Escape Plan GA – Bank Heist [Review]

This company is now called Impossible Escapes.

Puzzle withdrawal.

Location: Loganville, GA

Date Played: March 23, 2018

Team size: up to 8; we recommend 4-5

Duration: 60 minutes

Price: $25 per adult ticket, $22 per military/police/fire/teacher tickets, $20 per child ticket

Ticketing: Public

REA Reaction

Bank Heist was a challenging search-and-puzzle escape room. Play this one for the puzzles. It was uneven in set design and game flow. Not recommended for newbies.

If you’re nearby and want a challenge, go take it on.

Who is this for?

• Puzzle lovers
• Best for players who want a challenge
• Best for players with at least some experience

Why play?

• Some neat moments, especially in the last act
• A stiff challenge

Story

We were robbing a bank to initiate ourselves into the mob, as one does.

Setting

The gamespace was fairly tight and crammed a number of different bank-esque set pieces into the room.

Our robbery began in the office-like space in front of the bank vault door. The carpeted room consisted mainly of a large desk, lectern, some wall hangings, and of course, the entrance to the bank vault.

The set design was inconsistent with a few gems, particularly in the late-game, and a lot of stuff that just felt more or less recognizable as belonging in a bank.

Gameplay

Escape Plan GA’s Bank Heist was a standard escape room with a high level of difficulty.

Core gameplay revolved around searching and puzzling.

Analysis

+ Bank Heist was a difficult search-and-puzzle game, with satisfying finds and solves. It was a challenge, even for our experienced team. We comfortably escaped, but we had to work at it.

– This was a heavily adapted N.E.R.D. escape room. At times, it felt like the clue structure had been edited incompletely, with remnants of previous puzzles remaining in the props. In one case this really tipped the scales a bit too far towards confusion.

– Escape Plan GA didn’t “ask why” quite enough. One of the bigger moments in Bank Heist involved doing one of the few things that I know I would never do if I were attempting a bank robbery… And I don’t know a lot about robbing banks.

+ Escape Plan GA did a fantastic job of selecting some of their locks and staging a number of the later interactions.

– Some of our teammates missed the most visually impactful moments because the most cinematic part of the experience was too closed off for the entire team to view it.

? This was a difficult game (arguably the hardest we encountered in Atlanta). We enjoyed the challenge, your mileage may vary.

Tips for Visiting

• Parking: There is parking out front.
• Escape Plan GA has a comfortable lounge area.

Book your hour with Escape Plan GA’s Bank Heist, and tell them that the Room Escape Artist sent you.

Disclosure: Escape Plan GA provided media discounted tickets for this game.