Mastermind Escape Games

Loved this place! The escape rooms are really challenging but totally doable… My friends and I had a blast!

Be WARNED!!! You and your family will not be put in a room alone on a weekend. You could be put in there with a family with a BRATTY child that will not let you and your family solve anything and will slap your hand, if you try. This was our first time, I wanted a family FUN day, but wasted our money instead. Nasty restrooms, late staff and rooms not set up and we were the first clients there.

The «Lost In Time» room had a clue that was not set up properly, which cost us about 20 minutes. When we finally asked for clarification, the moderator told us the opposite of what we needed to do, then corrected himself 5 minutes later. All in all, we spun our wheels for 25 minutes because of that one clue that wasn’t properly set up for us. The room itself was really cool, and the rest of the game was a lot of fun. We were just disappointed that we wasted a chunk of our hour.

Fantastic Escape room. I have done one of these before with a different company and this one was definitely far superior to the other one. We did the Sorcerer’s room and, without giving anything away, there were alot of surprises! The puzzles were interesting and made you think, but also clear. Staff was engaging and helpful. Would highly recommend and will likely return to try a different room.

Our group had a blast! There were 6 of us in the Sorcerers room. We managed to escape with 5 minutes left on the clock. Which we were told was really good, considering only 25−35% of people actually escape from that room. We will definitely be back to try the other rooms!

«Any attempt to escape…» — Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace (1999)
I’m obsessed with Escape Rooms — I cannot get enough. So I was thrilled when my old ‘hood of Sandy Springs opened up this new one that will (ultimately) have 6 rooms set up. They just opened in December 2015 and we tried Escape from Experiment Alpha within a week of them opening their doors. Note: They have since renamed this experience to Escape the Zombie Virus.
Newly opened and soon to open (all by mid-​February) are the following rooms: The Sorcerer’s Secret (said to be their easiest), The Spy Who Got Away, WWII — Air Raid Escape, Superhero Training Facility & Lost in Time (said to be their toughest). Lost in Time is the one we just attempted.
First, I’ll talk about our Experiment Alpha experience. We started 15 minutes late (annoying). There was not a lot of «debriefing,» which you typically will receive quite a bit of before going into a room. You are given the scenario (details around the theme) and what you are trying to accomplish in your 60 minutes. The young woman who took us to the room was not really «into» the entire thing. She was quite ho-​hum about the entire thing and just dropped us in the room and closed the door. Not a big deal since we were all pretty experienced, but it would have been nice to have some kind of set up.
As we worked the room, we encountered some issues. Basically, the room had not been properly reset from the group before us (items were not locked back up in their lockboxes), a key clue had been rubbed off the artifact (sharpie does not stay on glass) and the final code (which we figured out) did not work on the door to get us out. So it was quite anticlimactic when we actually escaped — because of technical difficulties.
The place was brand new and these guys seemed new to the whole escape room thing. The guy working that night — maybe a manager of some kind — gave us a free room to come back and try again because of their mistakes. Fast forward 1 month. Lost in Time!
We started on time, after we all asked if the room was properly reset, a couple of times. John (the actual manager of this location), assured us that all was well. When he walked us to the room, he changed into «Marvin» and somewhat role-​played. He did ok — I am accustomed to these guys really getting into their characters, but John did better than our previous visit. Debriefing was good. We immediately got to work. This is a time-​travel/​Back to the Future throwback room and was a lot of fun. Crazy complex. Lots to solve. We missed it by 2 minutes. We had the solution, but just were Outta Time!
I couple of things to note — and also improvements from our first visit. They talk to you through an interactive TV screen. You look up at the screen and ask a question and they type a response back to you. On our first visit, the girl seemed to just be giving answers (hated that) — this time «Marvin» gave us 8 green locks. Each time we asked for a clue, he took one away and gave us a clue/​hint towards a solution we needed. The variety of puzzles is great — puzzle boxes, Math, cyphers, keys, puzzles requiring ingenuity… it requires a good set of skills in the people walking into the room. I think doing this room would be hard with 2 – 4 people. 6 – 8 is better. Communication was key and really, we were so damn close! We debated the places we could have saved time earlier just to give us that last bit at the end.
We sat around with John after and discussed where we did well and things we missed. He was impressed at things we figured out without specific clues and told us about things we never found. These game makers do know how to build a room. Can’t wait to come back and try another.

