We ‘Enter the Imaginarium’ (A NoPro Escape)

by Lauren Bello
Lauren Bello
•
August 27, 2018
•
3 min read

In many escape rooms, there is a moment where the gamemaster abruptly transitions into character. One minute earlier, they were bustling to check you in, examining their tablet to make sure your waiver was properly submitted, listing rules, and cracking jokes. Now, they are serious. Perhaps they put on a hat, or a mask, or start speaking in deep, portentous tones. It’s often difficult to process the transition; you smile, uncertain, as if the two of you are sharing a joke. The bridge from “real world” to “escape room world” can be difficult to cross.

Enter the Imaginarium has a better idea.

From the moment you arrive at their location, every part of the process — from waiting in your car to signing the waiver — is already deeply entrenched in the world of the Order.

Check-in takes place in three stages, each welcoming you deeper into the heart of The Imaginarium. The first stage begins before you’ve even set foot in the facility: involving a broadcast while you wait outside, this stage expands on the history of the Order, a secret association of inventors, artists, and magicians. Inside, the second stage, led by a disembodied voice through speakers, walks you through a ritual that allows you to sign a waiver without ever laying eyes on a tablet, computer, or human being outside your group. And the third stage, in a rich and detailed environment, is led by a stone-faced robed figure, whose unconventional delivery of the rules is crafted to delight and alarm.

And it only gets better from there.

With opening sequences for each room that evoke the wonder and darkness of Sleep No More, Enter the Imaginarium has crafted an exceptionally rich world — one that rewards close attention and pays close attention in turn. Created in a collaboration between the Bricolage Production Company, an immersive theatre company, and ScareHouse, a haunted house attraction, the rooms contained beautiful sets, a wide variety of puzzles, and hints of a larger shadowy society. “This is not a haunted attraction,” their website clarifies, but it is a “live-action experience” intended to disorient and stimulate. And it disorients and stimulates with aplomb.

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Even the exit experience is carefully crafted: your robed figure may coolly comment on the puzzles you solved quickest, the puzzles you struggled with, or question whether you deduced a particular story point. And subsequent email requests for reviews are relentlessly, delightfully in character.

All this said, the rooms within may appeal to different crowds. Inventor’s Paradox is better suited to a large group that can splinter off to work puzzles simultaneously; Chamber of Illusions is slightly more linear and more suited to a group of 3 or 4. Inventor’s Paradox, unfortunately, involves several tedious instances of pencil-and-paper math; and both rooms are designed for taller people, leaving shorter people struggling to see certain clues.

Ultimately, however, Enter the Imaginarium raises the bar for immersive theatre-escape room hybrids. I found myself wanting to return to their world, simply to pay closer attention to the story and find the threads that bound the two rooms together. If The Imaginarium ever launched an ARG, I’d be there in a heartbeat.

Here’s hoping we all find favor with The Order.

Enter The Imaginarium is located at 32 Alpha Dr. W Pittsburgh, PA 15238, tickets are $31.99, public ticketing with optional buyouts.

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