This was such fun experience! We were a party of 8 and for some of us this was their first time at a escape room. Soon as we entered we were greeted by this friendly gentlemen. He was very helpful on explaining how escape room worked for those that did not know. There are several rooms to choose from. The rooms are clean, the props were realistic and the games were planned out well. They were very prompt in giving clues on when we needed it. Overall, it was a fun experience and would go there again. read more

I have updated my review because the owner/CEO reached out to me directly to discuss the issue. He took complete ownership and had a solution for training with the staff and was very kind to me. I appreciate this so I have updated the review, I would try again in a different circumstance. read more

Lockology Escape Rooms - Powell - Just awful - Escape Games Near Me - Columbus, Ohio

These break out rooms are a joke. We did the Pharaoh's Tomb game that is for ages 7+. We selected it because we wanted my nephew to be able to participate. We were very disappointed that it wasn't age appropriate. It wasn't scary by any means, but it was not designed for kids. He was eager to help but the puzzles and clues where out of his physical and mental reach. As for the adults, we were dissatisfied with the room for many reasons. Rather than being an elaborate and believable set with well thought out and relevant clues. This was a small room with some cheap decorations and what felt like nothing but combination boxes to solve. It's really not exhilarating to solve the same puzzle over and over for an hour. Especially when the "clues" are all over the place and they have you solving puzzles in an order that doesn't make sense. The clues are not intuitive, they kind just throw information at you. The funniest part to me is that puzzles are so similar they actually have to label them to help keep from confusing players! The most frustrating part is that the connection between the clues and the answers is flimsy at best. I don't want to give too much away so I'll digress. Basically, just don't come here. Go to Breakout and have a blast! read more

Lockology Escape Rooms - Powell - Escape Games Near Me - Columbus, Ohio

Fun outing with coworkers! Staff was very patient and helpful. We were at the Powell location. The place was a little hard to find and I feel a little overpriced, but it was an overall good experience. Another issue was the fact that this was first escape adventure for some of our group and this was an intermediate level room, which was not their fault but ours, the levels are posted on the website. I only mention this as a heads up if you are considering. Would do again, just kind of expensive. It's 4/5 stars for me. read more

One evening during the Great Quarantine of 2020, my wife and I decided that we wanted to go to an escape room. We had done several in different parts of the country, including Columbus, and we found that Lockology would be open and cleaned. Additionally, we would have the room to ourselves and not have to play with strangers. Given the circumstances, we felt it would be safe to do it. Lockology in Powell was the only one of their locations open, so we did the crime scene investigation room there. The guys who work there are super laid back and enthusiastic, and getting checked in and started was very easy. It was clean and orderly, and there was plenty of hand sanitizer available for people to use if needed. The investigation was fun, and we had a great time trying to solve the mystery and get ourselves out of the room. We did so with 8 seconds to spare! The location in Powell is slightly tricky to find, so make sure you use Google Maps if you don't know where you're going. But by all means, go. It was fun and I would definitely go again to try out one of their other room! read more

Avoid this place. Amateur and run down. The attendant had to interrupt and come in to fix a problem with one of the clues. All they care about is profit. I'm sure they won't be in business long! The management is very unprofessional. read more

My husband and I have completed 25+ rooms and decided to return to Lockology to try out their "Mayan Temple of Knowledge" room. Funnily enough, our first ever escape room experience roughly 2 years ago was at Lockology with their Haunted Jail room. We failed to escape this first room, having no idea at the time how to begin to approach escape rooms. While the jail themed room is more of your standard first-generation "lock and key" room, the Mayan room was fully automated/third generation and built to impress without a single lock in sight. While some of the puzzles proved somewhat frustrating/took some head-scratching, we were able to make it through the room with 8 minutes or so to spare! I would recommend this room even to those who have completed a good number of rooms. While it isn't the best we've ever done, it was a fun time and I was impressed the hard work that went into the room's design. We look forward to trying out a couple of the rooms as their sister-location (Excape Columbus). read more

