My modest Wix site, yes the one I’m posting this on, was set up by a friend. I had asked for the small favor, as I would tend to over think everything about it and never actually set one up. While in the process of doing so, my good friend was required to set up an email account (escapetrapp@gmail.com for those of you who are wondering) so I could be contacted on the website.
Fast forward a few days. I decide to check my newly set up gmail account andddd there’s an email. A legit email. Not spam! An email inviting me to Sarasota to check out a new venue called Lokey’s Escape Rooms.
I immediately contacted Richard (owner) and gave him my thanks and the unfortunate detail that we’re not down in that area too often, however, if we were, we would be sure to take up the invitation. This was sent in March of 2019.
Fast forward to mid summer 2019 and my mother had invited our small family to an extended weekend get away to Longboat Key. Being the enthusiast that I am, I immediately made the appropriate arrangements to make this happen…to make the 5 month wait come to fruition.
Venue: Lokey’s Escape Rooms
Location: 4930 Fruitville Rd. Sarasota, FL 34232
Website: https://lokeysescaperooms.com/
Cost Per Person: $19.00 to $25.00 (varies by day; check website) All Rooms PRIVATE
Game: Press Start
Difficulty: 3 out of 5 (per players’ perception)
Room Capacity: 2-4 allowed; 3 players seemed optimal
Played By: John and Nicole
Game Duration: 60 Minutes
Type: Mostly Mechanical/Some Automation
Rooms at Venue: Currently 3 Rooms
Rooms Completed: 68
Upon being greeted by Richard, I made the mistake of almost dictating the order of the three rooms, which to my defense, I really wanted to save the retro video game experience for last (save the best for last. Am I right?).
But that’s ok, the plans had already been laid out for us and who were we to protest. Instead of going last, we were going back to the 80s, back to Channel 3 to a pixelated, side-scrolling world of nostalgia.
Something not only unique to the venue, but unique to this particular game are the difficulty setting options (video games) presented to the Players 1 and 2, prior to pressing start. The Expert Setting involved not being able to speak to your teammates. From there, Players 1 and 2 could opt out of this mode and speak to each other; however, you may not receive a high score if you decide to do this.
Billed as the least challenging experience at Lokey’s, “Press Start” immediately immerses players into an 8-Bit World, bursting with colors and characters. Make no mistake about it; somebody loves and knows their NES (Nintendo Entertainment System) video games and it shows .
A perfect complement to the stunning visuals, the soundtrack of various levels of various NES games was enough to make Player 1 (me) pause and recollect on many Friday and Saturday childhood nights being spent button mashing to Bubble Bobble or Super Mario Brothers 3.
Enough of the personal nostalgia and on to the game though.
I realize this may sound repetitive, but the story of “Press Start” was a first of its kind, even after partaking in 69 rooms, prior to this. There’s trouble at the old arcade and you must try to figure out what’s wrong with a particular machine when all of a sudden you are warped inside of the machine! Once inside, the plot changes into one where you must determine what happened to Princess Plum and where she is located. Players 1 and 2 must get to the root of the cause or forever remain a part of the game.
Players 1 and 2 soon learned that “least challenging” may have only applied to the complexity of the puzzles themselves. It may speak more to us, but we found it most difficult, out of all three rooms played, to determine the next step in this game. This is not a negative to the room. We attribute much of this to the continuous blend of multiple themes and characters throughout the room, never quite knowing where one story started and ended. But that doesn’t actually matter, as long as players give themselves the time to focus on what’s in front of them. Unfortunately for us, I’m about as frantic as Luigi in a Mansion full of supernatural beings when playing rooms and my short attention span proved to be our biggest enemy.
As stated earlier, most of the actions and tasks were fairly straight forward and not very complex, but this does not mean they weren’t fun and it certainly doesn’t mean they were on beginner mode. We even had a bit of trouble figuring out where to start (once inside the room). Not to worry though, “Press Start” has included game (puzzle) guides throughout the room, to assist Players when they are stuck or require a nudge. I probably forgot to mention that using these for assistance, also disqualifies you from the highest difficulty of play. Clever and appropriate in nature, the guides don’t give players the answer on the first page; they more so provide little nudges and reveal the solution if and only if players have completely given up on the task-at-hand.
Game flow for us was not consistent. That is not criticism towards the game itself. We just weren’t the best at identifying patterns and the “next step” in this room. I would not be surprised if two children were able to navigate this room in a quicker time, with less assistance than we used.
I may be the only person to identify the “Glub Glub” puzzle as their favorite. Simple in nature and a nod to fishing in Super Mario Brothers games, this came towards the end of the adventure, as a nice and charming break from some of the puzzles that provided the most frustration for us. It was completely physical and intuitive and even a bit of a surprise (when revealed to us).
My wife, on the other hand, really enjoyed a particular puzzle that involved taking control of an arcade style Joystick while being observant of certain objects within the room.
Every single puzzle was, naturally, very related to retro gaming with a good mix of mechanical and automated locking systems. The icing on the cake here were the added sound effects when button mashing (literally).
At a certain point though, players encounter a certain magical woodwind instrument and are warped to another world, one which is so different than the one you came from, that I am unwilling to spoil the details. It is an awesome and completely unexpected change of scenery that also presents several different challenges for players (oh, and it also has it’s own soundtrack).
This is a point I’m going to make in the ensuing reviews on Lokey’s: each room tells one hell of a story. Not that the venue lacks in anything, but it’s greatest strength comes in story telling and extremely cool and unexpected changes in setting that advance the narrative. It is my opinion that this happens at least two times in “Press Start”. And even still, after all of the twists and turns, the finale of the room is purposefully inconclusive, yet satisfying.
To close things out, we ended up completing all of the tasks in the room but we were definitely unable to maintain the “no talking” rule and may have used a game strategy guide, here or there, to point us in the right direction.
Overall, we had a fantastic time taking a trip back to the 80s and the story driven world of “Press Start”. This is one gaming experience you won’t have to blow into the cartridge to enjoy.
For now, we are refraining from rating a room (indefinitely), in an effort to convey our like and dislike of an experience via the body of this article (reasoning for this, independent of this game/venue). Although there’s not a number being presented, we felt like “Press Start” was not only a unique experience in theme, game flow and décor, but a great experience overall.
We very much thank Richard for allowing us to play all three rooms at his venue, back-to-back-to-back, we appreciate the time and effort that’s been put into creating his experiences and we definitely recommend playing “Press Start”!
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