The case of the missing fun.
Location: New York, New York
Date played: June 6, 2015
Price: $28 per ticket
Plot
“There was a world-wide art exhibition gallery show going on in the city. There were so many invaluable arts in this show. You, as a detective in the city, were the commander of the security of this exhibition gallery. You did everything you could to protect these priceless arts. But before the gallery ended, there was a missing painting in the gallery.
You were facing a lot of pressure, and you swore that you would find the painting before the sunrise. You used every source and searched all suspicious places, but you found nothing! Now there is only one hour left before the sun rises, you go back to the gallery and hope to find some clues. As a detective, can you find the lost painting to maintain your good reputation? Do your best!”
No substance
The Exhibition Gallery: The Lost Art puts players in a small “art gallery” and serves them a handful of lightly art themed puzzles. Most of them are unmemorable (I’ve already forgotten them). The one that is memorable will be remembered for less-than-stellar reasons
The most memorable part
Whenever we play an escape game, I ask each of my teammates at the end two questions:
- “What was your favorite part of this room?”
- “What was the worst part of this room?”
If we have time, I’ll chat for hours with them about the details, but in a crunch, I find those two questions elicit the most important information.
The Exhibition Gallery: The Lost Art is the first game I’ve ever played where no player could call out a specific thing that they loved about it. One player noted his favorite part was solving this particularly irritating puzzle (that consumed about half of our hour in the room). Now he wasn’t saying that solving the puzzle made him feel accomplished… He was happy because the puzzle was over. Everyone else on the team agreed with him.
Shoddy construction
The game wasn’t well-built. At one point a player accidentally pulled an eye-bolt out of the wall while while trying to put a combination into a lock. The lock didn’t open, but the door did.
We left the door closed until we figured out the combination. When I took a closer look at what broke, I could see that the drywall was chewed up from the same eye-bolt having been pulled out multiple times.
I’m sure they pushed the bolt back into place after we left and it will continue falling open.
No polish
There is a noticeable lack of care. Often we see rooms that aren’t well-designed but clearly have a lot of love poured into them. This isn’t one of those rooms.
There are a number of compartments built into this room from some door hardware and plywood. The fabricators of these rooms didn’t even take the time to sand and paint the doors.
Should I play X-Room NYC’s The Exhibition Gallery: The Lost Art?
The last X-Rooms game I had played was the Forest Cabin, a very easy room for true beginners. I closed that review saying, “The game gives me hope for the other games offered by X-Rooms.” Unfortunately, this game dashed those hopes.
Whenever I write a review, I try to be as constructive as possible. However, as I try to do this now, I keep returning to the same conclusion:
This game needs to be torn down and rebuilt from the ground up. Skip it. This is the most forgettable room I’ve ever played.
X-Rooms has better games and there are many other stellar games in New York City.
