Category: Last Minute Escape

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Location:  Morristown, NJ

Date Played: October 29, 2018

Team size: 2-8; we recommend 5-7

Duration: 60 minutes

Price: $30.50 per player on weekends, $100 for teams of up to 4 (plus $20.50 for each additional person) on weekdays

Ticketing: Public

REA Reaction

In Last Minute Escape’s Jewel Heist, the heist was far from the focus of the experience. The escape room was staged around travel to and from the heist location.

This staging added a new dynamic to the escape room: a layer of timing and communication challenge that substantially increased the difficulty of this puzzle-focused game. Unfortunately, it also added down time, disbelief, and a nagging feeling of missing out. Although Last Minute Escape introduced a fantastic concept, the execution could use a little more refinement. A tough, creative challenge is good, but not at the expense of fun and flow.

If you’re in northern New Jersey, play escape rooms for the puzzles, and are interested in another layer of challenge, we recommend Jewel Heist.

Who is this for?

• Puzzle lovers
• Players seeking challenge from different types of game mechanics
• Best for players with at least some experience
• Players who don’t need to be a part of every puzzle

Why play?

• Inventive game mechanic
• Interesting puzzles

Story

As jewel thieves blackmailed into one last job, we had traveled to Antwerp, Belgium to steal a world-renowned diamond from its appraiser. We needed to get to the jewelry store, break in, steal the diamond, and make our exit.

Setting

We began our heist in a train station. It had a platform, lockers, a ticket machine, and a phone booth. From there, we traveled by train to a simple, small-town jewelry shop with bright lighting, a security system, and jewels in a glass case.

The set design was uneven. Portions of the space – like the train – looked compelling; other sections required more… imagination. 

Gameplay

Last Minute Escape’s Jewel Heist was a standard escape room with a high level of difficulty.

Core gameplay revolved around observing, making connections, puzzling, and communicating.

The high level of difficulty came from navigating the game’s train travel mechanic, which time-gated travel between the two main areas of the game. Moving from one end of the game to the other required waiting for a few minutes. This profoundly changed the gameplay experience. 

Analysis

➕ Last Minute Escape introduced a novel timing and communication challenge in Jewel Heist. We commend the concept, which forced split-team gameplay and added new a dynamic to a timed puzzle game. This was a clever concept.

➖ In practice, this game mechanic created a ton of downtime in an hour-long timed-game. We spent far too much time waiting to play.

➕ Jewel Heist started us well before we were in position to steal the gem. This staging added intrigue, adventure, and some brilliant and unexpected moments. We especially enjoyed the train-station-inspired interactions.

➖ Last Minute Escape didn’t build any onramp to Jewel Heist. It presented a challenging puzzle series in the opening moments. It was a good puzzle, but a harsh opener. We expect that this puzzle flow will add frustration for many teams before they even get to the main event.

➕ We enjoyed the heist-inspired moments of breaking in and the interactions necessary to facilitate this.

➖While it had its moments, for the majority of the hour, Jewel Heist didn’t feel like a heist. It felt like an escape room. Last Minute Escape went out of their way to set up a scenario that included getting to the heist, but as the game played out, it became impossible to suspend our disbelief… which isn’t terrible… but this Last Minute Escape was clearly striving for more. 

➕ Jewel Heist was studded with clever puzzles that incorporated interactive props and sucked up our attention, in a good way.

➖ The execution was messy and at times misleading. Imprecise execution created unnecessary frustration for otherwise fun and inventive concepts.

➖ Throughout Jewel Heist, I always felt like I was missing out. I was waiting while my teammates experienced something fun without me. Sometimes this was true, and sometimes it wasn’t, but regardless, the feeling nagged at me for the entire hour.

Tips For Visiting

• There is a parking lot.
• We recommend The Morristown Diner for a bite to eat, even late on weeknights.

Book your hour with Last Minute Escape’s Jewel Heist, and tell them that the Room Escape Artist sent you.

Disclosure: Last Minute Escape provided media discounted tickets for this game.

“We do not follow maps to buried treasure and X never, ever marks the spot.”
– Henry Walton “Indiana” Jones Jr, PhD

Location: Morristown, NJ

Date played: August 1, 2016

Team size: 2-8; we recommend 4-6

Duration: 60 minutes

Price: $100 per team during the week & $30.50 per person on weekends

Story & setting

We were adventure archeologists on the hunt for lost Mayan treasures, chasing the trail of an Indiana Jones parody who left video evidence of his exploits behind. The story was playful, fun, and made a bit more sense than Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (which is now 8 years old… how did that happen?).

The setting had a cheesy but well-executed Legends of the Hidden Temple vibe that was playful and worked well.

The game never took itself too seriously, nor did it strive for realism. As a result, it came together far better than had Last Minute Escape attempted realistic immersion.

Puzzles

The puzzles presented in The Mayan Tomb were strong and varied. There was plenty to do and everyone had an opportunity to have their moment.

There were two puzzles built into larger set pieces that overstayed their welcome; they dragged on for quite some time after we figured out what to do with them. That said, they never crossed into serious tedium territory.

Standouts

Last Minute Escape created a padlock-less game in a small market setting. This is rare and praiseworthy. They used technology to create a magical room and executed it with a wink and a grin.

