Ryptic Room Escape

We went on Saturday night with 6 people and had the best time! I highly recommend this for friends/​couples/​and companies that want to put together team bonding/​building event. Our game master was fun and made the experience that much better! If you are thinking about going, stop thinking about it an go!

Such a fun way to spend a birthday! The rooms are challenging but solvable. For me, that’s huge. The GM was great at standing back and letting us do our thing til we had real questions. I did the alien room with a work team and we almost made it. Came back and did the poltergeist room for my husband’s birthday and we beat it in 48 minutes. It was great watching my friends pull out their various strengths.

Their Poltergeist room was the second worst escape room experience I’ve had, and I’ve done over 20 in the Bay Area and over 40 in the United States.
I generally enjoy escape rooms, but this is definitely not worth $ 30, and definitely not worth any special trip unless you’re already in the Bay Area. You can do much better, and support other companies that make rooms of a better quality.
PRODUCTION VALUE ¹⁄₅
The room was a bare office with the bare minimum of IKEA furniture — it looks like they’ve invested very little in the various props and making the escape room a believable experience. The only «thematic» element of the room is the story that the game master tells you as you go through the room. The «poltergeist» theme is only reflected in that story, and not in the room at all.
There were jarring parts of the experience that were notably out of place — including portions of the room that were beyond a black veil since they were irrelevant, or a door that actually led no where.
The room was also very cramped in the first half for our group of 6 people.
PUZZLE QUALITY ¹⁄₅
Many of the puzzles were paper puzzles, or the type of puzzles I could easy do online if I wanted to. This room suffered from way too many locks — which means that there was an extremely low diversity of puzzles and an low amount of novelty for anyone who’s done multiple escape rooms before.
OVERALL EXPERIENCE ¹⁄₅
The production value and the puzzle quality of this room was in the lowest decile in all of the escape rooms I’ve ever done, so I would never recommend this room to any of my friends. However, there was a «thing» that happened in the room (that you’ll be sure to experience) that was a bit memorable since I haven’t seen it done before, but that doesn’t keep me from giving this place overall a ¹⁄₅.
TIPS (no spoilers): Avoid this room. There are much better escape rooms around the San Francisco Bay Area. Don’t waste your time and money.

It was okay, but definitely not worth $ 30. The room was very tiny. I felt that every time I was trying to solve a puzzle the guy working there would seem to judge what I was doing and make me feel stupid for not doing it right. He also tried giving us clues and sometimes basically gave the answer away which I felt kind of took away the fun of us solving it ourselves.

I have not been to another room escape but this was tight.

Great escape the room experience! Did this back in August 2015, and had a great time! The guy running the game was really into it and added a lot to the experience. The room was challenging even if it shared some of the stereotypical puzzles that most rooms have.

Loved this place! Super fun and really creative clues. This was my first escape room I tried. We had 10 people, 4 from my group 6 from another. We all worked together and it was great!

Just played this Ryptic Room Escape and there are 2 reasons why I’m giving this place 2 stars:
1) There are better Escape Rooms out there that are more interactive and elaborate, making that $ 30 more worth your money. All they had here were books, written clues on the bottles/​walls, and keys and locks.
2) The Game Master was a very condescending and awkward man that judged or laughed at you if you solved a puzzle incorrectly. We’re just trying to have fun… you don’t need to put me down or make me feel stupid. That’s not what I paid $ 30 for, so here’s my Unilocal review that you requested.
Nevertheless, the room was still fun and challenging. The escape rate was only 27%, and unfortunately we were only 1 lock away from escaping. My suggestion is to try the escape rooms in SF where the engineers put more time and effort to make the room more interactive and fun, yet still challenging.

Ryptic Room Escape was, by far, the best Escape the Room experience I’ve had. Having gone to over 5 different rooms, Ryptic differentiated itself with puzzles that were hard enough to be engaging but not so difficult that they led to frustration. We came in a larger group of 7 and had a great time debating what to do next in the rooms.
It’s definitely worth checking out and the game masters make the whole experience far more fun. They’re entertaining, helpful, and know how to show you a good time. 100% recommend!

It’s a great experience! Puzzles are fun and innovative. I hope there will be more rooms opened in the future. I’ll give all of them a try for sure!