We do a lot of escape rooms and were pretty unimpressed with this one. Room decor was mediocre, cheap and very basic. Two of the puzzles malfunctioned which happens sometimes and is okay but we talked about them over and over trying to figure out why nothing happened and the room attendant never said anything until we asked for a clue. The clue we were given is what we already did 20+ minutes prior, if they were actually watching they would have seen us do the activity and heard us talk about it over and over. We won't go back here, $114 for 4 people on a non private room is too much for the quality of this location. We still escaped with 15 minutes on the clock, the two "unsolved" puzzles had been done for at least 15-20 minutes. (Haunted Jail room) read more

Didn't appreciate my interaction with their management regarding a reservation error I had made. There really wasn't much compassion from them about it. I picked 10 am instead of 10 pm and when I called less than 12 hours after making the reservation they wouldn't allow me to move it because it was too close to the start time. They did refund me my insurance I purchased which is why this isn't one star. The manager said if he made an exception for me and didn't for others he would be discriminating which I didn't find accurate given he would be making a decision based on my situation not my race or class. He also wouldn't give me a discount to rebook the correct time slot. This situation sucked and I know I made a mistake when booking but I also bought insurance thinking it would cover me. It didn't. read more

This is my 5th escape room and have to say, read the review from Shauna and say ditto for the haunted prison room. Staff was unexcited, room was mostly finding keys versus deciphering clues, great storyline that they did nothing with. We solved with 18 minutes to spare and to me that says its too easy. Very disappointed in the experience for the cost. Also, at the end the staff came in took a pic and left. It was posted to fb, but nothing about the fact that we were successful! If you are brand new, this is an ok first time location. Will i be back? Nope. You'll find me at Breakout in Grandview where the clues are tough, rooms well thought out, technology on point and they have a great photo setup for showing your success or failure. read more

One of the central tenets of escape rooms is that the "exit" event should not be able to be triggered on accident. Unfortunately for Lockology, their Mayan ruins room violates this. While the room and puzzles were quite good, simply feeling around a prop yielded finding things that we weren't supposed to until later (apparently). After sticking the prop in the one place it would obviously go, the exit suddenly popped open. The room operator seemed very annoyed that we had felt around a very inviting prop and blamed us for not following the rule of "not sticking your hand in the props" despite needing to have done that to solve the other puzzles in the room. He didn't let us finish the other puzzles even though we had 30 minutes of time remaining. This is my 12th escape room, and I can not recommend Lockology at all. There are far better escape rooms in Columbus with better rooms and more inviting staff. read more

We had such and amazing time! Jacob was freaking amazeballz!!! We will be back soon! Thanks for a great time, Jacob!!!!

This place has a bit more thrown-together, DIY feel than other escape rooms I've done. That said, it was still a fun evening with friends. The location isn't the easiest to find- it's in the back of a non-description office building on the south side of Bethel. And it feels like an office building. We did the Crime Scene Investigator room. The room itself is pretty small, and meant to be set up like an office, so it's fitting to the location, I guess. The furniture is dirty, the walls are dirty and smudged, and everything is in a bit of disrepair. This doesn't necessarily take away from the quality of the "escape" experience, but it's worth noting. The experience itself was a bit more cut and dry, with the clues following a more linear development than other rooms I'd done. Our team was able to get out and solve the murder with about 15 minutes remaining. Not sure I'll return here, seeing as how there are so many options to choose from now. That said, it's worth checking out (especially if you can find a groupon). read more

My husband and I were looking for an out-of-the-box date night Saturday night. We've gotten in a rut and wanted to do something engaging and fun-- Lockdown Columbus was exactly that! We were sent to an unmarked office building on Bethel Road for our adventure. The 80's decor made the crime scene feel authentic. We-- along with 9 other strangers-- were tasked with solving a murder mystery and escaping the room in under an hour. We had a lot of fun uncovering clues--but in the end we were not successful. We had a great time, the hosts were accommodating and truly wanted to make our experience fun. I think they could have done a better job of introductions at the beginning. We never learned the names of our team members. Would I recommend this: Yes, absolutely. However, we think it would have been more fun with a group of friends OR if we had bonded more with our team. read more