Their use of video was fun and kept the humor of the situation front and center. Their TV screens didn’t even belong in the setting, but the knowing ridiculousness of the game managed to make it all work.

There was also a brilliant use of a subwoofer.

Shortcomings

Some set pieces looked and felt a bit too homemade and hacked together, even for the comical staging.

One puzzle hinged on a moveable object being kept in the same place.

Eight players is one or two too many for the game space.

Should I play Last Minute Escape’s The Mayan Tomb?

Last Minute Escape, formerly known as Exit Strategy, has been in this business longer than most escape room companies, and they have come a long way since their first game. The Mayan Tomb was, without a doubt, the most fun we’ve had playing an escape room in the State of New Jersey to date.

It’s a fun and playful room, with a solid collection of puzzles and props, and a scale that is far bigger than one typically finds outside of a major city. If you can suspend disbelief in the story and setting, you’ll have a good time.

It could absolutely benefit from a bit more polish and refinement, but this game is a great time and there is nothing on its level in the area.

Book your hour with Last Minute Escape’s The Mayan Tomb, and tell them that the Room Escape Artist sent you.

 

[At the time of this review, Last Minute Escape was called Exit Strategy.]

An entry level game that starts stronger than it finishes.

Location: Montclair, New Jersey

Date played: June 2, 2015

Team size: up to 8; we recommend 6-8

Price: different weekday and weekend pricing structures

Plot

“United States Senator Franklin Wilson Neuhaus, II has been missing for several months. His son, Franklin, III has discovered through tax records that a secret manor belonging to Senator Neuhaus has not been investigated by the police. Not sure who he can trust, Franklin III has turned to you, a team of expert private investigators, to find any clues inside that may lead to the discovery of his father’s whereabouts. Did he run away on his own or is something more sinister to blame? You have one hour to find Senator Neuhaus before the investigation is taken over by the police. Test your analytical and problem-solving skills in Exit Strategy: The Senator’s Manor.”

Compelling pre-game

Upon arriving, you walk down a stairwell (past one of the strangest bathrooms I’ve ever seen) and feel like you just dove through the looking glass. The ceiling is staggeringly low, the ground is covered in artificial turf, and to your left, the wall looks like a damn house: windows, siding, mailbox, flowers, and a door with quite the knocker. Your game-master leads you to a television and plays a movie that sets the stage for a team of private investigators to search for a missing senator. It also details the game’s rules. Everything oozes quality.

High quality video production

It’s clear throughout the game that its designer has a passion and talent for video production. I’d be remiss if I didn’t call attention to how well he weaves video into this game.

Missed opportunities

The game is lovingly built, but it falls short of the expectations created by its exceptional exterior. The company puts significant effort into establishing their story. In fact, their website includes bios for the key characters in the narrative. The characters, narrative, and brilliantly produced videos are all woven into the game, but aren’t of much consequence. With the exception of an American flag sitting next to a desk, the fact that you’re looking for a missing senator is almost completely irrelevant to this game. This theme offers many opportunities to explore the private quarters of a powerful man. You could find anything in this man’s home: evidence of an affair, corruption, or some other scandal. Instead, you find out that he has some pretty mundane hobbies. This is a by the numbers escape game.

All roads lead to a lock

Everything in this game ultimately leads to a lock. There are lots of locks. This creates an uncomfortable situation whereby all players are constantly shouting numbers at one another. It’s a reasonably well-executed lock-driven game, but it’s still a lock-driven game.

Frustrations

Later in the game we hit some hefty frustrations. The first was that the Senator’s Manor has a lot of doors and things that are off-limits. Most of these out-of bounds things aren’t really obvious in the moment. We felt like our game-master was constantly chastising us for exploring the space. Without exception, chastisement diminishes fun. The second and more problematic frustration was a safe that locks players out for 15 minutes if they punch in three incorrect codes in a row. 15 minutes is a damn long time in a 60 minute game. It’s even longer when that safe emerges late in the game and becomes an impassable blocker. Furthermore, players must contest with clue placement that creatives ambiguity as to which numbers will actually open the safe. We narrowed the code down to one of three answers, however an incorrect inputting used up a guess, and as luck would have it, the right answer was the last one we were going to guess. With nothing left to do, we tried brute forcing some of the remaining locks, assuming that our game was over. When the contents of that safe were slid under the door, we made short work of the remaining puzzles, but that win literally has an asterisk in our records; no one felt good about it.

Should I play Exit Strategy’s The Senator’s Manor?

This is a solid game produced by a rookie designer. There’s clearly a lot of love poured into it, and I’m betting a ton of lessons learned. I wish that the puzzles had more depth. I wish that the game was crafted so that players could more freely explore the space. And I really wish that it didn’t have that infuriating safe. But mostly I wish that the game lived up to its entryway. If you’re new to escape games, this is a solid example of an entry level room. If you’re a veteran and you’ve played more interactive rooms, then this one isn’t going to wow you, but I am betting that if the folks from Exit Strategy keep at it, they’re going to get there. The basic building blocks are all there. Book your hour with Exit Strategy’s The Senator’s Manor, and tell them that the Room Escape Artist sent you.