Amaze Games

North Port has grown into one of the largest cities in Florida by land area, but for a long time it didn’t have much in the way of indoor, rainy day entertainment beyond the usual chain restaurants and big box stores along US 41. Amaze Games, tucked into a storefront on Tamiami Trail near the Sumter Boulevard corridor, fills that gap with a genuine escape room and board game lounge built for the local community rather than tourists passing through on their way to the beach.

The North Port location (Amaze Games also operates a sister room in Port Charlotte) runs a rotating lineup of story driven escape experiences rather than a single generic puzzle room. Recent games have included Secret Agent Grandma, The Movie Monster Murder Mystery, The Lost Wizard: A Ballad of Woe and Whimsy, Willy Ganja and the Weed Factory, and Trials of Trickery, each built around its own narrative rather than a stock set of locks and codes. Groups book a room together, work through the puzzles as a team, and the staff sets the pace with hints so nobody gets stuck for the whole hour. It works equally well for a family looking for something different on a Saturday, a group of coworkers doing a team building outing, or a group of teenagers celebrating a birthday who have outgrown the trampoline park stage.

Beyond the rooms themselves, Amaze Games rents out its library of tabletop and board games for guests who would rather sit around a table with snacks than solve a puzzle under time pressure. That side of the business, combined with the escape rooms, lets the venue host birthday parties and private events without needing to bring in an outside vendor. The company describes itself as Southwest Florida’s spot for escape rooms, board games, and family fun, and its marketing leans into welcoming people of all ages and backgrounds rather than treating puzzle solving as a niche hobby.

Practically speaking, the North Port location is open daily from noon to 10 p.m., a later closing time than most family entertainment venues in the area, useful for groups that want an evening activity after dinner rather than a midday outing. It sits in the same commercial stretch of Tamiami Trail as several other North Port businesses, close enough to the Sumter Boulevard intersection that it is easy to find even for visitors unfamiliar with the city’s spread out layout. Reservations are recommended, especially for the more popular rooms and for weekend evening slots, since group sizes for each room are capped to keep the puzzles manageable.

For a city built mostly around single family subdivisions and connector roads rather than a traditional downtown, having a locally run entertainment venue like this matters. It gives residents an option that does not require driving into Sarasota or Port Charlotte for something to do with the kids, a date night, or an office outing, and it is owned and operated as a genuine small business rather than a corporate franchise location.