
I would highly recommend this to anyone that’s looking for a new exciting group activity. It’s also conveniently located on Capital Hill so afterwards there are lots of bars and restaurants to eat at afterwards!

This was my first time doing puzzle break in Seattle and I wasn’t really sure what to expect but it ended up being a lot of fun. I did the 20,000 leagues with some couple friends as a Valentines Date. The puzzles were really challenging and it seemed there was something for everyone to do. It helped to be able to think quickly and think outside the box.
The staff was very friendly and understanding. This event is great if you are alone and wanting to meet some new friends or with a group of people you want to get have a good time with.
I would highly recommend Puzzle Break for anyone who loves to solve puzzles and likes a challenge.

This was more fun than I thought it was going to be. Worth it. Especially if you’re with a group of friends.

I went to Puzzle Break today with a friend of mine. We used to watch a show on Nat Geo that was about escape rooms and enjoyed the idea very much.
This lived up to our expectations!
We were locked in a room with 8 other participants. The theme was «20,000 leagues under the sea». We had to fix our navigation computer in order to escape. There were 8 locks that we needed the combination for to attempt to fix the navigation computer.
I can’t spoil any of the puzzles and clues in order to do so, but we had many challenges that the group organically split between us until we finally started to solve some.
It was a great time. And the hour flew by!
I thought a couple of the challenges were a little too «abstract» or difficult. But that is perfect. If they were all easy, it would be no fun at all.
My group did not solve the puzzle in time. But I will be back for their other themed room in the very near future for sure.

Find yourself complaining that there’s ‘nothing to do’? Do you like creative problem-​solving and having a good time?
Then stop what you’re doin’ ’cause I’m ’bout to ruin, the image and the lifestyle that you’re used to.
This is my second time doing Puzzle Break (Grimm’s Fairy Tales and most recently, Escape from Midnight Carnival) and I can’t say ENOUGH how fun this is!
Whether you’re a lone wolf/​maybe new to Seattle or have a group of friends that roam the countryside looking for patterns in random situations and want to engage with other people, sign up on their website! The time slots are limited to 12 — 14 people for an hour of puzzle/​riddle-​solving time. Don’t worry, if you don’t escape the room in an hour, water doesn’t fill the room like Kingsman or anything. You won’t put your hand inside a box only to pull a stump out where your hand used to be.
I don’t want to say too much. Part of the fun is not knowing what to expect!
It’s $ 30 per person, and if you sign yourself up you can enjoy a $ 4 discount on your next puzzle.
Because we didn’t escape in time, we are signing up again for REDEMPTION with a different puzzle. Puzzles change so you’ll always be able to find a new one to try :) Don’t get in a ‘going to the bar rut’ — mix it up and try Puzzle Break!

Such a fun team building activity! I have done it twice now with my team and I can honestly say everyone had a great time. Games are challenging but fun. They get your grey cells working, for sure!

We had a great time. It was definitely worth both listening to and following the advice of the staff. The time was well spent, and the details would be a major spoiler. Glad we did this late in the season, as they will change the puzzle within 3 months, and we can go again.
My wife and I went with a friend and a couple of relatives. The shared experience gives us much to talk about.
If you are thinking about it, take the plunge, be prepared to open yourself to some frustration, some challenge, and hopefully some teamwork and success.
Best of luck.

My work group had a Puzzle Break teambuilding activity recently. Due to the size of our group, they could not fit us in their facility, so they came to our headquarters for a Hollywood Murder Mystery game.
We separated into groups and had 90 minutes to crack the case. We found ourselves being full entrenched in the roles, and the puzzles/​clues also forces you to work at a team — which is exactly what were going after.
After all is said and done, I received feedback from several of my colleagues that this was the best teambuilder they’d ever attended. All in all, it was success. Thank you, Puzzle Break!

I’ve been on numerous «team building» activities with my company and perhaps with the exception of the Jaeger Bombs in Seoul, Puzzle Break was one of the best group activities I have done in awhile. As the name suggests, you need to solve puzzle to «break» out of a locked room. Only 13% of the groups succeed, and although we did not, we had a blast. I can’t go into a lot of details without giving it all away, but what I can say is that the puzzles do require a lot of team work and communication. There are multiple layers of problem solving and the puzzles cover a wide gamut — mathematical, spatial, word puzzles, etc. Definitely would recommend a group or team activity here!

Great fun even if we lost. (Pro tip tell the guy who says he has done puzzle rooms before and tries to lead to shut up early on.) Puzzle break had a lot of mini puzzles so if you prefer one kind of puzzle style over another you can focus on what you like. Downside of so many mini-​puzzles you often have little idea what someone else is doing in the room.
Puzzle Break had really challenging puzzles while others were unnecessarily complicated. No matter what you have a fun time and get your money’s worth. Even when we failed they explained the unfinished puzzle to us.
If anything, I would have like to have known the time remaining better and has some kind of urgency built into the timing. I didn’t know time was running out and some people in the group were happy just taking their sweet time.

