Room Escape Artist

The second most fun you can have in a coat closet.

Location: New Orleans, LA

Date Played: June 22, 2018

Team size: 2-8; we recommend 4-6

Duration: 60 minutes

Price: $28 per ticket

Ticketing: Public

REA Reaction

The Carnival Heist was a split-team escape room with an unusual twist. We’re torn between deeply enjoying a lot of what Clue Carré created and feeling frustrated by some of the design decisions that made it interesting.

The Carnival Heist offered interesting puzzles. Bring the right team for a communication-heavy escape room and be mindful that if something appears off, that might be by design.

If you’re in the area and looking for something that plays a bit differently, there is a crown here just waiting for you to steal it.

Who is this for?

• Puzzle lovers
• Players with at least some experience
• Players who don’t need to be a part of every puzzle

Why play?

• Unusual take on split-team escape rooms
• Interesting set of puzzles
• Fun final sequence

Story

The priceless King’s Crown was on display at the Vieux Carré Art Gallery during Carnival. With a one hour gap in the viewing schedule, our crew needed to sneak into the gallery and steal the work of art.

Setting

The Carnival Heist had a split start whereby half of the group entered the art gallery’s employee break room and the other half entered the coat check room. We eventually converged into the gallery itself.

The break room looked like a break room and the coat check looked like a coat closet. They weren’t overwhelmingly impressive locations, but they did look right. The gallery was a bit more impressive, merging the art gallery aesthetic with a Mardi Gras color palette.

Gameplay

Clue Carré’s The Carnival Heist was a split-team escape room with a moderate level of difficulty.

Core gameplay revolved around communication, deduction, and puzzling.

Analysis

+ The Carnival Heist offered serious deduction and logic challenges.

+ We enjoyed the repurposing of a small device for a fun reveal.

– One group encountered an order preservation puzzle, which was a problem because we didn’t know until it was too late.

+/- The coat check and break room looked fine and reasonably accurate, but they weren’t exciting locations.

+ When we entered the two different spaces, each team was presented with an interesting mini escape room with unique goals.

– We eventually stalled forward progress due to an unusual split-team implementation. While we intellectually appreciate this unorthodox structure, we didn’t enjoy it in the moment. It was clued – and really hammered in – but especially difficult to interpret in the moment. Once we misunderstood the intent, there was no way to self-correct without gamemaster intervention. This plagued the different groups for a good portion of the split-team part of the experience.

? We liked the idea that once one group entered the gallery, they could quickly let the other group in as well. However, in the moment, we didn’t realize we had this capability. It didn’t matter for us, but we suggest additional cluing in the event that one team is far behind the other.

+ The gallery reveals upped the energy level in the room.

+ We enjoyed the Indiana Jones-like conclusion.

Tips for Visiting

• We recommend Victory for post-game cocktails.

Book your hour with Clue Carré’s The Carnival Heist, and tell them that the Room Escape Artist sent you.

Disclosure: Clue Carré comped our tickets for this game.