Hatch Escapes: Lab Rat (Los Angeles)

Is this the perfect room? Possibly.

Lab Rat takes place in a laboratory where giant rats are doing experiments on human beings, specifically you! The somewhat unhinged Ratkenstein, a doctoral student in the field of human intelligence (or, in his estimation, the lack thereof), has tasked you with completing a series of tests and puzzles. If you succeed, he can finally write his dissertation. If you fail, he’s going to put you and your friends in the old test-subject chipper (like a wood chipper, but for test subjects!)

If you’re in Los Angeles and there is a room that has been ranked number eight in the world by the ‘Top Escape Rooms Project’ then really it would be rude not to try it out. That room is Lab Rat.

Hatch Escapes have planted themselves in a rather large and quite imposing building not far from downtown LA and lucky for us enthusiasts, they have hopes and plans to take over the entire building with escape rooms.  Lab Rat is their first and currently only escape room but that just means they have had time to make perfection.

It won’t be giving anything away to say you start as you would expect, in a cage. From there you enter into the crazy world of Ratkenstein following his instructions and solving his clues to try and escape in one piece.

This really is a room to savour, I don’t think a smile left our faces at any point throughout the entire game. Everything we saw/found/discovered in the room was just fun and fitted perfectly for the room. There were one or two points where we got a little stuck but as soon as the GM chirped in with a little nudge it soon became obvious what we were supposed to do.

Hatch Escapes were clever in how they used sound, light and theatre to give you a fully immersive experience, and they did it in ways we have never seen before.

If you’re in Los Angeles, do this room. If you’re not in LA, book a flight and do this room!

PUZZLES

This room had it all, there were all types of puzzles in here and so many that we hadn’t seen before. I lost count of how many times we were in awe of what we were seeing. Later in the experience there is a really clever puzzle that gets you thinking in ways you may not have before, and which we surprisingly excelled in.

We can’t think of any puzzle in the room that we didn’t like, literally everything we did was fun, served a purpose, and fitted perfectly in the story.

IMMERSION/ROOM DESIGN

A beautiful room that stuck to its initial brief and made us truly feel like rats in a maze. The only thing it was lacking was a bed for the test subjects, but then again if it had that I would probably have never wanted to leave. What was particularly unique about this room was the ending, it was a great way to end the room and gave us closure.

GM/CLUE SYSTEM

The GM was wonderful! Clues and nudges were delivered in character (no doubt pre-recorded) and getting a clue didn’t break any of the magic.

ANYTHING ELSE

This room is more than escaping, it’s about savouring the experience. The production quality of everything in this room felt a world apart from what we usually get in the UK that we couldn’t help but love it. We completed this as a two and it was perfect to experience everything that the room had to offer.

They also have a nice range of merch for sale if you want something to remember it by (other than the great memories of the room).

Success / Failed

Final Rating: