PanIQ Escape Room - Sacramento

Amazing escape rooms in Sacramento! These rooms are well thought out and balance the support and challenge. You'll (hopefully) be able to escape, but you'll be tested to do so! One bonus of this place is that there are costumes/props in many of the rooms; this makes the experience even more special!

Super fun to do with friends or family! It's all about team work! Staff member Jessica was very welcoming and went over the rules with us. She was very informative and helped us with "hints" throughout the game. You find clues to try to go into different rooms or escape. If you're stuck, just ask for hints. It really helped and we finished in 45 minutes. They have lockers to put away your stuff, place has very nice AC and is super clean! Plenty of parking spaces and in a nice area.

Jessica our game master was amazing. She made us laugh throughout her introduction and was a wonder as the clue master.What was intriguing to us is that we chose a room that was considered still medium difficulty and still needed a bit of Clues. This peaked our interest so much that we took up the offer of a 30% discount so we could play another game and do the extremely hard one the insane asylum. We are so excited to have found this escape room and look forward to doing other stages there. As a little sneak peek they are actually finishing up one called The Time Machine and I'm super excited about that one too.

This was my 6th escape room experience overall and my 1st time trying PanIQ. I was excited to come because I have always had a good time doing escape rooms and I have used 4 other different companies and locations. This place cannot even begin to compare. It was awful. I don't really know how else to explain my experience other than to say it was boring. They didn't have any games or puzzles in the lobby but they did try to SELL you an unopened game. When asked about it, the staff admitted they had never even played the game themselves and could not say if it was fun or how to play it. Awkward. They started our room late because they were really trying to sell the people who just finished more rooms. They were offering them discounts to book again and saying they could always change the day and time later but they had to book before they left if they wanted the discount and it felt like a timeshare sales pitch tbh. Uncomfortable. When they did get to our group, there was no introduction to the room. They gave the standard "please don't break things" speech and told us that if we asked for a clue but used more than one finger to tap the screen it would mess up the computer and they would have to physically enter our game room to fix it. It was weird. But they didn't say anything about our actual room or what the goal was, they just started the audio story and left the room. Ok. All the other places I have been there are clues to solve and locks to open and puzzles, etc. The room we did only had one thing to solve in the entire first room and it's literally written out for you on the wall. After 10 minutes of entering the obvious answer and nothing happening, we were ready to leave. We asked for a clue and the audio came on so we started entering the answer based on the "clue" but then the staff came over the speaker and said the clue was "wrong" and gave us the correct info so we could get to the next room. It was so bad. The rest of the "puzzles" were like stuff little kids do in the waiting room at a doctors office. There were little mazes and toys to stack but there was no critical thinking required. There were also more props and clues that didn't work. We finally just used process of elimination to guess our way done because it wasn't that hard. Even after that, the staff didn't come in or acknowledge us for like 5 minutes after we finished the game because they weren't watching/paying attention and we still had like 10 minutes left on the clock when we were done. This was supposed to be their hardest room. They also told us that they knew some of the stuff in the room wasn't working but they didn't warn us ahead of time or try to fix it? We were polite about it, but I honestly wanted to laugh when they tried to sell us more games after we just listed all the things wrong in our experience. This was also the most expensive room I have done. They start at $45 per person here, but other places are usually between $35-$40. If you want to try an escape room, I would suggest anywhere but here. I have only every written one other 1 star review because I hate to be negative but there was nothing positive about my experience at this place. I left feeling like I just got scammed.

