Palace Games

I’ve done a few escape rooms, and this had the highest production value and creativity that I’ve ever seen. So much fun! The whole group loved it.

This was an excellent escape room! I highly recommend!
Allen — our MC — was enthusiastic and really made the game exciting! The history theme of the 1915 World’s Fair was interesting and the game design of the clues and puzzles were high quality. I can’t wait until the next one opens!

I set up a team outing to the Houdini Escape Room and we had an amazing time! The room puzzles are so innovative and challenging. Definitely the best escape room that we have ever done! I’m so excited for the next WWI Spy Room to open up! We’ll be the first in line to try it out!

This may be the first Unilocal review that I have written ever.
We rented out the room for a team event — and absolutely loved it!
Alsu was such a great host and we had an amazing time. Would highly, highly recommend as a group event — especially for people who work together.
We also signed up for the META survey (was an additional survey we took that would help give us insight into how we work as a team) and can’t wait to see the results.

I have played more than twenty escapes games. The Houdini game room is a combination of Scrap’s style puzzles and Omescape’s amazing mechanisms. I had a good time at Houdini and the game is well designed in my opinion. However, some of my friends would not enjoy it. They are noobs so the puzzles are too difficult for them. To play Houdini you need everyone to be smart. If you have played a lot of escape games already and are good at solving puzzles, I highly recommend you play Houdini. But if you are new in this game, just try others’ first. Also it is a little pricey.

My first experience in an Escape Room was a real treat. The complexity and engineering behind this room is astounding. Very challenging, very rewarding. Bring your A-​game puzzle solvers for this one.

In a word: amazing.
Hands down, one of the best rooms I’ve ever done. A great brain-​tickling challenge that will leave you exhausted but exhilarated by the end.
There are a LOT of puzzles so you WILL need a big group. Having some experienced players is a definite plus.

This was FANTASTIC. Theme is excellent and built into the room — the room lets you know that you’re on the right track. Very engaging and interactive our group had a blast. Focus is on solving puzzles and not so much finding clues (but you still need to do that as well).
Highly recommended

I have done several escape rooms now in San Francisco, New York City, Atlanta, and Pittsburgh. Houdini was the best room I have done, hands down. It was challenging, varied, full of surprises right up to the very end, and really tested our knowledge, teamwork, and patience to the limit. All of the logic was sound and there was sufficient work that could be done in parallel and also work that built a straight main line through the escape quest. The timing for the room was perfect for our group, we had a nail-​biting finished and escaped with mere seconds to spare. The electromechanical puzzles were all completely novel and brilliant. Every little detail was thought through so well and implemented with such care and attention. Our guide was great, never in the way and provided just enough nudges to keep us out of the woods.
I would recommend this room to novices and room escape experts alike. It’s a great story, chock full of intriguing puzzles, and has an incredibly satisfying end game. Like other reviewers have noted, this one will ruin other escape rooms for you — that’s the only downside here.
I look forward to Palace’s next rooms!

This is the 11^th room escape game I’ve tried (I’ve done two more since), and in a market with lots of strong competitors, the Houdini room still remains the most thoughtfully designed and executed room I’ve attempted.
Many reviews have already covered the major details of the room mechanics (time, pricing, team size, etc), so I’ll skip that for now. I think what made the Houdini room stand out were two things:
1) how thoughtfully the theme tied in throughout all of the puzzles
2) the production value and execution of the puzzles
The owner of the room mentioned that he was a history buff, and his passion for history showed in the puzzle design. It’s not necessary to know the backstory behind Houdini and his associates before going in, but he does give you a brief intro and backstory with some relevant information before sending your team in. You can solve the puzzles without it, but it really adds to the enjoyment of the experience and makes it feel like you find «easter eggs» all over the room.
The production value was quite impressive because of the level of detail. The furniture is a step up from IKEA furnishings (not that there’s anything wrong with IKEA stuff), and without giving anything away, there’s a lot in the room that can be triggered to occur without manual intervention from the operator. There’s at least one mechanic in the room I’ve never seen before in other room escapes.
All in all, I’m totally jealous of everybody who’s going to experience this for the first time, because I wish I could experience it for the first time again! Ideal team size is 10 people for this based on the room size and the number of puzzles.

Overall a great experience, a little pricey (30 – 46 per person)…but fair for the extra time and quality that you get.
— $ 370 flat fee for your group of 8 – 12
— 80 min, plus our group got an extra 15 min to finish out the puzzle once we ran out of time
— Great theme, intro, construction… really a level above as far as design and concept
— Location in the palace of fine arts was really cool
A few things I liked more about other places
— Hints were given by a person who came in and out of the room, it was kinda a weird format because only one person could really hear at a time and you just felt a little dumb, no matter how nice the person tried to be. I have preferred it more when hints came in a screen
— Time was only sounded every 20 min, which made it harder to keep on track, wish there was a continuous clock

Absolutely awesome! We booked two rooms back to back and both teams had an excellent time. The whole experience was top notch from start to finish. The room was fantastic and the tasks were challenging but fun. We had such a great time and we can’t wait to try the spy room once it is complete.

