THE HEIST

We did this room on GTFO’s re-opening weekend. If they had cookies and water for free consumption before, they had pizza, cake, and soda this time around. They clearly know the surest way to an escape room player’s heart.

Service at GTFO has always been amazing, but they really brought it for their reopening.

The puzzles were serving escape-room-circa-early-2010s realness: You had laminated sheets cut into little pieces for a makeshift jigsaw, classic lock-and-key-operated boxes, and others that were very straightforward.

I could see how the puzzles here could be fun to solve in the early days of Edmonton’s escape room scene. In the context of 2017, however, the low-techness and simplicity of it all came across as dated.

There are a good variety of solid puzzles here – some wordy, some numbery, some findy. There should be something for everyone! The puzzles mostly follow a linear progression and are the traditional combo-and-lock format. I personally found them a bit too straightforward, but that may be because I’ve done too many rooms!

There was a clear and purposeful progression to the look of this room. What started out as an innocent-looking office space progressed into a full-blown internal bank vault.

At times bare, and at times decorated with glitzy props, the look was tastefully designed.

I didn’t find anything particularly compelling about the room’s look, but it also wasn’t bad. One thing in particular that I did like was the room’s use of physical space. There was always enough wiggle room for our group of 4 to do our thing.

There was a lot of screaming on our end every time we solved a puzzle. This was partly due to our own craziness, partly due to the sugar content of the free cake, and particularly because the excitement slowly but surely built up.

We finished in a very short time though (a testament to how easy and simple the puzzles were), which made us go, “That’s it?”

In this room, we had asked the GTFO staff to hide some birthday gifts in one of the last puzzles for our friends to find. This was definitely a motivating factor for us to go quick and break out (or at least find the gifts). When our friends found the gifts, they exclaimed, “Wow they hide prizes in here? How did they know I wanted this?!” And they were serious. Thanks for hiding the gifts for us GTFO!

At the time of writing, there are three heist-themed rooms in Edmonton (and more in Calgary–and innumerably more across the globe). This was Edmonton’s first.

For a theme as common as this, there wasn’t much to the story as the tasks were already pretty straightforward.

This was a straightforward heist theme. While this might have been more exciting for someone doing their first room, the theme was pretty much negligible. That said, the puzzles and decor were still thematically appropriate!

This room gets a #gold. We are aware that this is one of Edmonton’s most-beloved rooms, as per different escape room blog posts. While it was still a great room, some of its components have been left behind by time.

I would give this room a #gold! This room is fantastic for people who are just starting with escape rooms. Bring a smaller group so everyone can contribute!