We booked the 20,000 leagues under the sea room for two of us, and were surprised to be joined by ELEVEN others, making the grand total 13 in the room!
…and boy, did we need everyone!
The room is filled with a number of non-​linear puzzles that each add up to metapuzzle (or megapuzzle?). This means that everyone could split up and work on their own thing. In retrospect, it would have made more sense for us to designate one leader to split everyone into puzzling groups, and to move clues to the appropriate groups. Instead, we all just started tackling puzzles we liked in various ways, which wasted a lot of time.
The puzzles themselves were relatively straightforward. There were some clues that needed to be used several times, and others that only needed to be used once. Thankfully, there were very few red herrings. Almost everything in the room needed to be used for at least one puzzle. Two of the employees were in the room to give us as much help as we desired, and even pointed out when we were going down a wrong path. I was trying to pattern-​match two clues that didn’t have anything to do with one another, and an employee luckily stopped me and told me that one of the clues didn’t need to be used twice. I could’ve burned a LOT of time on that one.
The ambiance of the room left a bit to be desired. It was just a large rectangular room with portholes affixed to the wall. It didn’t really look like a submarine, or an underwater lab, at all. There weren’t any real steampunk devices, and the mechanisms had mere binary interfaces.
The puzzles themselves also didn’t really lend themselves to any sort of plotline at all. There were no characters to learn about, no real danger to overcome, and no world to learn about. It was more like, «Here’s a puzzle involving undersea creatures! Here’s a puzzle involving chemicals! Here’s another puzzle involving a poem about the ocean!» Really, really random.
The employees really go out of their way to make the experience a valuable one. They oversee everything and guide you through things. We didn’t finish on time, but they gave us extra time and walked us through the solution and all the various puzzles, even though they were under NO obligation to do so.
Bottom line: good, logical puzzles, too many puzzles to solve within the hour unless you have a solid team and a solid team leader, great employees, very little ambiance, and very little immersive storytelling. Good, but not great.

No «spoilers» are given, but there may be some indications of how the game [was] played, i.e., strategy. If you want to go into the game completely fresh like I did, then skip to the last paragraph.
We did the Grimm game as part of a birthday present with seven of my friends and a group of two and three. The group dynamic was awesome, as we all were clever, intuitive, and eager to whet ourselves yet there was no alpha-​sapien that wanted to take over everything.
At first I felt slightly overwhelmed as people rushed into the room and quickly divided themselves into puzzles without me getting a chance to «survey» the room. Initially, I thought that we were solving stuff too fast. Then I thought not fast enough. But it was really interesting to see how quickly we all *naturally* divided into teams to solve various puzzles and at times would branch off to match x puzzle with y puzzle that would solve z puzzle.
Really interactive with lots of different types of puzzles and a little bit of interesting technology thrown in there as well. What a rush to solve something new! Everyone in the entire group was really into it, and everyone at some point had their part in solving one of the various puzzles.
The Grimm theme is kind of interesting (you don’t need any prior Grimm knowledge) but it is simply a loose theme if anything. Replace certain words and images and you get another game. That being said the room is very minimal and stripped down to the mere things you’ll need to escape the room. I wish there was more in the room to enhance the feel of the theme as opposed to every object that was in the room was a clue or part of a clue, thus making it a little more obvious.
A really fun game to play in a group. Try and get 12 people together, though it’s also a great way to meet new people! A large spectrum of different types of puzzles, so everyone gets a chance to be clever. We solved it in just under an hour, and apparently the success rate is quite low. Can YOU escape the room? Dun dun dunnnnnn…

Grimm Fairy Tale Escape the Room. Overall, I’d have to say my experience was meh. My group finished in just over 50 minutes. Hosts made sure not to offer too much advice (the extent of what we got was «That is not a puzzle piece» or «You’re missing one more piece»), which helped as we solved all but 3 puzzles before solving the meta puzzle.
My rating of 2 stars comes predominantly from tow factors (1) simplicity of the puzzles and (2) price. The puzzles are definitely challenging, but we found them to be more like busy work than riddles. For $ 30, we were just taken aback. I understand that there’s a lot of work that goes into training staff, developing puzzles and overhead costs, but I would say that it just seems a bit pricy.
To be fair, I’ve been a participant in Microsoft’s Puzzle Hunt — which features many more challenging puzzles (typically riddle based) and it’s typically an 8hour or 24hour event. I will say that having been to this (free) event, it’s hard to justify the $ 30.