Room Escape Artist

Escape Plan is one of the best escape rooms around Montreal, Canada. Here are our recommendations for great escape rooms in the Montreal area.

Thrones of Steel

Location: Dorval, Québec, Canada

Date Played: May 10, 2026

Team Size: 4-6; we recommend 3-5

Duration: 95 minutes

Price: $79.99 CAD per player

Ticketing: Private

Accessibility Consideration: One player needs to crawl, and all players need to be agile enough to climb into a space and climb up a few steps.

Emergency Exit Rating: [A] Push To Exit

Physical Restraints: [A+] No Physical Restraints

REA Reaction

While Escape Plan was set in a prison, this was anything but your classic prison escape game.

Instead of solving puzzles left by past prisoners – scrawled on walls or hidden within objects – we social engineered our way out from behind bars. With out-of-the-box thinking, real-world problem solving, our own improvisation, and a little help from some new friends, we engineered our own escape.

The set was beautiful… in a prison-looking way. It was expertly weathered and gave a sense of place. It was surprisingly compact set for a modern Escaparium game.

The characters we met embodied archetypes well. They weren’t especially convincing, as there was a tongue-in-cheek side to this staging, but they were certainly fun to play with. This isn’t meant as an insult. If they had sold their characters better, the game would have felt very different and been far less entertaining. This was a video-gamey and cartoonish prison.

I loved the passage of time mechanic. Most escape rooms are confined by their 60-minute (or even 95-minute) clock into telling a story that takes exactly that long to play out. Escape Plan took place over days. We were able to take actions early that set ourselves up for success later.

Some players will thrive in this environment. Others will bounce off it entirely. It lacked the traditional puzzle-solving escape rooms are known for. It asked us to interact with characters and our environment in new ways. What some will find invigorating, others will find uncomfortable or simply less fun. Personally, this was my type of playground. For Lisa, less so. Yet, we both commend a bold step in a different direction. Escape Plan pushed the boundaries of what an escape room can be.

It’s great to see what happens when Escaparium innovates in new directions without relying on immense scope and scale. This game is an argument in favor of smaller sets. It’s also an argument in favor of ever-evolving gameplay. With Escape Plan, Escaparium took perhaps the most overdone escape room trope of them all and made it into something entirely new. If you’re looking for the unusual, we recommend a side quest (from Escaparium’s famous Laval location) to their Montreal location for Escape Plan.

Who is this for?

• Adventure seekers
• Story seekers
• Scenery snobs
• Point-and-click adventure game fans
• Social engineers
• Any experience level

Why play?

• A novel concept in escape room design
• The time passage mechanic
• Wonderful actor-driven game mechanics
• So many opportunities for emergent gameplay

Story

Did you hear that the Escaparium location in Dorval recently opened up a coffee shop? It’s quite pretty. Unfortunately we never received our coffee because we were framed for a crime. It landed us in prison. No joke.

Setting

Escaparium has become synonymous with massive and detailed environments. Escape Plan represents the first time in many years that they built a game into a fairly small footprint. They preserved the level of detail that they have become known for, but made smart use of a smaller space, giving it life and a sense of time.

Escape Plan had all of the most necessary environments to convey “prison” and used storytelling to make the world seem far larger than it was.

Gameplay

Escaparium’s Escape Plan was an atypical escape room with a moderate level of difficulty.

Our goal was to escape, but we weren’t doing it by solving the types of puzzles escape rooms have become known for. Instead, we used environmental clues and social engineering to set up and execute our escape plan.

Core gameplay revolved around observing, making connections, and interacting with actors. At times we needed to be stealthy or convincing.

Analysis

➕ The introduction to this game was hilarious. We were just chilling in Escaparium’s lobby and suddenly the game was upon us. It was great fun for everyone in the lobby.

➕ Escape Plan was the closest I’ve seen to a point-and-click adventure game in real life. The environment was real, but we had to “click around” to figure out what we could interact with and how to use it to our advantage. Everything was there, seeded well. We just had to discover it.

➖ Early on, it was challenging to find the boundaries of play. At first, we weren’t even sure what we were supposed to do, or allowed to do.

➕ The set was excellent. It was small, but it was appropriately prison-like. Escaparium referenced the outside world just enough – within the set – to make the place feel bigger than it was.

➕ Over the course of 95 minutes, we interacted with a ton of characters, played by just 3 actors. The actors were outstanding. They were funny, even when they were intimidating, which made interacting more approachable. Escape Plan required actor interaction. But these actors were gentle, and they pointed us in the right direction. On the flip side, if you are overly comfortable, they will “yes, and” your wildest schemes as long as your ideas can work within the confines of the game. Furthermore, the actors made sure each of us had our moment.

➖ Unlike in a more traditional escape room, where trying an idea is pretty low risk, in Escape Plan, it felt like every idea was high stakes. It could take a lot of time to test out a plan. While in reality the actors wouldn’t let us deviate into something that wouldn’t work, as players, we felt pressure to be right.

➕ The plan came together in stages. In each one, after we made the relevant connections, the actors reinforced our immediate goal, and how this was important to the overarching escape. The experience was on-rails such that it’s approachable for any level of experience. Furthermore, when we messed up one mission, they adapted seamlessly.

➕/❓Escape Plan was not an open-world, free-play escape experience. It was on rails. There were actions we had to take to complete our escape. The actors would nudge us towards these, subtly, and eventually not-so-subtly. There was room to improvise, but it wasn’t fully open-ended. If you play well, it feels like you have a lot of freedom, but still, I expect some players will feel stifled.

➕ Escape Plan called upon real-world items within their fictional world. We loved this scene.

➕ Our 95 minutes took place over the course of multiple days. The passage of time mechanic allowed for scenes that usually can’t make sense in an escape room.

❓Escape Plan will not be for everyone. If you play escape rooms for the puzzles, get outsized enjoyment from outsized sets, shy away from actors, or don’t like the theme, you won’t enjoy this game. It also had a playfully cartoonish vibe that we enjoyed, but won’t land for everyone. With each scene, and each step towards our escape, the game was winking at us. Your mileage may vary.

Tips For Visiting

• This game is available in French and English.
• There is a parking lot.

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

Disclosure: Escaparium’s provided a complimentary game.