Kuma Trapped! Escape Room

I’ve been to a few escape rooms, and this one wasn’t quite as fun as expected. All of the escape rooms I’ve been to have been themed rooms with fun plot lines that add to the experience. This was just kind of a random room, with no theme and it didn’t make a lot of sense.
Our group got out of the escape room «in time»… but not really. So we bought 8 of the 12 tickets for our family, and before we went inside the guy asked if we wanted two random extra people to tag along… Of course we said no, since it was kind of a family Christmas thing. But then 5 minutes into the escape room (yeah, what?) this guy says that the other two people are going to join us since we didn’t actually purchase all 12 tickets. So we did technically run out of time (we had to catch up these other two dudes) but the room moderator gave us an extra five minutes since they came in late. The whole thing was just bizarre, and I wasn’t as pleased as I was with other escape rooms. The room itself was alright, probably best for those who are escape room beginners. I also found it pretty weird that the moderator came into the room with us (usually they watch you on a camera behind the doors) and was giving us clues. Although I guess it couldn’t have helped that much, considering how low the success rate for escaping is at this place!

We did this with 5 other couples for my husband’s 40^th birthday. None of us had done an escape room before. We did Utopia (room 2) and had a blast. It was great having an «invisible guide» in the room with us to keep us on the right track. Really well done. And not scary/​creepy, which I appreciated. It was a great group date,

First Escape Room experience and I think is going to be the last one. I am not into puzzles and find escapes and not into being in a closed room with colleagues plus strangers. But that was the team building we all decided, so there we went. First of all, i didn’t find a theme, there was no topic to follow whatsoever, therefore I lost my attention almost immediately. Many many clues not really connected. Many ‘do not touch’ stickers that in reality were useless as you could find clues attached to the objects containing those stickers. We managed to pass the first room, but mostly wast the job of 3 people, some of us disengaged quickly. We didn’t manage to escape and final picture was fun an all, but would not go paying myself.

SOO FUN!
My fam and I bought all 11 tickets for Stage 1, and we purchased an additional ticket the day of. This game really tested our communication and solving skills.
Unfortunately we escaped the room in 1h6m! So freaking close!!! But we were laughing the whole time because it was fun solving and unlocking the several puzzles.
We’re looking forward to stage 2!

My group did both Stage 1 (Strange Room) and Stage 2 (Utopia). We’ve had some experience with other escape rooms and had a good time with both rooms.
Both rooms do a good job of having multiple puzzles to work through that then converge as you progress through the room. The puzzles are fun and require lateral thinking. The staff is friendly and have a good balance between letting you discover things and nudging you in the right direction if you’re stuck. The rooms have a very low success rate, but the staff will help make sure that you get to attack most of the puzzles in the room. You get a debriefing at the end of the room summarizing the puzzles and giving you a chance to ask questions about them.
I felt that stage 1 was a great introduction to escape rooms. It’s a well done ‘basic’ escape room that highlights its puzzles. The room doesn’t have much story and the focus is on your team working through the puzzles.
Stage 2 is an excellent, challenging experience for escape teams with some experience. It also features a bit more of a background story which lends the room a lot of character. The room has some very charming mechanics that are delightfully low tech representations of the imagined scenario. Some people may be ambivalent about this, but I found it to be a creative and playful way to interact with the room and staff.
Part of the difficulty in stage 2 had to do with the number of puzzles to be solved, rather than the puzzles being significantly more difficult than, say, stage 1. Having a large group that works well together helps. Some of the members of my party were a bit disappointed in the nature of one of the puzzles. Without giving away spoilers, one of the clues in the room is ephemeral and plays a key role. While this is certainly a fair thing to do in an escape room, some of my group felt that it artificially (perhaps unintentionally so) keeps the success rate down. If you’re approaching the room as something you have to ‘beat’, then this might be a frustration during the game. If, on the other hand, you’re happy having an experience with your team and are less concerned about how ‘fair’ the room is, then you’ll probably not mind at all.

