The Mysterious Miseries of Franklin N. Stein

Improbable Escapes - Wonderland (Kingston, Canada)

Time limit: 75 minutes

Age limit: None

Player limit: 2-14 (teams of 8+ can go head to head)

Difficulty: Depends on number of players

Awards: TERPECA Nominee (2024-2025), Best of Morty (2025), Golden Lock Award (2025)

Date visited: July 2026

Our second room at Improbable Escapes was probably their most celebrated game, The Mysteries Miseries of Franklin N. Stein. I have to admit, I felt pretty stupid not realising that the name of the game makes it obvious what the theme is... I had no idea what it was about until our GM said, "This is our Frankenstein room." And I was like... "Ohh... D'oh!"

• This was a super fun, frenetically paced multi-linear game with a ton of puzzles. I heard in an interview that Improbable Escapes initially wanted the room to have "one puzzle per minute". While they fell short of that goal, there were still, according to the website, over 40 puzzles to solve in 75 minutes!

• The theming of the room was still pretty good, as all of Improbable Escapes' rooms are — well-built decor and props, vibrant colours, and solid immersion boosted by lighting and sound.

• However, the star of the show was undoubtedly the puzzles. The room was not particularly big, but it was jam packed with a wide variety of puzzles along every wall. The amazing thing was that there was basically no repetition — every puzzle was different and tested different skills and abilities. Some tested your eyes, your hearing, your sense of smell, and your attention to detail, while others challenged your sense of coordination, recognition, memory, perception, or touch. There were a few traditional locks, but the vast majority of puzzles were tech or mechanical.

• There was also enormous variance in the difficulty of the puzzles. Some were single-step or simply required a quick manipulation of a prop, while others were complex, multi-step, or multi-layered.

• Depending of your perspective, the room's multi-linearity is either a strength or a weakness. Almost all the puzzles in each section of the game are multilinear, so the entire team can split up and work on puzzles individually. For completionists, this means you could miss out on a lot of puzzles; but if you work on every single puzzle as a team, you risk not being able to finish due to the sheer number of puzzles.

• Each team's perception of the game's difficulty will also depend on how many players are in the team: more players, easier; less players, harder. Our team of 4 mainly worked on puzzles individually but checked on each other and asked teammates for help when needed, or converged when collaboration was necessary. I kept running around from puzzle to puzzle, trying to identify whose skill set best matched which puzzles, and we ended up solving some of the more difficult puzzles by working together or bouncing ideas off each other, which was really fun.

• Having so many different types of puzzles also means there may be puzzles that you don't like. I know a lot of people who think escape rooms should avoid sound, smell, or colour puzzles, and this room has all of them. But the good thing is that there are so many puzzles that you can just choose the ones you can do and leave the others to your teammates.

• Was there a story? Yes, but to be honest we were so focused on the puzzles that we didn't pay all that much attention to the cut scenes and animations.

• We had one minor hiccup when an item that was supposed to drop upon solving a puzzle didn't drop, but our GM very quickly came in and gave us a replacement, keeping the time wastage and immersion-breaking to a minimum.

• We ended up finishing with over 15 minutes to spare and used no clues, so I would say 3-4 enthusiasts or 6-7 casual players would be a good number. You could do it with 2 players but I wouldn't recommend it unless you are super experienced, and I wouldn't recommend more than 8 simply due to the sizes of the spaces.

• One the whole, this was one of the best puzzle-focused games we've played and our favourite room at Improbable Escapes out of the 3 we played that day. If puzzles are your thing, then this is the room for you — that fact it's also a very pretty room with some nice tech and effects is just a bonus!

Escape time: 59 minutes and 41 seconds out of 75

Theming	Atmosphere	Puzzles	Creativity	Fun
A-	A-	A	A-	A

Verdict: A wonderfully diverse and frenetic 75-minute puzzle thrill ride that also happens to be aesthetically pleasing and technically brilliant. The kind of fun, engaging escape room that should appeal to everyone!

OVERALL RANK:

H	E	Z	J
A	A	A	A