ENTERtAINMENT REVIEW: Mastermind Escape Games - The Bank Job
(Moon Runner - Dance With The Dead)
I -love- escape rooms. I've done quite a few of them over the years at several different venues throughout the KC Metro area. I think they're some of the best money you can spend when it comes to time with friends, and I'm pretty much always down to run one.
This past weekend, I had the opportunity to play the Bank Job room at Mastermind Escape Games in Overland Park, KS. Mastermind rates it as one of their hardest rooms. The risk is great, but the reward is greater. Should you attempt it?
THE SHORT VERSION
Sure, but be warned -- this isn't an easy one.
THE LONG VERSION
It's tough to write reviews about escape rooms without spoiling them, and that's something I try to avoid at all costs. There are a few things I can say though.
Escape rooms as an entertainment medium share a great deal of similarities with each other. You're in a room trying to find a way out, hence the clever name. Said escape is typically gained by solving puzzles. Many of those puzzles are number-based and typically involve the finding of a key for a lock. That key might be a combination code, it might be a number code, or a letter code. While there are many other ways that escape room architects have employed to solve their puzzles, the Lock/Key method is the one that I see people fall back on most frequently. Once you know what your locks are, you start tuning your mind to finding the keys, and things typically unfold from there.
- See a lock with four numeric tumblers on it? You know you're looking for a four-digit code. Keep your eyes open for documents or numbers strewn around the room.
- Need a password to get into a computer? Keep your eyes open for documents with things that stand out.
- Did you find a key? There's probably a lock for it somewhere. Find a lock that takes a key? Ditto for the reverse.
- Find a fingerprint scanner? There's probably something that'll have a fingerprint on it hanging around.
Good escape rooms have puzzles that work logically like this. The rooms are filled with objects that perform logical goals like this. When you find a key, you know that it -must- go with a lock, so you start looking for that lock. Much of the mental heavy lifting that comes with good escape rooms is usually in the form of math. It's not unusual that a room will require the manipulation of numbers via addition or subtraction.
The REALLY good escape rooms -- I'm looking at you, Tick-Tock Games' Pyramid Paradox! -- have come up with some really creative ways to present puzzles to people in a fashion that's both engaging and different than the frequently used "Find the key that goes to this lock" mechanic. Creativity is good. Finding new ways to present the puzzle is good.
Mastermind Escape Games does a lot of great things with The Bank Job:
- The physical props are all high quality.
- The environments are better than average in terms of creativity and set dressing.
- The in-game tool for managing your time and hints is PHENOMENAL. Easily the best one of its kind that I've ever used.
- Mastermind is very generous with their hints, offering a whopping FIVE hints that you can use on any puzzle within the room. Most places only give you three. You'll need those hints too. This room is difficult to crack.
Unfortunately, The Bank Job also has a few very noticeable flaws, and one of them kept us from solving the room. For starters, the very first puzzle in the room was indicated by clues so vague that all five of the room's participants, including someone who works in a bank, missed it. That's a small problem given that we simply consulted the hint for that puzzle, but that's not the way you want to start a room. Once we knew what we were looking for, we all felt a little stupid about it, but it was one of those things where the keys to the puzzle were dismissed initially.
If that were the only problem we had with the room, I would have dismissed it as something that we simply failed to grasp rather than a poorly designed clue, but it wasn't the last time we had to use a clue after that. Each time we had to use a clue and saw the solution, there was eye-rolling because of how minute the piece of evidence that we were looking for was. Even these issues could be chalked up to us just not having seen something, or possessed the necessary knowledge to get that Ah Hah moment from finding the clue. No, the last straw came at the worst possible moment of the game: The very end.
With limited time on our hands, we were struggling with the final puzzle of the game that would allow us to successfully complete The Bank Job. The solve for said final puzzle was extremely convoluted, to put it mildly. It deviated thematically from every other puzzle in the room and was a massive non-sequitur for every member of our team. With several veteran escape room runners in the group, we'd planned for this and had been hoarding a hint for such an occasion, so with five minutes left, we used said hint. The hint?
"This is the last puzzle. You get no hint."
The last five minutes of that room weren't spent having fun. They were spent being frustrated at some very left-field props.
Credit where it's due, Mastermind Escape Games did something I haven't seen anyone else do in terms of prop use and puzzle presentation. Maybe there's a reason no one's ever done it that way before.
With the exception of the final puzzle, I enjoyed The Bank Job a great deal. Just be prepared to think very out of the box if you expect to get out alive, and don't be afraid to use your hints up!
