Montreal, May 2025
Sometimes escape rooms give you a snippet of story or even a quick video to set the scene, as part of the confirmation email before you even reach the venue. Project RESET does this – and the video is over ten minutes long. When our host asked whether we knew what our mission was, she looked quite startled to find that we’d watched and absorbed it.
To summarise a complex premise, you are criminals in a future society undergoing a rehabilitation program designed to evaluate how well you learn from your mistakes. That sets up what I’d describe as a high concept escape room, built around one brilliant idea. I’m not going to spoil what that idea is, since the moment of realisation was a real highlight.
The style of decoration here is smooth clean sci-fi; it has the tidy efficiency of the original locked room computer games, where every element has a purpose sooner or later. More than a typical escape room, there’s also a satisfying sense that you’re increasing in understanding and achievement as you make progress.
There is a live actor element to this game – in an entirely non-scary and non-threatening way! – which plays an important role in introducing and reinforcing the central mechanic. Our host performed this role in a way that added a great deal to an already very memorable room.
Compared to some of the other Montreal rooms, including the latest at this venue, Project RESET is quite a compact game. But the concept is a stroke of genius, implemented beautifully, and for me it’s a memorable must-play for that reason. 
