Room Escape Artist

Unplug it and plug it back in.

Location:  Orlando, FL

Date Played: November 10, 2023

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

Duration: 60 minutes

Price: $41.99 per player

Ticketing: Private

Game Breakage: Interactions worked inconsistently. 1 major interaction broke in mid-game.

Accessibility Consideration:  At least 1 player needs to jump. All players will use fine motor skills and crawl.

Emergency Exit Rating: [A+] No Lock

Physical Restraints: [A+] No Physical Restraints

REA Reaction

The Bureau’s latest game, Robot Rebellion, was as creative as it was ambitious… and as flawed as it was interesting.

Structurally, Robot Rebellion sent us through 4 challenge rooms, each with a different set of challenges. Some had traditional escape room puzzles and others were a bit more video gamey. All of this was presented in an absolutely gorgeous sci-fi set.

The struggle with Robot Rebellion came from its intense ambition. There were a lot of interactions that felt under-tested or under-built. A notable flaw was the use of consumer grade hardware that was not manufactured to withstand the volume or intensity of escape room play.

Additionally, the difficulty curve of the game felt chaotic. Some challenges were dull and repetitive; others were unresponsive, confusing, or just a bit too hard.

Finally, the story was presented as something to get invested in, but it never did anything meaningful. When the ending came, we felt like the game wanted us to have an emotional reaction, but it hadn’t done much of anything to earn one.

The Bureau is onto something with Robot Rebellion, but in practice, you really have to go in wanting to see something interesting and flawed.

To be clear, Robot Rebellion should be a beloved game, but it needs a lot of debugging and maintenance.

Who is this for?

• Adventure seekers
• Scenery snobs
• Sci-fi fans
• Best for players with at least some experience
• Players who don’t need to be a part of every puzzle

Why play?

• Gameplay variety
• A gorgeous set
• Unusual interactions

Story

We were on a mission to rescue robots who were held captive on a forced labor planet. Our goal was to free as many robots as possible.

Setting

The robots were held in an industrial facility. The set had high ceilings and weathered walls. It felt unfriendly, in a beautifully designed way.

Gameplay

The Bureau’s Robot Rebellion was a points-based escape room.

The gameplay was pipelined. We moved through 4 rooms and had a standard amount of time in each room to complete as many puzzles as we could.

Early gameplay was more escape room-y, relying heavily on logic, matching, and visual reasoning.

Later gameplay was more video game-y, with controllers playing a more prominent role than tangible props. Some physical movement was required as well.

Analysis

❓ With Robot Rebellion, The Bureau dabbled in mixed reality. We’re excited about this avenue of pushing the boundaries of game design, even if this implementation didn’t feel cohesive.

➕ The set looked incredible. It was industrial and ominous. The larger physical set pieces were hefty. In the first set, the interactive props were especially fun to discover and utilize.

➖ There was no onramp. Robot Rebellion opened with a logic puzzle, made especially challenging by a lack of persistent visual cluing. It was a great puzzle, but a rough start.

➕ Unusual interaction design was the highlight of Robot Rebellion. Our real-world movement impacted the on-screen robots. There were varied real world interactions of this nature, some more challenging than others.

➖ While this was conceptually interesting, the physical resistance often felt wrong, and the on-screen responsiveness was delayed.

➖ Robot Rebellion relied too heavily on consumer technology in a commercial space. The tech just wasn’t durable enough. When we played, the game had only just opened, and it already felt janky. One prop stopped functioning in the middle of its segment. Another prop had such poor responsiveness that we didn’t realize it was a touchscreen. This game needed to be built on arcade tech.

➖ The pipelined model led to bottlenecking. For example, once we finished all the challenges in the second room, a single (1-2 player) challenge continued to throw repetitive iterations at us until the game was ready to move us forward to the next room. 1 player solved these repeatedly while the rest of us looked on.

➖ Our hint system was a tablet, which we accidentally left in the second room and were then unable to access in the second half of the game. It shouldn’t be possible to get cut off from the hint system.

➕ One matching puzzle presented its information in an usual way that played into the physical nature of the game.

➖ /➕ The ending was abrupt, but it was an event. We enjoyed the effects that gave the ending some fanfare.

➖ The story was in conflict with the timed, points-based goal. We wanted to connect with these robots and understand their history and their plight. We wanted to be invested in saving them. However, with timed segments and an emphasis on points, we found it impossible to pay attention to any story. It was always in competition with the puzzles. Furthermore, none of the spaces had clocks, so we never knew how long we had left in each room. While we don’t want to see clocks in a story-based adventure, they felt conspicuously absent in a timed, points-based mission.

Tips For Visiting

• The location is a little tricky to find. Turn in at the church and look for the big B on the door outside The Bureau.
• There is a parking lot.

Book your hour with The Bureau’s Robot Rebellion, and tell them that the Room Escape Artist sent you.

Disclosure: The Bureau comped our tickets for this game.