Room Escape Artist

Like the spork, this event was a hybrid.

Location: New York, NY

Date played: March 25, 2017

Team size: 7-30; we recommend 7-8

Duration: ~2.5 hours

Price: $185 per ticket

Story & setting

We embarked on an interactive dinner theater and puzzle adventure though Greenwich Village. We’d been invited by Mysterio to become members of the Secret Dining Society. If we could solve our way through dinner, we would be initiated in the presence of the Society’s precious Golden Spork.

The humorous pretext for the excursion set the tone that lasted throughout the show.

At each location, we enjoyed one course of the meal. Before leaving, we puzzled out our next destination. We’d occasionally run into actors who interacted with us in both alarmingly natural and ridiculously strange ways.

Puzzles

Against the background of a secret society initiation, Accomplice could put more emphasis on the puzzling than in some of their other productions. We spent more time puzzling as a group and less time bantering with actors.

The puzzles were mostly challenging enough for us to mull over through a course, but not so challenging as to keep that treasured Golden Spork out of our grasp.

Along the way, we unlocked information from various tangible objects, the majority of which were set out as centerpieces, or delivered through an interaction. We didn’t need to investigate every oddity in Greenwich Village.

Standouts

The Golden Spork was an engaging and humorous production. We enjoyed the light-hearted mission, complete with its jokes and puns.

This show balanced theater with escape room-style puzzling and time with friends. While we were sometimes interacting with an actor, more often we were interacting among ourselves. We puzzled intensively and collaboratively, but without a strong sense of time pressure. We were relaxed and enjoyed a meal as a group of friends.

The actors were skilled at blending seamlessly into their environments. In that way, the restaurant setting too became part of the show.

The food and wine were delicious.

Shortcomings

We’re dessert people and the dessert course left us wanting more. While tasty, it didn’t live up to the rest of the meal in terms of experience.

Two of our guests do not consume alcohol. They missed the final toast with the cast while someone looked for an alternative beverage. This made the end fizzle for them as they felt left out.

The show was marketed for 7-30 people, but the puzzling wasn’t optimized to engage such a large audience. The puzzling couldn’t even stretch enough for our group of 10. Whereas a skilled actor can command an entire theater’s attention, it’s a different challenge to design puzzles that do the same, even more so to make puzzles that rely upon numbers. With small changes, Accomplice could iterate on the puzzles such that they engage more of the audience.

Should I play Accomplice The Show’s The Golden Spork?

The Golden Spork is a hybrid puzzle / immersive theater / dinner theater / walking tour. It’s a lot of experiences rolled up into one and it works. It does this by rotating through phases of puzzling, theater, dining, and walking. It’s also an excuse to enjoy dinner in the company of friends.

If you expect the show to entertain you with puzzles and actors the entire time, you’ll be disappointed. If you understand those elements are a revolving door of entertainment through your dinner, you’ll be quite pleased.

While $185 per ticket felt high, upon reflection, The Golden Spork was almost a deal. Manhattan ain’t cheap. Here, three courses with a fair amount of wine could easily cost over $100 per person. Given the few hours worth of actors, puzzles, and entertainment, that price felt fair to our group.

We truly enjoyed our quest to behold the revered Golden Spork. It was an honor to bask in its untarnished radiance.

Contact Accomplice at info@accomplicetheshow.com for a private booking of The Golden Spork, and tell them that the Room Escape Artist sent you.

Full disclosure: Accomplice the Show provided media discounted tickets for this experience.