At the time of this review, Exit 4 was called Escape Room South Jersey.
Nixon needs our help!
Location: Collingswood, New Jersey
Date played: June 23, 2017
Team size: 4-10; we recommend 3-5
Duration: 60 minutes
Price: $25 – 28 per ticket
Story & setting
An American bureaucrat sold out to the Soviets and planted a nuke on American soil. President Nixon personally assigned our team the duty of saving the United States and the world.
Staged in an embassy office, we searched through the belongings of an eccentric government official in hopes of tracking down the nuke that he had stolen and learning how to disarm it.
Puzzles
The puzzling in The American Embassy felt a little like escape room default mode, but with a clean and fun execution. There were some subtly clever moments hidden within the escape room. In the couple that come to mind, we nearly called for a clue, and were extremely satisfied when we pushed through to earn the solves ourselves.
Standouts
The American Embassy was hilarious from start to finish. So many of the interactions were built around jokes and they landed.
Escape Room South Jersey’s imitation of Futurama’s Richard Nixon imitation was perfect and fit the tone of the room escape.
I don’t love red herrings, but The American Embassy had one of the funniest ones that I’ve encountered.
While an office environment wasn’t the most exciting place to escape, Escape Room South Jersey committed to the 1970s vibe, which worked well.
The American Embassy wasn’t all laughs. It had a strong series of layered puzzles with seriously satisfying solves.
Shortcomings
The first puzzle was a rough and ambiguous start. While it might have been a good puzzle later in the experience, as the jumping off point, it was difficult to even identify where to begin.
There were too many combination locks available at the start of the game. It ultimately became fairly intuitive to identify which puzzles paired with which locks, but early on, this made the puzzle flow bumpier than it should have been.
The set was inconsistent. While parts of it looked great, other sections came directly from Ikea.
Should I play Escape Room South Jersey’s The American Embassy?
Not enough escape rooms are funny; that’s what made The American Embassy shine. By injecting humor and building the escape game around satisfying puzzles, Escape Room South Jersey made what would have been a fairly standard office-based Cold War escape room into something memorable.
The American Embassy is suitable for players of all skill levels because it’s approachable and thoughtfully designed.
There are prettier games out there, but The American Embassy had solid flow, and it made us laugh… I’d take that over many escape rooms.
Book your hour with Escape Room South Jersey’s The American Embassy, and tell them that the Room Escape Artist sent you.
Full disclosure: Escape Room South Jersey provided media discounted tickets for this game.
