About a year ago, Forrest Palis, owner of the new downtown Carbondale Island Escape, made an escape room for his little cousins. They enjoyed the escape room so much that he decided to start building the business he owns today.
“They inspired me to come find a place to rent… about a month later, I found a spot to rent,” Palis said.
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The escape room is located right next to Blend Tea and Crepe Lounge and is right above Project Human X at 715 S. University Ave. Suite 2B Carbondale, Illinois 62901. Palis started building it about a year and a half ago. He turned an open space into an office and two areas with multiple rooms for different escape rooms. Pallis also had a part in building the yoga studio, which is also located at The Island.
He went to multiple escape rooms around the state while he was planning his own.
“I felt like there were escape rooms around here that were kind of lacking in the beauty of escape rooms, because they should be more immersive,” Palis said.
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Immersion is his main goal when building the mystery cabin escape room and for future projects. “…they have puzzles, which is great, but there wasn’t that immersion,” Palis said of other local escape rooms.
The theme of the escape room is Cabin Mysteries. When the door first opens, it feels like a portal to a different place. The initial step through the door immediately piqued interest and excitement for the Daily Egyptian staff who experienced the room on Friday. The first half of the puzzles required some comfort with the dark and limited lighting – both of which added to the immersion aspect.

The ideal number of people for the escape room is somewhere between two to eight people. The recommended number is above two.
“It’s just that people with two people don’t usually finish this one,” Palis said.
Once one puzzle was solved, the energy in the room sparked and really propelled the group to move on to the next section. Some puzzles promote teamwork and are great for team building and bonding for two or more.
As you move through the rooms, a story is built based on the clues throughout. With every new piece you lay your eyes upon, a story puzzle is also revealed alongside the physical puzzles.
Palis described the largest challenge being the motivation to continue building the room. “Every time I looked at it… I was like, oh my god, it is gonna be a lot of time,” Palis said. He said it was worth it once it was completed, though.
Palis’ dedication can be seen in how much work he has put into making sure the experience is captivating and engaging for everyone involved.
At the grand opening in November 2024, he had a number of people interested in trying it out in the first week.

“My first customer, they called me on the day of opening… they had found it was they just Googled an escape room… and mine popped up,” Palis said.
Since opening, there have been roughly 100 visitors, according to Palis, two of which have found their way around certain puzzles, one being a member of the Daily Egyptian staff. This did not ruin the fun of the room, however.
The puzzles were just as clear as they were engaging. Unlike other escape rooms that have a common practice of limited hints, Palis provides those doing the escape room with unlimited hints to quell potential frustrations.
Other goals he has includes increasing name recognition. The first weekend of February 2025, Palis plans to go downtown and pass out flyers and has some ideas to promote on campus in the future.
Cabin Mysteries is just the start to the business. Palis is currently building a second room that is planned to open a year from now. This upcoming room will have a recommendation of two to six people as it will be a little smaller.
Several paintings lining the lobby clue into the museum of the next room Palis is building.
“People have asked me, will there be an island theme? And no, but there will be sand… involved in the next one,” Palis said.
Design chief Peyton Cook can be reached at [email protected] or through Instagram @cookmeavisual.
Student managing editor Dominique Martinez-Powell can be reached at [email protected] or through instagram @d.martinezphoto
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