Absolutely incredible !
Whether you’re an avid escape game lover and player or a first timer, ‘Palace Escape’ will blow your mind with both top notch puzzles/​clues and amazing set design. I’ve been to several games and this was the best by a mile! Special thanks to Chris the creator for all his hard work ;)

So we’ve done 2 SCRAP room escapes + 3 SCRAP group escapes + 3 other room escapes.
Atmosphere ⁹⁄₁₀
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Creative puzzles ¹⁰⁄₁₀
Puzzle complexity ⁸⁄₁₀
Professionalism ¹⁰⁄₁₀
Fun ¹⁰⁄₁₀
This is definitely top 3, maybe even top 2. These are definitely some of the coolest interactive puzzles we’ve ever done and were well woven together. Our host Allen was great and he was very enthusiastic. He was accessible all game long if we wanted hints (which we declined to take). The facility is really nice in the Palace, couldn’t ask for better. We went on a Sunday afternoon when a wedding was taking place, so parking was a small nightmare, but there was extra parking next to the Marina, which saved our life. Be prepared for that! Don’t want to say too much more so as to not spoil anything.
There was one slight technical misalignment, but Allen was great and when we got to that point, we just flew on by without any issue.
With a group of 3 newbies and 4 experienced players and 3 veterans, we escaped in 72 minutes. Absolutely incredible! :)

We visited the Houdini escape room as a team building exercise for work.
This was really an excellent experience. It was fun, challenging, required team work, and definitely tested our problem solving and collaboration skills.
The META analytics provided at the end of the experience were a great conversation starter about what worked and what didn’t.

Best escape room by far! Great way to celebrate a birthday, team-​building event, or just with a group of friends.
The location (Palace of Fine Arts) has great ambiance and really adds to the Houdini theme. Once inside, we were transported to another world…
What sets this apart from other escape rooms is the incredible attention to detail and elaborate engineering, as other reviewers have noted. The puzzles were very unique and clever, with something for everyone in our group.
Half the fun was seeing how my friends approached problem-​solving differently. Some were big-​picture thinkers while others were more trial-​and-​error. Can’t wait to take my work team here!

I booked out the Houdini Escape Room for my husband’s birthday party last weekend, and we had a blast! Our group had 9 people, which felt like the perfect number. I’ve done 5 escape games now (this one, 2 Japantown ones, 1 in Athens Greece, and 1 in Zagreb Croatia). This one was my favorite due to the interesting puzzles and high production value. We escaped with 4 minutes to spare and couldn’t stop talking about all the puzzles and fun that we had afterwards.
Chris and Linda were also really helpful in coordinating a cake handoff and surprise after the game, which was perfect! The geek in me was also impressed by the game data they emailed me afterward, showing us what percentile we placed in the time at which we solved each clue. It’s got our group talking about the game all over again! I’ve already been telling all my friends and would highly recommend playing this escape game. I can’t wait to come back for their future rooms.

What a well done escape room! I went to this game as part of a birthday party, and we all had a great time. The room is located inside the former Exploratorium at the Palace of Fine Arts, which is a very cool location (ample parking too!). Chris was friendly, and he went above and beyond to accommodate us, even providing some extra refreshments.
For the game itself, there were all sorts of different puzzles and things to work through. Some of them required teamwork to be solved. And there are a couple of hidden surprises. Overall this was a high quality game. Def recommend it!
By the way, the max is listed as 6 – 12, but you can bring more people if you need to. We were a group of 13.

WOW. Just WOW. This is my #1 favorite escape room out of the dozen that I’ve done so far.
So great on so many levels. The puzzles were advanced and well designed. I recommend a group of about 6 – 10. The time limit is 80 minutes — we needed over 90 minutes so we didn’t pass in time, but it was still super fun. Team work is KEY.
Adam made sure we had a great experience and stayed later than he needed to.
I can’t wait to do their next room!!!
Here’s an updated ranking after doing 15 escape rooms
1. Palace Escape (Palace of Fine Arts) — Houdini
2. EscapeSF (Chinatown) — Antique Room
3. Omescape (Oakland) — Forgotten Treasure
4. Omescape (Oakland) — Omega Room
5. Omescape (Oakland) — The Penitentiary
6. EscapeSF (Chinatown) — Blind Tiger
7. EscapeSF (Chinatown) — Alcatraz
8. San Jose Escape — Alcatraz
9. Puzzlephant (the Mission) — Mr. E’s Enigma — this is only one room but Awesome puzzles
10. The Basement (Los Angeles) — The Basement
11. San Jose Escape — Myth Room
12. PaniQ Room (lower Nob Hill) — Prison break — downgraded because their rooms need to be remodeled
13. PaniQ Room (lower Nob Hill) — Sicko — downgraded because their rooms need to be remodeled
14. PaniQ Room (lower Nob Hill) — Geek — downgraded because their rooms need to be remodeled
15. Room Escape Adventures (SOMA) — Zombie

Just did The Houdini Escape Room last night. My first time doing an escape room, and it was SO MUCH FUN! I highly recommend it for team building events, or a fun night with friends.
In the beginning, I had no idea what was going on. But once you’re team starts to unlock some of the clues, it gets super interesting. The room was so creative, Chris (the founder) showed us how the back end works after, and it’s just so cool!
Tips:
— The instructions part does sound like a history lesson, and I started to tune out, but make sure you listen to everything. Those are all tips and tricks you’ll need to know once you’re locked in.
— Do everything in order, as the instructions suggest.
— I recommend carrying water inside with you, I left everything outside and was so thirsty by the time we escaped
— Communicate!
— Lastly, of course, have fun with it! Chris is really chill, will hint at things, and let you stay longer if you’re getting close to getting out.