Going Up to Rabbit Hole

Puzzle Effect is on the opposite end of Denver for me and my friends. So while we were up in Thornton at lunch this weekend, after enjoying back-to-back escaping, we got to talking about what else is up north that we don't usually get to. Talk turned to another escape room that came recommended to us by the people who run our favorite room, the Crooked Key up in Steamboat Springs. We're from down in Denver? Well, we have to go to Rabbit Hole Recreation Services, they enthused. They're even better than we are!

Located in Louisville, Rabbit Hole Recreation Services has three different experiences available. We went for Paradox, a room themed around a mad inventor who has left us a time machine to activate and repair. The recommendation was not overstated. This was a fantastic escape room.

First of all, the construction of the environment was spectacular. The room was fully built up, fully furnished, and fully immersive. Even the giving of clues was incorporated into the experience, via a "magic mirror" sufficiently camouflaged to not look like a simple computer monitor. There were tons of interactive elements, moody lighting all throughout, and a large variety of sturdy and realistic props. Nothing looked fake or cheap.

Second, the room made no use of combination locks. We've done one or two rooms like this before, but they're definitely the exception more than the rule when it comes to escape rooms -- for good reason: it's not easy to incorporate challenging puzzles in place of the locks. Paradox did so in a sort of steampunk-adjacent setting with actual, working consoles that responded to your input of moving components around and flipping switches.

Because I'd never dream of giving away specifics, it's hard to convey just how cool some of the puzzles in the room really were. Suffice it to say that the number of tiny details, the volume of reactive elements, and the variety of the puzzles was truly impressive. And I really only got to experience just a small portion of it all...

...which would be my one point of caution for anyone trying this particular room. It purports to take up to 8 players, but we had 7 and it felt a bit too crowded for my tastes. We were stepping on each others' toes a bit, with not everybody always able to find a way to pitch in usefully. I really wouldn't call this a knock on the room itself, only in the claim that 8 players could do it at once. Indeed, I've now done enough escape rooms that I'd say the ideal number is probably 5 in just about every case, with either 4 or 6 working reasonably well for most. Paradox certainly fits this description. But here's another point in Rabbit Hole's favor: all their rooms are reserved privately! If you want to go with just a few of your close friends, you don't need to worry about a couple of strangers crashing your party at the last minute.

If Paradox is even slightly indicative of the quality of the other two rooms at Rabbit Hole Recreation Services, we have make the trip across town to try out those rooms! The Crooked Key in Steamboat may have been selling themselves short to say Rabbit Hole was even better, but I certainly haven't found better anywhere else in the Denver area. If you're in Denver, and into escape rooms, you have to check them out.