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"The Repository" VR House

Made the mistake of searching @skipperjustin on twitter. I hope you're not that Jerky McJerkface!

Edit: that's a great auto correct for a-hole haha
 
Seems like LT is still hanging, which should be good for HHN die-hard fans...

There also seems to be no form of NDA for this; unlike last year's LT so that's a plus in for those that want to discuss Repository information.
 
Based on other people I spoke it with... that's the only outright "positive" review.

Everyone seems to agree with one common thread... fun, but not worth the money, and very confusing.
 
Everyone seems to agree with one common thread... fun, but not worth the money, and very confusing.

I'll add +1 to this.
The first few scenes with the live actors weren't bad. The actors and the environment seemed promising. But I don't think the mood was ever set right, the actors were all trying to instill a sense of urgency, but every time they would scream at us, we ended up just laughing at them. This isn't a knock against the actors, they were great, the material and setup was lacking.

The VR isn't great, you are only in a square room and aren't able to interact with anything, you just walk around and look at a few VR scenes. You hold a "wand" that can be seen through the VR and you can see masks that represent the other people in the room with you. There is very little explanation about what to do so we were all trying to interact with the environment using the wand but nothing seemed to happen. There are a few scene changes that I couldn't really follow what was going on. I've only ever used google cardboard (haven't tried an oculus or vive yet) and the quality didn't seem any better than my iPhone6 in a headset. The rendered graphics weren't anything special either.

The "Escape Room" section was a relatively simple puzzle even though we failed it. Once it was explained to us at the end it made a lot more sense. There is a 2 minute time limit for this part.

Then you go outside for a "debrief". Basically a few tables, a cash bar, a photo op, and a TV where you can watch the next teams try to solve the escape room puzzle.

Definitely not worth the money for me. The whole process from check in to back in the park was about 40 minutes. The technology was nothing special and the story/setup need a lot of fine tuning. At this point I would not recommend this experience to anyone, although I don't really regret trying it.

If anyone else does this, please note you have to exit the park and walk over to the blue man group entrance to check in. We had to ask around 7 different team members for directions before we found someone that knew what it was. The rest kept trying to send us to the 3D house.
 
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I like Owen Disney, but he's a Legendary Truth addict. Someone could punch him in the face, but if someone told him it was because Gabriel Fell was trying to stop him from revealing LT's secrets, he'd praise the interactivity.

People obsessed with the canon of LT are much more inclined to enjoy an LT heavy experience.
 
Based on other people I spoke it with... that's the only outright "positive" review.

Everyone seems to agree with one common thread... fun, but not worth the money, and very confusing.

Spot on.

Basically they give you little to no instructions under the guise of "story." That simply doesn't work. I wanted to enjoy and be able to focus on the details but was too focused on if I was doing the right task. We weren't told what we could touch, what we needed to interact with or why were in each room. Even the simple puzzle at the end was poorly explained. Most of the groups we were with failed. They don't really give you a good chance to succeed. The actors were great and some sets were nice. VR looked like a PS2 game.
 
We did that last night. Mostly good review (I'm trying to write up my thoughts for a later post) but I'll keep it spoiler free.

Logistics and check-in were chaotic (I'll cut them some slack since it was the first night, and everywhere else in Universal they don't tie reservations together like they do "up the road") The preshow was fun. The sets were great - on par with the normal HHN houses. Scareactors were great. The VR was fun and disorientating.

I don't think they gave people enough clear instructions on how to actually solve the end puzzle. I don't mean in a sense of feeding us the answer but in the sense of "your goal is to do X". There were lots of instructions about looking for clues, looking for colored objects and/or specific symbols but nothing specific about what we would need to do with this information until the final puzzle, where there were no context clues about if you were on the right track. Even if you went through the event several times, and figured out all the clues and looked for all the rights things, there is still zero instructions about what to do with that knowledge once in the final puzzle room. No feedback given while you are solving the puzzle. Video games use sounds and other clues to tell you if you're doing something right or wrong. Nothing here.

So it was a fun time with some growing pains that I hope they work out. Don't be disappointed if you can't solve the puzzle.
 
I thought it was definitely worth the money. I have no regrets and will do it next year if a similar experience returns. Something worth mentioning is if you wear glasses they will make you take them off. I thought it would fit over the glasses but it doesn't. So I didn't really see much of the VR element. Also they do give you a single use express pass which also kind of adds to the value in what you're getting.
 
I thought it was definitely worth the money. I have no regrets and will do it next year if a similar experience returns. Something worth mentioning is if you wear glasses they will make you take them off. I thought it would fit over the glasses but it doesn't. So I didn't really see much of the VR element. Also they do give you a single use express pass which also kind of adds to the value in what you're getting.
Thanks for this. Do you believe the Express Pass is given to cover the time you've used up doing the experience outside of HHN? Also, is it valid same night only, or for a week etc, and is it just for a HHN house?
 
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