Amazing Escape Room in Sandy Springs is one of the latest real-​life room escape games to open in metro Atlanta. It debuted December 10, 2015 in the «Glenridge 400» office park at 5825 Glenridge Drive. Amazing Escape Room is located in Building 4. Drive all the way to the far back of the office park to find it.
There are several rooms in the works at Amazing Escape Room. On December 16, 2015, we tried «Escape from Experiment Alpha.» At the time of writing this review, I’ve tried eight different room escapes in metro Atlanta: this one, The Study and The Hotel at Mission: Escape — Atlanta near Atlantic Station, Trapped in a Room with a Zombie at Room Escape Adventures in Tucker, Zombie Apocalypse and Inception at Paranoia Quest in Downtown Atlanta, and the Royal Room and Black Ops Room at Mystery Room at Sugarloaf Mills. My favorites have been The Hotel at Mission: Escape — Atlanta, Zombie Apocalypse at Paranoia Quest, and Trapped in a Room with a Zombie at Room Escape Adventures. Escape from Experiment Alpha at Amazing Escape Room comes in fourth, which isn’t a bad thing. I had a lot of fun.
There were a few issues with our room, one of which made our successful escape anticlimactic. However, since this place is new, I’m willing to cut these guys some slack. The employees we encountered were friendly and enthusiastic. Due to the hiccups, the assistant manager Paris offered our group a complimentary future visit.
In terms of production quality, Amazing Escape Room falls below Mission: Escape and Paranoia Quest, but above Room Escape Adventures and Mystery Room. Amazing Escape Room has a mixture of high-​tech devices (e.g. interactive widescreen displays and touchpads) and thrift store quality props. Overall, what I liked best about our experience was the number and variety of puzzles. There were *a lot* of locks to open and the style/​method to opening many of them was different. In other words, we weren’t monotonously opening combination lock after combination lock. It was a nice assortment.
I think the briefing portion could have been done better. All I gathered before we entered the room was that we were inside the CDC and we had to avoid getting infected with a virus. After we entered the room, I expected the employee to follow us in and finish our briefing, but instead the door shut and the one-​hour countdown began. There was a keypad by the door, but we weren’t told how many digits the code was or if escaping through that door was even the ultimate objective of the game.
The room was set up like a doctor’s office/​lab. There were various equipment, texts, notes/​letters, safes, locks, etc. Like other escape rooms, our group was being monitored via camera. We could «talk to the TV» if we needed hints or advice. The TV responded with text messages to our questions/​comments. That’s different. At the other escape rooms I’ve tried so far, the escape room employees have communicated via speakers or walkie-​talkies. Every so often, audio messages would play on the TV. These messages went along with the room’s story and sometimes gave us clues or helped guide us to an answer.
The problems we had with our room were as follows:
1. One of the locked items was not re-​locked when the room was reset. When we started the room, this lock was already open. This was both good and bad. It was good because it was one less lock to solve. However, it was bad because we ended up gathering extraneous clues (intended for this lock) that only served to confuse us since we didn’t know what puzzle the clues were for.
2. A multi-​digit numeric code was required to solve the final puzzle. We knew all of the numbers of the code, but one. That was because the number had been inadvertently wiped off of the item it was written on. When the room was reset, no one checked to see if the number was still visible. Luckily, since we knew all the other digits, we could just guess by trial-​and-​error at what the remaining digit was. We *should* have known what the remaining digit was since we found the hidden item that had the number written on it. (Sorry for being so vague, but I don’t want to spoil anything.)
3. The lock where we input the final code did not work. The employees said we got the final code correct, but the lock wouldn’t open. Before the timer ended, an employee entered the room and tried the correct code out for herself. It didn’t work. She said it was the first time that’s happened and apologized. While we didn’t get the thrill and satisfaction of inputting the final code and unlocking the last puzzle, at least we beat the room! The big group before us did not. Losers (jk).
We had six people in our group and I thought it was an ideal size for Escape from Experiment Alpha. We purchased Groupons (
) and it worked out to $ 21.25 per person for us. Tickets are normally $ 28 per person.
Despite the problems, all of us still had an enjoyable experience. We’re going back next month.