Atlanta, GA: Ultimate Escape Game

The difficulty of an escape room is a tough concept to nail. I had the pleasure this week to visit Ultimate Escape Game Atlanta and encounter an enthusiast’s dream- very difficult, but completely fair, rooms! It was truly a great experience for puzzle lovers.

We started innocuously with one of the easiest rooms at the facility – a delightful Atlanta-themed room spanning major elements of Atlanta’s history. Coca Cola, sports, iconic locations… But mainly Coca Cola! Players are tasked with stealing the Coke recipe for a die hard lover of Coke.

Early on, the room hit us with a cute and clever twist that required us to burn a hint. I was delighted when I found out what we had been doing wrong. It was a funny, clever reason, and it made a lot of sense. I didn’t feel like we were performing poorly to miss it, but it did require some creative thinking that defied escape room norms.

After that first hurdle, we progressed steadily through the room. The volume of puzzles was high, and each time I thought we were close to the end, the room revealed a few more surprises. We ended up finishing with a lot of time left, but it still felt like a full and rewarding experience.

Our host, KP then suggested we try a harder room. We tried Submerged next.

Submerged is a submarine-themed room. It was more narrative-driven than Atlanta and included multiple chapters for progressing toward the ultimate outcome of escaping from the doomed sub.

Overall I felt like we were on point, and still, we only managed to escape with a barely-comfortable margin after using two hints. Like with Atlanta, the elements we needed hints on were clever and fair, and there were a lot of puzzles that we did solve that on a worse day I could imagine needing a hint for.

The aesthetic and narrative were super cool in Submerged. Pretty much every part of the sub was used in some way, and figuring out what to work with in what order was critical to avoid losing time on elements that weren’t solvable yet. The game offered subtle clues as to what to work on in what order, and it felt very rewarding to be able to finally utilize elements we noticed early in the game.

We couldn’t resist when KP suggested Ultimate Escape’s hardest game – Erased. In Erased, players need to invade a hacker’s lair, find SIXTEEN flash drives, and figure out what to do with them. We came back the very next day to play it.

I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that Erased is the hardest fair game I’ve played, and I LOVED it. We finished with only about five minutes left on the clock, using three hints, and outside of one moment of getting stuck relatively early, we had solid momentum throughout. There was a LOT to do, and a good amount of it was tricky and required us to bring our A game.

Like the other games, Erased takes place in an interesting setting with twists and turns concealed throughout, making very good use of the space. With so much to do, keeping track of the big picture and staying organized was just as critical as solving the puzzles themselves.

We got a huge adrenaline rush playing Erased, and at multiple junctures it felt like we might lose. We needed all three of our hints, and the things we used our hints on were fair, but with a lot to do, a nudge really helps stay ahead of the clock.

I would call the games at Ultimate Escape must-plays for players who have a few escape rooms under their belts and are starting to feel a little cocky. Just be ready and aware that losing is a very real possibility, and that’s part of the magic. For anyone newer to escape rooms or less inclined toward puzzles and strategy/organization, I would highly recommend opting for the unlimited hint upgrade. Either that or save the hardest rooms to be your Ultimate experience – a boss-level challenge to work up toward.

Ultimate Escape Games has two other rooms, one passively creepy and one actively scary, so it may take a little convincing to get Christina to play them, but we enjoyed the other games so much that we’ll probably have to try the spooky ones sometime.

Thanks to KP for being an amazing host both days, curating our experience expertly and making sure we had a great time. We were blown away.

I also need to note that I casually noticed that Submerged was Christina’s 399^th escape room, then promptly forgot about it until AFTER we finished Erased, so after having special fanfare (certificates and cake) for Christina’s 300^th, we completed #400 with zero fanfare. But at least we loved the room!!!