Without a hitch
Location: San Bernardino, CA
Date Played: January 7, 2022
Team Size: 2-6; we recommend 2-4
Duration: 60 minutes
Price: $35 per adult, $28 per child
Ticketing: Private
Accessibility Consideration: all players must climb a few steps
Emergency Exit Rating: [A+] No Lock
Physical Restraints: [A+] No Physical Restraints
REA Reaction
Confusion Escapes’ The Last Job stood out for a very big reason: the room was filled with a full-size semi-trailer truck, impressively passing through multiple walls. This bold calling card was also echoed in Confusion Escapes’ lobby, where the front end of the truck appeared to be breaking through a brick wall. This brick wall and a nearby street scene were beautifully painted murals, and the illusory transitions from painted to real bricks and a painted to physical lamppost showed off Confusion Escapes’ cleverness in engineering and design.
From the moment we entered the room, we were taken by the sheer mass and realness of the truck. This carried over into a handful of puzzles that got us to engage with the urban environment and truck cab in enjoyable ways.
Yet as we spent much of the game reading papers and inputting numerical combos, the puzzles failed to really fill or take advantage of the vast physicality of the space. It seemed that more time had been spent building this cool truck than devising equally cool ways to engage with or transform it. Even the company’s lobby, with its intricately painted brick wall mural, functioning headlights, and a hidden smoke effect on the truck, somewhat outpaced the room itself in overall visual effect.
The Last Job‘s central feature, the truck, was undeniably awesome. It’s precisely because the truck was so great that I craved more magical interactions, more physical things to move and manipulate, and more unexpected twists in the space. The creators at Confusion Escapes have demonstrated some of their fabrication chops with their lobby and The Last Job. With a bit more attention to interaction design and player experience, they have all the skills to create some truly unique escape rooms.
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