I -love- escape rooms. I've done quite a few of them over the years at several different venues throughout the KC Metro area. I think they're some of the best money you can spend when it comes to time with friends, and I'm pretty much always down to run one.
This past weekend, I had the opportunity to play the Bank Job room at Mastermind Escape Games in Overland Park, KS. Mastermind rates it as one of their hardest rooms. The risk is great, but the reward is greater. Should you attempt it?
THE SHORT VERSION
Sure, but be warned -- this isn't an easy one.
THE LONG VERSION
It's tough to write reviews about escape rooms without spoiling them, and that's something I try to avoid at all costs. There are a few things I can say though.
Escape rooms as an entertainment medium share a great deal of similarities with each other. You're in a room trying to find a way out, hence the clever name. Said escape is typically gained by solving puzzles. Many of those puzzles are number-based and typically involve the finding of a key for a lock. That key might be a combination code, it might be a number code, or a letter code. While there are many other ways that escape room architects have employed to solve their puzzles, the Lock/Key method is the one that I see people fall back on most frequently. Once you know what your locks are, you start tuning your mind to finding the keys, and things typically unfold from there.
- See a lock with four numeric tumblers on it? You know you're looking for a four-digit code. Keep your eyes open for documents or numbers strewn around the room.
- Need a password to get into a computer? Keep your eyes open for documents with things that stand out.
- Did you find a key? There's probably a lock for it somewhere. Find a lock that takes a key? Ditto for the reverse.
- Find a fingerprint scanner? There's probably something that'll have a fingerprint on it hanging around.
Good escape rooms have puzzles that work logically like this. The rooms are filled with objects that perform logical goals like this. When you find a key, you know that it -must- go with a lock, so you start looking for that lock. Much of the mental heavy lifting that comes with good escape rooms is usually in the form of math. It's not unusual that a room will require the manipulation of numbers via addition or subtraction.
The REALLY good escape rooms -- I'm looking at you, Tick-Tock Games' Pyramid Paradox! -- have come up with some really creative ways to present puzzles to people in a fashion that's both engaging and different than the frequently used "Find the key that goes to this lock" mechanic. Creativity is good. Finding new ways to present the puzzle is good.
Mastermind Escape Games does a lot of great things with The Bank Job:
- The physical props are all high quality.
- The environments are better than average in terms of creativity and set dressing.
- The in-game tool for managing your time and hints is PHENOMENAL. Easily the best one of its kind that I've ever used.
- Mastermind is very generous with their hints, offering a whopping FIVE hints that you can use on any puzzle within the room. Most places only give you three. You'll need those hints too. This room is difficult to crack.
Unfortunately, The Bank Job also has a few very noticeable flaws, and one of them kept us from solving the room. For starters, the very first puzzle in the room was indicated by clues so vague that all five of the room's participants, including someone who works in a bank, missed it. That's a small problem given that we simply consulted the hint for that puzzle, but that's not the way you want to start a room. Once we knew what we were looking for, we all felt a little stupid about it, but it was one of those things where the keys to the puzzle were dismissed initially.
If that were the only problem we had with the room, I would have dismissed it as something that we simply failed to grasp rather than a poorly designed clue, but it wasn't the last time we had to use a clue after that. Each time we had to use a clue and saw the solution, there was eye-rolling because of how minute the piece of evidence that we were looking for was. Even these issues could be chalked up to us just not having seen something, or possessed the necessary knowledge to get that Ah Hah moment from finding the clue. No, the last straw came at the worst possible moment of the game: The very end.
With limited time on our hands, we were struggling with the final puzzle of the game that would allow us to successfully complete The Bank Job. The solve for said final puzzle was extremely convoluted, to put it mildly. It deviated thematically from every other puzzle in the room and was a massive non-sequitur for every member of our team. With several veteran escape room runners in the group, we'd planned for this and had been hoarding a hint for such an occasion, so with five minutes left, we used said hint. The hint?
"This is the last puzzle. You get no hint."
The last five minutes of that room weren't spent having fun. They were spent being frustrated at some very left-field props.
Credit where it's due, Mastermind Escape Games did something I haven't seen anyone else do in terms of prop use and puzzle presentation. Maybe there's a reason no one's ever done it that way before.
With the exception of the final puzzle, I enjoyed The Bank Job a great deal. Just be prepared to think very out of the box if you expect to get out alive, and don't be afraid to use your hints up!
Comments
Post a Comment