We had such a disappointing experience here this weekend. We decided to do an escape room last minute and were looking for a new spot because I have literally completed ALL of the rooms at my favorite location. We contemplated a place we had been before but after reading the yelp reviews that said the remaining rooms were a bit easy, we settled on PanIQ because it is new and only had two 4-star yelp reviews. That was a huge mistake. We arrived early because we had gone out to eat prior to coming and it didn't take as long as expected. From the moment we walked in, this location was a let down. First of all, it's in a strange location with nothing nearby so we decided to go inside in wait. I have NEVER been to an escape room facility with no games or puzzles or riddles or anything to do. The location is totally barren with the exception of a sealed game they are selling and a few small tv monitors that play the trailers for the rooms. It was painfully boring. The staff is also an issue. It was clear from the interactions we viewed with other parties that there were all sorts of technical issues and that the staff are not gamemasters, but salesman with little experience and information. Their goal is to sell you that next room at all costs. They only had 2 employees working with three or more groups playing at a time. There was no engagement and no storytelling. The staff member who took us to our room did a generic blanket statement of rules to us and two other large groups that were waiting and then walked us back and started the game with no warmth or explanation and it was almost 10 minutes after our scheduled game time when they finally began.It was only after our game started that we realized, there was no real story or theme. In a high difficulty level game, the first room of three had only ONE puzzle. ONE. When it didn't make sense and we had tried everything, we asked for a hint and the staff had to come over the speaker to advise us that the hint actually gave us the wrong information. Only when she gave us the correct information were we able to get to the second room. The second room had problems as well and staff had to enter the game and check for things stuck inside the puzzle in that room. I literally cannot express how boring the game was. The last room was the cherry on top of the turn sandwich when we had to lay on the ground to solve a children's maze and then just guess at the final puzzle because another one of the clues was not working. When we completed the game, the staff was either occupied or not paying attention because we spent another 5 minutes trying to figure out what we were missing before she came over the speaker "Can you hear me?" and asked us about the final puzzle and then came in and apologized saying that we had indeed finished the room earlier. When we asked about the puzzle that wasn't working, she proceeded to say that it's not working and even the staff couldn't figure it out during training and they "have a list in to corporate of things that need to be fixed." It was similar to the excuses we heard them giving other players. Why this company felt like it was ok to charge us $185.31 for an hour of troubleshooting a game they already knew was not working is beyond me. It's one thing for a new location to be working out the kinks but this is a chain location that is only interested in making money and doesn't care at all about the customer experience. There was nothing clever or interesting about the entire experience. No real puzzles or anything to think about or solve. There is nothing in any of the rooms that requires communication or working together. I have done dozens of escape rooms and this is by far the worst and most expensive place I have even been. One of the worst parts for me was that although three of us had done many rooms, for one person in our group, this was their first experience and they are completely turned off to ever doing it again. I urge anyone reading this not to come here. There are lots of other great options in the area: Red Door in Rancho Cordova and Exit Strategy in Elk grove are both less than 20 minutes from this location and are FAR far superior. If you do decide, for whatever reason, to come here, please use the coupon code included in my photos for 15% off but also, DO NOT COME HERE.

As an avid escape room enthusiast, I am running out of escape rooms to do in the Bay Area so I'm glad they opened this escape room! We did get a little lost because it's in what looks like just an apartment complex. I wish there was a sign facing the street saying that there's businesses on the first floor. We did the Insane Asylum & we accidentally solved the last puzzle based off completely guessing the combo which I felt was cheating so I made my group do the Wizard Trials room too. Loved the Wizard Trials room, so interactive & you get to use wands to solve a lot of the puzzles! The Harry Potter fan in me was happy. Overall, the rooms & puzzles themselves were not so difficult or thought-provoking. The puzzles were very straightforward. In both rooms. & when we did need help, there was a delay because there was only one game master working the whole place & having to divide her attention on multiple rooms happening at once. Totally not her fault, she did great! But hopefully they have at least 2 at all times so people aren't waiting several minutes for their hints.

Jessica and team were great to work with, and allowed our team to have an AMAZING escape room experience! :)We will definitely be back, as the rooms were a ton of fun and challenging in the best ways!

Our group of 6 did the pirates of Tortuga room, and it was a mixed bag. The decor was pretty good and immersive, probably a 6/10 based on the range I've seen in other Escape rooms. The first set of puzzles was fun and made sense (although one of the mechanisms was broken), but the puzzles in the final room were disappointing. There wasn't much logic connecting each clue to a specific goal, so much of the experience turned into randomly entering possible answers into multiple locks. Also, at least two clues were solved in the exact same way. Finally, we lost a lot of time on locks that were not properly explained at the start of the experience, so we had the right combination but couldn't get the lock open. Fortunately that's an easy fix for the company - just make sure the locks are demonstrated in the introduction! Overall it was still fun and I think the space has potential, but I've definitely done better rooms.

First time here did the asylum room with my friends, was really fun! Our host Jessica did a great job giving us the run down on how to play and made us feel comfortable with asking for help if needed but we made it out with 20 min to spare! Highly recommend to come here with a group of friends or even family!

Really good escape room! Four friends did Wizard Trials and we finished with 35 seconds left! Engaging, fun, just hard enough to challenge you without frustrating you. Helpful staff with hints (when requested). I'll be back.