We went for a birthday celebration and had lots of fun. The clues were well thought out and not too simple. And it's near Meshikou so that makes everything better. read more

A little hard to find, especially if visiting at night, but not impossible. We did the Mayan Temple room and had a great time! The clues were the perfect level of difficulty in my opinion. Tommy was our host and was great! He was very friendly and helpful from beginning to end. As for negative reviews below, it tells you in an email to arrive 15 minutes early and that you cannot play if you arrive late. If you follow the instructions they tell you at the beginning, you won't erroneously get a clue. The price is not high at all, and they offer Groupon discounts. The only downsides to me were that the room was relatively small (about half the size of other escape rooms i've done), when we won it wasn't very obvious to us that we were officially done, and there were no fun photo props like a lot of other escape rooms offer. Overall I had a great time and would definitely go back/recommend! read more

This is litterally one small room to escape unlike other Escape Rooms in the area that are larger and have two connecting rooms to solve, some even including actors in the room with you. After having done the other Escape Rooms in the area, this one left us a bit disappointed. Still, the small room would be fine if the group size was smaller. We had 8 other people join our group of four. Tweleve people in this tiny room is too much!!! The room was near impossible to work in with this many people and several times people had to just stand and watch others work because there was no room to move and/or nothing to immediately work on. The large group also made this room ridiculously easy to solve. We had the room solved with 20 minutes to spare! If the room is going to remain this small, then group size should be limited to approx. 6 people. Escape rooms are super fun and a great activity to do as a date night or with a group of friends. I highly highly recommend them. This particular one is a great first one to solve, especially if you get lucky and only a few people sign up with you for your time slot. read more

This was my first escape room experience so I don't know how this stacks up to others. I went here for a work outing. My group completed the "Haunted" Prison which was just a prison cell; there's not much to suggest it's haunted other than being dark. We had fun, but I think I was expecting the clues to be more clever. There were challenging parts, but it felt like most of the steps involved finding things rather than solving from clues. read more

Tommy was amazing, the service was great. I had a very good time. I would definitely recommend this escape room to anyone.

This has been my 7th escape room and was a little lackluster compared to the others. I went with a group of four and there were four others in the room with us for the Crime Investigation room. The room was very basic and there was no build up to the room- the staff was very nonchalant and passive and basically just led us to the room and locked us in. (I always found it helpful to have staff excited about the rooms and to really sell the theme of the rooms.) Even at the end of it they asked us who we thought the murder was, said yep, took our picture and left. I always liked more explanation and more of a review of what we solved. The staff here were just very hands off with the whole experience and made it a little disjointed. The clues were very basic and it was more of a "search and find" key mentality rather than a "solve puzzle" one. There wasn't all that much to solve, given the time and number of people in the room. Most of the time was spent reading journal entries or searching for clues rather than problem solving. I understand that this was room was rated as easy, but it was pretty basic, even for my newbie escape room friends that I went with. All in all, we did have fun and it was worth the Groupon price. There harder rooms sound interesting, especially the Mayan room coming out later this month, but I do not think we will be back. read more

We bought our tickets on groupon and paid for 6 people. when we arrived we were told the booking was only made for one person. Sounds like It was for the better... these reviews weren't great. we'll go somewhere else! read more

We did the crime scene escape room for date night. It was just the two of us and it was so fun! They have two other escape rooms there. We will defiantly be returning to do the other two escape rooms they have! read more

This place is a ton of fun! I had my wife's 30th birthday here and everybody loved it! They have rooms for beginners and experts, the staff is friendly and fun, and make it so everybody can have a great time. This would be a perfect place for birthdays and corporate outings to help team building. You really have to work together to escape so there is something for everybody. They seem to accommodate groups as small as 2 and as large as 12, and unlike many escape rooms their escape sessions are 1 hour and not 39-45 minutes like many others in Columbus. read more

Scamology!!! We had a party of 6 and were turned away for being 1 minute late which took us that long to check in due to the crowded lobby and stuck front door. Location was hard to find, poorly lit and tons of trash sitting in front of the entrances. Attendee Tommy was rude and over all nasty. He told me when I asked for owner information " I don't have time for your crap" I was floored. Save your money and go somewhere that has great customer service and I better location. read more