My first time (s) ever experiencing an escape room (recently played both Stage 1 and 2 here). Did not know what to expect but what not disappointed. Won’t say too much since I do not want to spoil it for anyone, but I will say that I definitely recommend checking this place out! It’s a great opportunity to try something new with friends or I have seen companies use this place as a team building exercise too. Personally, I would recommend Stage 2 (has a story) but both are fun in different ways!
It is a bit tricky to find this place if you have never been here so just a heads up, park behind the Central Computers Building and NOT the lot with Mcdonalds. The place is located on the third floor, but usually they have someone waiting downstairs in the building lobby just in case. Try to arrive 15 – 20 minutes before your scheduled game time! They have to explain the rules, have you sign waivers, and so on before you can play. And also try to come in bigger groups, as small groups get put together since these games require a lot of people.

I did not know there’s a room escape in Cupertino! You buy the ticket online (no return so make sure you pick the date you really want) and you just show up on the game day. Usually one room has 11 players so if you sign up with you friends but don’t add up to 11 people in total, very likely you will play with someone else, which is also fun!
The puzzles are great, reasonable and fun. We were 4 minutes over though… :(

I came here for a team building event with work at the beginning of May and I still think fondly of the experience.
I had read other Unilocal reviews prior to coming hoping to sneak a spoiler, but to no avail. :) I’ll be sure not try to spoil anything either. A lot of the reviews mentioned how there wasn’t a theme. That’s definitely correct and a bit of a let down. That’s really the only reason I’m not giving 5 stars. Remember, 4 stars means «Yay! I’m a fan.»
After a briefing of rules and guidelines from our game-​master, we were allowed into the first room. Everyone started looking around for clues not really knowing what to look for or what might even be a clue. We started writing down the clues we found on the clipboards we were given but then just stuck to COMMUNICATING.
We naturally gravitated toward the puzzles that we’d be good at which was pretty interesting because it wasn’t intentional. Dividing and conquering seemed to work for us.
As the last few minutes were upon us, adrenaline and focus became intense! Even though we timed out before completion, it was a lot of fun and I would totally do it again.
TIPS
Use the resources in the room
Communicate — more than you think you should
Delve into all the nooks and crannies of objects
Pay attention to the time
Some puzzles play into others, but not all
Have a group of at least 10 people. We had 7 with us and it just wasn’t enough manpower.

My First escape room game! I don’t have any other experience to compare to besides the silly games I play on my phone. Of course, this is completely different. Kuma Trapped is located on the 3^rd floor at the same building with central computer. If you play in the evening session, don’t worry, Jack will come down to get you if you can’t get inside the building.
We decided to go directly to Stage 2. Jack mentioned the 2 stages aren’t related. In this review I will not give out any hints, it’s to your benefit! It will be much more fun if you go inside without any clue.
The only suggestion I can give you is: try to get more people to play together, and do NOT just play with the minimum required players, your chance of escaping will be extremely slim.
It definitely was a fun experience and I look forward to play stage 1 soon!

Let me start by saying that I have never been to one of the escape rooms before. So I was pretty psyched about my first experience before going there. And it turned out to be a really awesome experience. It is definitely a great team building exercise that you can do with your coworkers. And now I am looking forward to doing similar kind of stuff again.
The only reason I didn’t give it a 5 star rating is because I feel like the puzzles/​riddles that we had to solve were very disjoint. What could have made it even better is a common theme going around from starting to finish. Like a story or something. Solving one puzzles leads to other but there is rarely any association between one another.
Also, finding a parking for this place is a little tricky. It shares the parking lot with the other computer service business (forgot the name), which has a big sign in the building that you should not miss.

We escaped today!
I’ve done two SCRAPs in SF, and this room is definitely a lot easier than both of those. The puzzles were decent, and we needed only a few hints from the proctor lady.
Finding the location is pretty hard, so definitely get there early.
I think SCRAP is more worth the money (I think their puzzles are more sophisticated and they have actual storylines), but I don’t regret going to this one!

