Seattle’s Tomb Raider Experience reinvents the puzzle room

Nestled along the Seattle Waterfront in the area commonly known as Post Alley, a new adventure awaits you, set in the world of a very popular video game franchise.

With a little bit of imagination, you’ll hitch a ride on a helicopter and head to Chile as part of a research team. Joining you along the way? Laura Croft, the tomb raider herself.

The Tomb Raider Experience is a new attraction that will take groups of up to 10 and challenge them to use their puzzle-solving skills to help Croft — and your fellow teammates — escape the Temple of Fire.

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According to Seth Wolfson, owner and creative director of Hourglass Attractions, this experience is not just your typical escape room.

“There are escape room aspects, but it’s not a traditional escape room, meaning there are puzzles, but they’re not incredibly puzzling,” Wolfson said. “Like, you’re not going to sit down and work on one of these puzzles for 15-20 minutes. The idea is there are nice bite-sized puzzles that fit the narrative as well as being culturally appropriate for what we’re doing.”

During my experience, I went through a series of rooms, guided by Croft and our helpful tour guide, solving a variety of puzzles straight out of the video game series. Flipping switches, matching colorful stones, it was fun to finally put myself into the world of video games. Each room has unique set pieces that create the stage for your adventure and none of the puzzles were too challenging. However, I am sure glad I had some help along the way!

I spoke with Wolfson about this experience back in March and wanted to know what it took to bring a video game world to life after they got into their space in May.

“We started working with architects, getting the plans finalized. Then we were separately designing the game space itself within this space,” Wolfson said. “We would work with the contractors, architects and game designers to start the physical building process of constructing the walls, floors, ceilings, that kind of stuff. During that time, we were working on the narrative, the puzzles and the design. It all kind of happens at once, and it all comes together at the very last minute.”

The story you will experience is one that Wolfson and his team developed alongside the team behind the Tomb Raider franchise.

“We’d come up with our concept and give it to the studio. They would give us some feedback and then we would work with them to finalize everything,” Wolfson said. “Tighten it up, get a more cohesive kind of narrative going. Then we would start building and revamping puzzles and things around that to make sure the stuff that we started with in the idea phase is fitting in with the narrative end.”

Video game fan or not, this experience is a great way to bring people together and put your thinking caps on, and the players’ experience is a top priority for Wolfson.

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“The tricky part is separating yourself from your ego and what you think you would like versus what your potential customers would like versus what the studio prefers, and then working to try to get the best product for your customer,” Wolfson said. “Because it’s not about what I want, it’s what I think the customer will enjoy the most.”

One key difference between the Tomb Raider Experience and other escape rooms?

“There are other things like it, but I think we’re doing it in our way, and our goal is to try to get that throughput where people are constantly coming through, but also feeling satisfied,” Wolfson said. “Where they don’t feel like they’re pushed too far too fast and that they’re actually getting to enjoy the story. They’re solving the puzzles and they don’t feel like they were just shoved into the next part of the adventure.”

So, if you have family or friends coming into town…

“We’re a new tourist attraction. That’s why we’re the Tomb Raider Experience,” Wolfson said. “We’re trying to promote ourselves as something for people to do that’s family-friendly. Not an alcohol-centric activity, but something that goes into the early evening. Something for people who are in town with their families can do. It’s for people during the day, with the team building they can do, or just friends hanging out on a weekend. And now that the construction is starting to let up and people have the new walkway, they can walk around more and find us. We’ll be that activity they can do when everything else is closed.”

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You can get tickets and details at tombraiderseattle.com. The escape room is fully accessible and has commodities for anyone with disabilities.

Paul Holden produces the Seattle weekend events calendar for KIRO Newsradio and a weekly story for MyNorthwest. He also appears regularly on KIRO Newsradio’s “Seattle’s Morning News.”