This was my first room escape game and it was the best experience ever! The puzzles were very engaging and challenging even for the experienced. I came here with five others and each one of us had something to work on throughout the game. Sadly we weren’t able to make it out — if only we had few more minutes!
I can’t wait for more games they come out with! It’s definitely worth checking out :)

This was my first escape from a room experience and can’t wait for the next!
I’ve heard that some escape rooms are scary but this one is perfect for all ages and very fun.
We had a group of 5 people and were about 2 minutes away from solving the final puzzle within the 1hour limit. Having a larger group would be helpful but definitely doable with less than 8.
I’m looking forward to the second room that they plan to open.

I just did an Escape the Room event in San Francisco that was well done and creative. This room didn’t live up to the expectations I had for Escape the Room events.
We had a large group of seven. We were led to one room with some shelves and a desk. The game master stayed in the room with us while we solved the puzzles. We were actually in that one room the entire time, so it just involved solving a lot of puzzles in one room. Without giving too much away, most of the puzzles consisted of unlocking many safes and lockboxes. It’s a bit overwhelming to be presented with so many lockboxes in the beginning and it was hard to know where to start.
Some of the production value of the puzzles wasn’t so high. A lot of the clues were written on objects with a sharpie, so a lot of the text was hard to read or rubbed off. We had to ask the game master a few times what the text said. It just felt shoddily done at times.
There is pen and paper, and I felt like for some of the puzzles there was just a lot of scribbling involved. I like the Escape the Room events where there’s less number crunching and more trying to move pieces together to open doors.
The room was also quite stuffy the entire time, especially with so many people in the room.

This was by far the coolest thing I’ve done! If we had 20 more minutes we would’ve solved it because we solved lots of puzzles as a team.
I definitely recommend this because it’s worth the price and the clues are definitely mind based.
Try not to break things or mess stuff up, don’t want to anger «bob» right :)

Three friends and I played the Escape from the Poltergeist game (along with two strangers). This was our first time playing a room escape, and we all had a fantastic time.
The Game Master (Mike) did a great job, and gave what I felt was the perfect level of hints — we were vaguely pushed in the right direction when we stopped making progress, but never outright spoiled. I enjoyed the «twist» on the (from what I hear) standard escape room formula.
We finished with less than a minute to spare, and the last bit was pretty intense trying to finish. We’ll definitely be coming back for the next puzzle! This place is a great addition to San Mateo and the Peninsula!

Best experience ever! This was a suggestion for my sisters 20^th birthday activity because I know she enjoys these kinds of things :)
First of all, the building its located in sets the perfect tone for a typical «escape the room» kind of feeling. Its located in the medical bldg in dwntwn san mateo which is this old fashioned, aged creeky wood bldg with a single twisted staircase. We arrived about 20 mins before and we were able to hang out in the lobby area of the floor. The game masters were still setting up the room when we came but came out to entertain us shortly after as we were still waiting on a couple members of our group.
«Bob» or actually Craig was really fun as our game master. He provided a comfortable environment, but stayed true to his character as well. It made the whole experience, it being our first experience, very enjoyable.
The activity itself was way more fun than i expected it to be. It was challenging and entertaining and it made you anxious to finish. You’ll definitely feel the urgency to finish with 15 minutes left! It really is a team building activity and it requires good teamwork and communication.
I recommend this place 100%!! We were still talking about it when we went to dinner afterward because everyone was still pumped up! We cant wait for the next room to come out.

Escape from the Poltergeist was amazing! Definitely one of the better escape rooms I’ve been to. The story was solid with a lot of innovative clues and ideas that I hadn’t come across earlier. It was quite challenging and that always makes it an even better experience. It’s also conveniently located in downtown San Mateo which was a plus.
Overall it was really entertaining and a hour well spent.

Had a really great time doing the escape game. I would definitely recommend giving this a shot with a group of friends or family. We did the challenge with 4 people in our group and almost completed the game. I’ve done two other escape games before and this one is definitely a little different. The puzzles are really well thought through and are more intelligent than what I’ve seen before. The location is a huge plus, it’s convenient to grab some dinner before or after the game.

Had a solid Team and a really good time. This was my first one. I enjoyed it and plan on doing again. It was mentally challenging but not difficult to where you don’t have a good time. I recommend this to anyone that enjoys puzzles, and intimately enjoy massaging the brain.

Had a blast playing this game! Came here with 5 other people (the max. is 6 people). Most of us had played other escape games before, but this one was still felt very unique compared to the rest. The puzzles were also pretty clever and challenging, even for experienced escape-​game goers — sadly, we didn’t manage to escape in time. If only we’d had 5 more minutes! :(
Highly recommended for anyone who’s enjoyed any of the other room escape games in the Bay Area, or just puzzles in general.