This was my first escape room, and it definitely made me interested in trying other escape rooms!
I attended with a group of co-​workers as kind of an unofficial team-​building activity after work. The puzzles were difficult, but very interesting and kept us all engaged. It wasn’t easy, but we never felt like the puzzles were impossible to figure out. Our guide Jason was very nice and gave us gentle hints along the way to keep us on course. Other escape rooms I’ve tried since this had puzzles that were based on facts and trivia, and were frustrating because if you didn’t know the answer you were stuck, period.
Although we weren’t able to escape, we all had a good time and would like to try their next room!

First off, I’m an escape room junkie that has done most of the escape room around the bay area, that includes the Jtown room escapes, Omescape, and some other one. So far, Kuma escape room 1 has been the worst escape room I ever played. For the people that never played escape room before, it might be a interesting experience, but let me tell you this — there are way more other escape room around the bay that is way better than this one. Here are a list of reasons on why this escape room fails:
1. The rules are defined very loosely, and the game break its own rules sometimes. For example, in the beginning it was explained that every puzzle piece will only be used once, that is completely wrong in this game. Some pieces of the puzzle /​code /​hint were used more than once.
2. Another example of loosely defined /​confusing rules is the «no touch» sticker. In ALL of the other games, the icon means this furniture has nothing to do with the game, but in Kuma escape, it means, you can touch it, mess with it, but you can’t move it.
3. The game has absolutely no theme at all. The whole experience felt like someone threw a whole bunch of puzzles and locks in there for you to kill time and a quick profit.
4. The game did a very poor job helping you connect two things together. You have to use things that seem completely random and apart from each other to solve a puzzle. In all of the other room escapes I previously played, they always did a good job showing you that these tools might belong in the same puzzle. (for example, same color, same pattern, or has a alphabet on it showing you which puzzle it belongs to)
5. Too many distractions. There are TOO MANY strings of clues /​pieces that has been scattered around the game that has NOTHING to do with the game, and it’s a complete time sink.
6. The overwatch guy gave us hint that has nothing to do with the game that caused us to do useless actions that ended up wasting time.
7. It is too expensive for what it is. $ 30 !? that’s the most expensive room escape I ever been to and I can tell you with confidence that this one has the worst quality out of all of them.
8. lastly, this game feels very rough, unpolished. and unprofessional. The game does not have a automatic system that warn you about the time until 10 minutes left. We had to ask the guy constantly for the time. Guess how the guy activate that count down? He plugs in his phone into mobile speaker.
So to wrap up, this has been the worst room escape experience I ever had. Please save yourself the money and time by going to another room escape for better experience such as the Jtown one, chinatown one, or Omescape in Richmond. I will not recommend this to anyone.

No Spoilers
I came here with my Escape Room veteran friends, a very diverse group of people. We booked the entire room for ourselves.
There is something about this Escape Room that left a bad taste in my mouth. I’ll attempt to describe them below (Let me preface by saying that we were literally 1 clue away from escape, but none of the other escape rooms I’ve done has left me with such a negative impression):
1.) Game theme is non-​existent (is there even a theme?). There was no story-​line and did not make the escape room interesting. I can think of a PERFECT theme for this Escape Room, but unfortunately can’t disclose due to spoiler reasons. (You can PM me after if you’ve done this room, if you’re curious on what I have in mind).
2.) Disjointed clues. There were a couple of ‘clues’ that did not do it’s intended purpose. Again, I can’t disclose here but if you PM me I can reveal.
3.) Re-​Used clues. Ehh this may be a slight spoiler, but I believe (and my veteran Escape Room friend agrees too) that an object (s) was used MULTIPLE TIMES (even though the briefing explicitly said that they would not be). This threw us off slightly.
4.) Misnomers from the proctor. Probably not his fault but threw us off a little.
In the end, I believe «Kuma» is just using the popularity of the Escape Rooms to capitalize on charging $ 30 a head. I wouldn’t say it’s poorly put together… A lot of thought definitely went into this, but nowhere near the caliber of others.

