Saloon

Who hasn’t wanted a From Dusk to Dawn inspired room? It’s late, our car has broken down, and we need to find refuge. What could possibly go wrong by walking into this old saloon? One step in and we know something has gone awry here. A second too late, as the door locked itself behind us. And I’m really not feeling good about the sound of something approaching.

Like this company’s other rooms, this one is generously decorated. It feels like a western bar. It’s loaded with the things you’d expect to find there. It’s got a stage for the “band”, a handy game of poker in the middle, and signs covering the walls. There’s a serviced bar, though something appears missing — entirely intentional, I assure you. Off to the side is a kitchen. They even found an ancient pinball game for the corner. And it works!

Sadly, that’s about where the good description ends. Perhaps I’m being too generous, given that it was dark the whole time we never got to inspect anything that closely. Dark, poor lighting, and the need to read things is a terrible combination.

I hate grocery list puzzles. The kind where you need to solve many unrelated trivia questions to get the individual numbers to a combination. If you’re wrong, you have no idea on which part. The trivia is never fun, usually involved counting things in the room. In the dark in this case. This was a big part of this room. We didn’t even want to finish it and resorting to begging for tips to get by the agony.

Some puzzles may have been good, but the bad memories have obscured them. Not even an excellent theme can rescue the tedium of this room. The lights need to be turned up, and the grocery list replaced with something fun.