Hold up
Location: San Antonio, Texas
Date Played: February 3, 2019
Team size: up to 10; we recommend 3-5
Duration: 60 minutes
Price: from $28 per player
Ticketing: Public
Emergency Exit Rating: [A+] No Lock
Physical Restraints: [A] Push To Release
REA Reaction
Escape the Room San Antonio’s Western Bank Heist looked gorgeous. It was a beautiful and detailed game space.
The experience, however, felt hollow. The gameplay wasn’t dynamic, logical, or interesting. On multiple occasions, this game was barely clued. In one instance, I considered changing the code on one of the locks because doing so would have fixed the worst puzzle in this game. All it would have taken was swapping two digits to something that actually made sense. I didn’t do it… but Escape The Room absolutely should.
Escape the Room San Antonio built an amazing stage for a dramatic heist. With minimal tweaks in puzzle design and gameplay, they could make this adventure truly outstanding.
In its current form, we can only recommend Western Bank Heist for its scenery. Our playthrough was irritating.
Who is this for?
- Scenery snobs
Why play?
- The gorgeous set
- To see one of the silliest puzzle solutions that we’ve encountered in years
Story
Our gang saddled up to rob a bank.
Setting
Escape The Room’s Western Bank Heist had a fantastic look that struck our entire team the moment we set foot in the room. The dark wood, white paint, and gold embellishments felt both strange and right.
Additionally, Escape The Room had added a few new effects to modernize this game and they were a smart addition.
Gameplay
Escape the Room San Antonio’s Western Bank Heist was a standard escape room with a high level of difficulty.
The difficulty stemmed from unrefined puzzles.
Core gameplay revolved around searching and puzzling.
Analysis
➕ This holdup took place in a spacious and detailed bank set. With its substantial wooden set pieces, built into the architecture, it looked and felt like the stage for a bit of prairie mischief.
➖ Although the set looked great, it wasn’t bright enough for a search-and-puzzle game. We were encouraged to use our phones for flashlights which was fine, if out of place… but there really wasn’t a good reason for us to need flashlights of any kind in this game. The low contrast clues weren’t fun to find.
➖ All roads led to a 4-digit combination… even when a different digit structure would have made more sense. Each time we derived an answer, we had to try it in every available input, which shot any forward momentum.
➕ We enjoyed the few tangible puzzles that were built into the fixtures of the gamespace. These were mostly new puzzles that had been recently integrated into The Western Bank Heist.
➖ We tripped up repeatedly on unclued searching and red herrings.
➖ One puzzle required a hefty logic leap. We required multiple hints on what should have been a quick-hit puzzle. When we finally got the right answer, this puzzle’s solution was about 75% inane bullshit.
➖ Escape the Room San Antonio missed an obvious opportunity for an explosive and memorable moment.
➕ Despite a few missed opportunities, Western Bank Heist went out with a bang.
➖ Still, as we skipped town, we felt intimately familiar with the space, but not the sense of adventure or satisfaction one would hope from successfully robbing a bank. We’d spent more energy poring over every nook and cranny than solving puzzles. The experience felt hollow.
Tips For Visiting
- Escape the Room San Antonio is right off The San Antonio River Walk.
Book your hour with Escape the Room San Antonio’s Western Bank Heist, and tell them that the Room Escape Artist sent you.
Disclosure: Escape the Room San Antonio provided media discounted tickets for this game.
I played this room in Scottsdale back in 2015. I am surprised that there has not been much of an evolution with the game at this late stage. I thought then as you do now, that the room had/has potential that is inexplicably not brought to bear. “Escape the Room San Antonio missed an obvious opportunity for an explosive and memorable moment” – What should have been a highlight ended up being a dud and is a head scratcher as it does not have to be that way.
I’m amazed that some of these puzzles have survived for so many years without substantial revision.
I completely agree with this review. Although I don’t remember the specific logic leap required, I do remember our group sitting around for 5-10 minutes at a time waiting for hints on some of the more obtuse moments. It’s disappointing because there are some cool features, and the set looks genuinely good, but it just isn’t a good puzzle game.
It kills me because it’s one of the most fixable games that I’ve seen in a while. It really wouldn’t take that much to make this one substantially better.
I played this exact same room and decided it was one of the worst games I’ve played. If I have to ask for a clue on every puzzle because there isn’t anything to clue it in the room then it’s broken. This room is broken!!!
Yeah… I just don’t understand how Escape The Room has let this type of gameplay persist. They are capable of so much more.