Total hidden gem in the South Bay! I’m so glad I didn’t need to go to SF’s Japantown to try this!
This place is SOOO much fun. You’ll really have your head scratching from playing this. It takes a while to get use to the idea.
The secret is to get over convention and be open to taking things apart and being nosy.
I think this place would be perfect for training detectives/​officers who investigate a crime scene. I imagine that you must use the same skills.
Stage 2 is coming out next month, and I’m definitely gonna come back to do it!

This was one of the best experiences ever. It was a mix of mind games, anxiety attacks, and teamwork.
You’re basically locked in a room with a group of people and you need to piece together clues to find your way out. The room has ordinary objects, but be wary, every tiny, tiny, tiny detail may be a clue.
***BE THOROUGH***
Our guide even warned us in the beginning to thoroughly check and double-​check things, because things will be (and definitely were) missed.
***WRITE THINGS DOWN***
Keep track of things you have found; write down symbols, numbers, letters, or combos. Clipboards with paper are provided – use them. Warning: You may have to do math.
***DO NOT TAKE YOUR TIME***
Every minute counts. Be thorough, yet just go at it and start flipping the room inside out, upside down. Some teams have had time run out on them while they were unlocking the door with the final key. It does take the whole 60 minutes.
Our guide, Jack, was a super cool guy. The guides will give you a nudge in the right direction if your group is straying, or need an extra push. For example, the guide will tell you that you haven’t found every part of a certain puzzle yet, so keep searching. Our group didn’t make it out on time, but we did complete the game 4 minutes after time ran out. SO CLOSE! We definitely will be back when Part 2 of this game comes out in August.

KUMA TRAPPED! best thing to do with friends!
Bored in SJ like always? do this! worth the money! big group of friends to escape from a room!
Solve puzzles to escape and clues to find you out of the room!
Not scary,
Must do and go!
Definitely coming back to play there next phase!!!

My addiction to these games continue! A group of my friends and I tried Kuma escape which is located in the Southbay. So far this is the only escape game I know that’s located in the Southbay, which is so nice because we didn’t have to drive up all the way to SF to play: D It’s located in the central computer building so you might miss it if you didn’t know that. Just park your car as if you were going to go to Central Computers and when you go through the back, you’ll see a directory where you can locate the strange room.
Unlike the other escape games I’ve been too, this one is only managed by one guy! His name is Jack and he designs the puzzles for the room :) He was awesome and really friendly! Same rules apply like any other escape room game, you and your friends are trapped in the room, solve the puzzles and find all the clues to find your way out. The puzzles we encountered during the game were different than the ones you would find from the Real Escape Game SF by Scrap, and I enjoyed this because it was challenging but in a different way! I thought his puzzles were a little more clever and it did take a lot of puzzle solving intuition to get this one! My only hint is that make sure you keep track of all the clues you find and don’t forget them! Work together with your team and communicate! Overall it was super fun and I really enjoyed escaping out of this room… and yes our team was the FIRST TO ESCAPE YAY: D third time is the charm I guess? haha
I would definitely come back and play the other rooms! I recommend this to anyone in the Southbay and the bay area in general wanting to play! It’s super fun and very interactive: D come escape if you can!!!

This room was amazing fun. Would recommend. ¹⁰⁄₁₀. Just have to try it out for yourselves.
Can’t wait for phase 2. I’m itching for more now!

Some background: I’m already a fan of similar room escape events based in SF, but one of my chief complaints about that was that I’d have to drive all the way up to SF and battle traffic and parking etc. I was thrilled to learn that there was another room escape venue/​event in the San Jose area and was invited to join one of the beta test groups.
To summarize: you’re locked in a room with 10 other people, and you have 1 hour to gather clues and solve puzzles to unlock the main door. Don’t forget to go to the bathroom beforehand. :P
Without giving anything away, I thought that this was a pretty solidly built and impressive room escape setup. I found the clues and puzzles to be pretty challenging and at a difficulty level similar to one of the rooms in SF. If you’re a fan of room escape games or just puzzle games in general, I highly recommend Kuma Trapped! for your next game. :)
Parking is free and plentiful!