Fun Factor: 6
Boggled Escape Rooms
24007 Ventura Blvd #130, Calabasas, CA 91302
Date we played: July 18, 2026
Booking size 2 to 12; We recommend 4 to 6
Game time: 60 minutes
Objective: A wicked sorceress has placed a curse upon the Blackstone family, leaving one of its spirits trapped within their Victorian manor. Your team of supernatural experts must uncover the manor’s secrets, master its magic, break the curse, and free the trapped soul before you suffer the same fate.
Horror Theme: No. Mildly spooky moments and vibe.
Difficulty: Intermediate/Advanced
Our Experience
We had fun playing The Ghost of Blackstone Manor at Boggled Escape Rooms in Calabasas, and we recommend it with a Fun Factor of 6.
The room’s biggest strength is its substantial amount of varied puzzle content. Ghost of Blackstone Manor is largely nonlinear, giving teams multiple things to work on at once. That makes this a particularly good choice for groups that enjoy dividing into smaller teams rather than moving from puzzle to puzzle as a single unit.
The Manor and Game Flow
You begin in the Blackstone family mortuary before gaining access to the manor itself. As the story progresses, additional spaces and puzzle opportunities are revealed. We liked how the physical progression through the room supported the narrative rather than simply providing a succession of unrelated spaces.
Once inside the manor and its different spaces, a piece of artwork serves as a visual roadmap of the puzzles that remain. Boggled used a similar system in Key of Destiny, which we previously played. The images are not presented in solving order, but they help players identify the different puzzle threads available throughout the room.
We like this approach, although we still wish there were some way to mark completed puzzles. With so many simultaneous puzzle tracks, being able to check off what we had already solved would make the roadmap even more useful.
And there really is a lot to do.
Really.
The Puzzles
Most of the puzzles involved some combination of observation, logic, pattern recognition, wordplay, or tactile interaction. We enjoyed the variety, and several puzzles produced that satisfying moment when seemingly unrelated pieces suddenly made sense. There is a wide variety of puzzles. We always appreciate this. Some are easier, and some run on the multi-level advanced side.
There was also one puzzle solution that should have been painfully obvious to us.
Instead, Laura and I performed the escape-room equivalent of driving around the block repeatedly while refusing to acknowledge the enormous sign pointing directly toward our destination. We considered increasingly complicated possibilities, rearranged letters, contemplated associations, and generally managed to come up with almost everything except the straightforward answer sitting in front of us.
Looking back, it was hilarious.
And, yes, we know exactly what we did.
Team Size and the Clock
This game also illustrates something important about our playing style. Regular readers know that Laura and I do not like racing through escape rooms. We enjoy seeing the puzzles ourselves, discussing them together, and savoring the experience.
That is not necessarily the ideal strategy for The Ghost of Blackstone Manor.
Because so much of the room is nonlinear, a team that wants to finish comfortably within the standard 60 minutes should be prepared to split up. Four to six players feels like the sweet spot to us, with people working individually or in pairs and periodically regrouping as needed.
Although the room is bookable for two players, a two-person team will likely need to move efficiently and work on separate puzzle tracks rather than approaching almost everything together as we largely did.
We eventually fell sufficiently behind that our game master let us know we were running short on time. Fortunately, there was no group immediately following us, and he generously allowed us a few additional minutes so that we could complete the experience.
That extra time was appreciated—and also reinforced why we recommend a somewhat larger team of up to six for this particular room.
One Puzzle That Did Not Work as Well for Us
Not every puzzle worked equally well for us. One involved identifying similarities or differences among a collection of images. An alteration to some of the source material, based on past feedback, created a visual inconsistency that looked as though it might be meaningful to the puzzle when it actually was not. We spent time considering that difference, and after the game we discussed it with our game master. He agreed that the inconsistent appearance could unintentionally point players in the wrong direction.
The underlying puzzle concept was reasonable; the presentation simply made it more confusing than it needed to be.
Set and Artwork
The room contains a considerable amount of artwork. Some of it was visually striking and contributed nicely to the supernatural Victorian atmosphere.
Some of the artwork was clearly AI-generated. Most of it worked really well, but some of the character artwork was less successful for us, seemed a bit out of place, and occasionally pulled our attention away from the otherwise effective setting.
Overall, though, the manor provides an appropriately supernatural setting, and we particularly enjoyed the way new areas and puzzle content were revealed as the experience progressed.
Hint System
The hint system is straightforward and nicely tied into the theme.
Players ring a bell when they want assistance—appropriately old-school for a Victorian manor—and the game master responds over the room’s audio system in character, asking which puzzle requires help. Nudges are gentle and delightfully enigmatic – but useful.
Final Thoughts
The Ghost of Blackstone Manor is a puzzle-dense, largely nonlinear escape room with a mildly spooky supernatural theme, an effective progression through multiple spaces, and enough simultaneous content to keep a larger team busy.
Players who particularly enjoy dividing and conquering should find plenty to do here. Players like us who prefer experiencing most puzzles together should simply recognize that the clock may become their biggest adversary.
And if an answer seems ridiculously obvious?
Perhaps try the ridiculously obvious answer before inventing another twelve possibilities.
We really should remember that ourselves.
As always, we only recommend escape rooms when we had fun playing them—and we had fun exploring The Ghost of Blackstone Manor at Boggled Escape Rooms.
If you play The Ghost of Blackstone Manor, please let Boggled Escape Rooms know you saw a Fun Factor Escape Room Review. Also, please drop us a note—we always love hearing from you.
And while you’re here, check out our review of Key of Destiny, also at Boggled Escape Rooms.
Until next time, keep escaping—and may overthinking haunt you nevermore.
…and have fun!
Please drop us a note and let us know what you think of the room…and HAVE FUN!