Mad Genius: Cat Lady (Portland, OR)

We avoided a "cat-astrophe"

While in Portland we came across a new escape room establishment called "Mad Genius Escape Co.". This wasn't on our radar at all but was suggested to us by an employee of another escape room. We had some extra time for non-escape room stuff...which was used to book this room. So much for seeing other things! We always love playing rooms with new themes and the funnier the better so we booked "Cat Lady". We were four and given it was a public room, we were joined by a 10 year old and her grandparents. From their site:

"Your neighbor Mrs. Humphreys has always been a little bit of an odd-ball. I mean, she does have 23 cats, after all! But she's been acting stranger than normal lately, complaining about things being out of place and feeling like someone's watching her. She's decided to take the whole feline family to the vet for a check-up, buying you time to snoop around the house undisturbed. But you'll have to be quick- you only have one hour to get to the bottom of this"

Puzzles, Technology & Set Design

Cat Lady was a linear room set in an appropriate environment for what you'd expect a crazy cat lady's home would be. The puzzles themselves were exploratory in nature and fun without needing much use of advanced technology. The set design made sense for the storyline and overall everything was very cute. I would say this was likely the most family friendly room that we had ever played. If you are a cat lover (I am not) you will probably like this room even more!

Memorable Moments

I will say that we are biased for light hearted fun rooms that make us laugh and there were a couple of instances where we all enjoyed the humor incorporated into the puzzles. The cats did what? The storyline also had a nice comedic twist that's not found in more serious rooms.

Room For Improvement

Although we were asked if we wanted to have a private game at a later time, given there were three people that booked the room, we were on a tight schedule and decided to play with what we knew was too many people. A couple of experienced enthusiasts could easily complete this room so we did our best to let others solve things and took a back seat for the majority of the game.

Overall Thoughts

We had a good time playing this room which was solid and wholesome fun. A hardcore enthusiast might find it somewhat easy and having more than three or four people would start to get crowded. If you are more into the adrenaline/horror/tech style of rooms, this may not fulfill your needs but if you are into something light and fun, we think you will enjoy this a lot.

• Set design: Fine
• Difficulty: Medium
• Price: $30/person ($27/person +$24 for private)
• Number of players: Up to 8 (we recommend 3-4)
• Duration: 60 minutes
• Overall Rating: ★★★★

See their website here: https://www.madgeniusescapes.com