This was so much fun. It's kind of off to the side so you really have to pay attention. It's on the side of an old office building and you just walk in. The girl at the front desk gets your room set up, you sign waivers, she explains how the game works, and then you're locked in a room for an hour. We did crime scene investigator and finished with 1min 13sec left on the clock. You get 3 hints if you choose to use them. It wad my first time and I went with my family and we had a blast. It's an old office building so it's a little run down but it only adds to the feel of the game. I'm not sure what the price was because it was a birthday present but I know they have coupons on Groupon. You can play with up to 8 people. It was just my family of 5 and we had fun. It was a bit of struggle and we ended up using all of our clues but again, still fun. They have other rooms too with different roles so I would like to go back. The front desk lady also takes your picture at the end and posts it on their page on Facebook so you can tag yourself, no extra cost. I enjoyed myself! read more

The staff was very helpful. The room was fun. I had a good experience. My own suggestion would be to better advertise one the outside of the building. I had a difficult time finding the place. read more

I've been to several escapes rooms and this one was ok. Nothing really to wow you. Nothing special, but certainly not bad either. We did Crime Scene and were able to escape only to find out you also had to "guess" the murderer. That part wasn't explained very well and for an escape room you would think you just needed to escape. It was ok but we probably won't go back and will try other local venues instead. read more

Just ok. Located at the back of an aging office building, with little in the way of signage. Everything seems a little run down and barebones. It was fun enough - but we didn't like the fact that requesting a clue costs 5 minutes of time. We were put together with 2 other groups who kept asking for clues, so our time was shortened by 15 minutes...making it feel barely worth the money, even at a discount. read more

Took a group of 6 family members, age 16 to 60, to celebrate birthdays and all had a great time! We were in the room with 4 other people and we all bounced ideas around and were able to solve the murder and get out of the room. As someone else mentioned, it is more fun if you know everyone's name so introduce yourself while you are in the waiting room beforehand. Also, fill out the waivers ahead of time if you can. i really recommend this for all types of people because different people had different ideas/ways of doing things! read more

I have done 20+ escape rooms in 10 different states and with that, I have had to communicate with employees at each one to set up a reservation. Because of this particular location's lack of customer service, I don't know if the rooms are any good because I did not go. When I called, the girl on the phone (I think her name was Kelly) was very rude, told me the particular room I had bought a Groupon for was booked for the next two weeks (I'm here on business for two weeks only) and they were no longer accepting Groupon vouchers. Okay, I've done rooms in bigger cities with less choices of room locations and I've ever only had to wait 2-3 days to do a room due to full bookings. I found it very hard to believe that they were totally booked for the next 2 weeks. After getting an e mail from a manager on how to properly use my Groupon voucher (that was never my problem), I explained the actual problem I was having with booking and being told they were no longer accepting the vouchers. I then got a final e mail telling me they were no longer accepting the 12 person voucher because the room was too small to hold twelve people at one time. I made it very clear that I had purchased the TWO person voucher and that the 12 person voucher issue was irrelevant to me. They have since not responded with any kind of apology or explanation or offer to fix the situation. Thankfully Groupon understood and gave me my money back because the LockDown staff was definitely not going to offer me a better suggestion. We did 2 rooms at another escape room location in Columbus and had a great time. The LockDown Columbus location lost out on business and I hate that the staff was off-putting enough to dissuade me from trying a room there because I love trying new rooms in places I may never visit again. I am not surprised that most of the 5 star reviews for this location are from people who had never done any other rooms. read more

I loved this place! It was the first time I have ever gone to an escape room and me and my family did it while I was visiting from Virginia. We did the private one with the prison escape. It was so cool and the guy working there was soo nice and did a great job at explaining everything and we ended up seeing another guy when we got out who was super nice and cheering us up considering we couldnt get out lol. But clues were great, it was worth the money because the clues werent like stupid they were interesting and hard to get us to keep going so I loved every minute of it! Def go to this if you are in Columbus! Well worth it read more