Just like movies and other forms of entertainment, the quality of escape rooms can vary. The best escape rooms provide challenging (but solvable) entertainment, engaging, and delights you and your friends as you figure out how to solve your mystery or plot your escape. The best escape rooms in the Twin Cities offer compelling stories, the chance for everyone to use their own problem-solving skills, an opportunity for teamwork, and a truly engaging and entertaining experience for all involved.
Best Escape Rooms for Travelers and Twin Cities Locals
Did you know that some escape room enthusiasts travel the country (and even the world) in search of the best escape rooms? It’s true: and Twin Cities happens to contain some of the best. If you’re a local, consider yourself lucky, as you live in a high-density area for high-quality escape rooms. Nice!
Since escape and puzzle rooms are so popular, plenty of escape room professional wannabes have opened them with haste. The best escape rooms involve a rigorous design and testing phase, which shows in the final product.
What Makes an Escape Room Great?
The best escape rooms tend to have several characteristics in common:
Originality: Many escape rooms operate within the same genres, themes, and even media properties, but how they pull it off determines whether it’s one of the best escape rooms. This isn’t just about the mystery, either: it’s about those obscure but present details that superfans will discover and remember and the uniqueness of the situation.
Engagement of multiple senses: As explorers, we don’t experience things with just one or two senses; we engage multiple senses to make sense of our environment. Some escape rooms are darker than others, forcing us to rely more on our other senses. Others have specialized soundtracks, scents, and tactile objects to touch or even wear.
Timing: Timing is everything in many of the best escape rooms. Ever try to activate something in an escape room that just wasn’t ready? Have you noticed something change, move, or appear where it wasn’t before, which gives you an essential clue? This is all part of good timing, and the best escape rooms have to master this through professional design and rigorous play testing.
Making participants feel useful and valued: After you’ve completed an experience you’ve paid for, you want to feel good about it. The best escape rooms make you feel like you’ve used your skills and strengths, you were able to work with your group effectively, and that you overall have value. Even if you don’t solve the mystery or escape in time, a good escape room lets you feel like you contributed and did your best—not like it was too easy or far too impossible to escape.
Atmosphere: Atmosphere is about more than simply embodying the theme of the escape room; it’s about how it makes you feel, act, and react. The best escape rooms use lighting, timing, information/clues, and other qualities to emphasize the atmosphere and give you a truly effective experience.
Fun: The best escape rooms are also fun. Some people find being scared fun; others prefer a more relaxing experience—but at the end of the day, it’s all about whether you enjoyed what you participated in. That means the participation aspect of it was crucial. If you don’t feel like you’re part of the story, you may as well stay at home in your pajamas and watch a movie, right? An escape room needs to offer more.
We’ve selected some escape rooms that embody these characteristics.
Best Escape Rooms in the Twin Cities Area
A Very Potter Escape Room, St. Paul: Have you ever admired the wizarding world? If you’re like most Potterheads, you’ve wanted to be the hero as you fight against a dark lord. In this scenario, you need to find a way into the headmaster’s office to retrieve a crucial wand—one that can defeat a dark lord. Do you have what it takes?
What makes it great: This escape room contains puzzles of different levels, making it ideal for a family adventure.
A Room of Ice and Fire, North Loop: Inspired by Game of Thrones, you win or you die in this fantasy-themed escape room. Along with your fellow knights, you need to protect your realm and its queen while she’s in exile. Can you restore stability?
What makes it great: The immersive, story-driven tie-in really enhances the entertainment value here, especially for Game of Thrones fans.
A Marvelous Escape Room — North Loop, Minneapolis: Are you a superhero fan? If so, the Marvelous Escape Room will provide the immersive experience you crave. In this scenario, a doomsday machine threatens the world—and a mysterious supervillain is behind all the trouble. Can you foil the dastardly plot and save the day?
What makes it great: You’ll really feel like a comic book in this one, and the room is both fully accessible and family-friendly.
The Legend of Lyndale House, Uptown: Bringing the best of horror to an escape room, you’ll find feelings of dread and suspense in this 90-minute escape room adventure. This one can accommodate up to sixteen people, and it’s got a supernatural flare.
What makes it great: The originality and spookiness of the story combined with its ability to accommodate a large number of guests make this experience tops.
The Heist, St. Paul: A shady millionaire stole a priceless painting. The problem? He’s got a lot of paintings in his mansion, and it’s up to you to carefully extract the real one without getting caught.
What makes it great: In this adventure, you need to keep calm, think fast, and navigate appropriately to successfully retrieve the missing artwork. If you enjoy that kind of pressure, this is the right choice for you.
It’s all Fun and Games, North Loop: The Spumonti Toy Shop is a front for all sorts of criminal activities , and it’s up to your team (up to 8) to gather all the clues and try to stop them! This room is fully accessible and is also appropriate for kids, if accompanied by an adult.
What makes it great: Lots of exciting puzzles in this room, and works for newbies and experienced puzzlers alike.
Spies vs. Spies, St. Paul: 2 Teams of spies are competing against each other and in order to complete their training, the race is on to catch the mole! The teams are in identical rooms. Clues are available, but here’s the twist, if you ask for a clue, your rival team will also receive the same clue.
What makes it great: The ability to have your own group make up the competing spy teams means that you can divide up your family members or friends, and engage in friendly competition.
Come Play at Trapped Puzzle Rooms
Are you ready to experience some of the best escape rooms in the Twin Cities? Trapped Puzzle Rooms provides a variety of experiences for you. Book now and experience the best—and don’t forget to bring your friends!