RATING: 0 Keys          RESULT: Win          REMAINING: 7:17

As they say in the “Game of Baseball:” three strikes, you’re out!

Two rival companies have been competing for years to create a new product that will dominate the toy industry. Just hours before the press release, the prototype went missing! You have been hired to steal back the prototype. After sneaking into the building, your team meets up with an informant who leads you to the CEO’s Research & Development office. The informant will lock the door behind you and has agreed to provide you with assistance from a remote location. You have 60 minutes to complete your mission or be caught for corporate espionage!

Wait, hold up. This rival company stole a prototype, and we’re going to go steal it back instead of reporting it to the police, pulling up our patent from the legal department, and suing our rivals into the ground? This doesn’t sound like a real corporation to me at all.

Coming in, I had high hopes for this game. While spies and theft are common in the Escape Room business, the premise of a toy company is an interesting theme that, given to someone with an ounce of creativity, could have told a much more interesting story than stealing something from an office.

Hell, this game isn’t even named properly. How is grand theft considered espionage? We’re not stealing information here. We’re not spying on someone. We’re trying to get our hands on a physical prototype that was already ours to begin with.

I am so confused. And we’re only just beginning.

Anyone who knows me can tell you what a huge fan of white-walled office spaces I am. There is never an excuse for a room to have no scenic value. Any game should transform a room, not just occupy it.

As I said previously, this theme of a toy company could have been done with magnificent results had it been set in a factory, Quality Assurance department, or hell, Santa’s workshop. Instead, we’re put into a lifeless box that sucks the soul right out of the game, just like an office in real life.

Breakout’s idea of scenery for this space includes such thrilling details as some desks and a bookshelf. But wait, that’s not all! To really spruce the place up and make it look like it’s an office in a toy factory, someone has opened the door and haphazardly tossed a crate full of toys into the room. Because that makes sense for a Research and Development department.

Of course, I have to give credit where credit is due. The one (and only) interesting part of this room is a small nook in the wall where you can see the toy you’re trying to steal taunting you from a locked case. It’s fun seeing the goal so early, but being unable to reach it. At least they got one thing right.

Remember how the past two reviews have mentioned Breakout’s tendency to use homework sheets and prior logic puzzles? Do you think they might have learned from their mistakes? Nope. They’re (unfortunately) alive and kicking, automatically earning Breakout yet another highly esteemed zero-key rating.

To add insult to injury, Breakout actually seems to be mocking players with their prior knowledge puzzles in this game. If you know the year the Declaration of Independence was signed, you’ll be rewarded with another locked box that requires you to know the year World War II ended… and so on and so forth. The image to the right is, of course, in no way related to these prior knowledge puzzles, if you insist on playing this room. COUGH COUGH HINT HINT.

Perhaps my favorite puzzle of the room, however, was plugging a fan into the wall and reading the text that would slowly pop up, letter by letter, and then spin around for a few seconds before moving on to the next pointless sentence.

“Do you want a clue?”

“Are you sure you want a clue?”

“Do you want another clue?

I’d estimate I spent around 3 or 4 minutes just waiting for the information I needed to pop up on that fan. Because wasting time is fun.

Well, here it is folks. An Escape Authority first: a venue that has had every game reviewed, and received a grand total of zero keys.

Game of Espionage is, however, a true zero in every sense: even if Breakout were to remove the ever-present worksheets and prior knowledge puzzles from all of their games, this might be the only game that would remain a zero. Zombie Roadhouse was almost acceptable. The Ringmaster’s Den was bad, but playable. There is, simply put, nothing fun or interesting about this room.

Breakout is one of those venues that seems to become worse over time, rather than improving on their mistakes. It’s clear that there is little to no effort placed into the creation of these rooms, and Game of Espionage comes across as a slap in the face to anyone who has previously played an escape room, not to mention those who haven’t. There is simply no place for Breakout in the Central Florida escape room market with the lack of quality in their rooms. Let me properly emphasize this:

WHITE WALLS AND LOW-BUDGET DECORATIONS ARE NEVER ACCEPTABLE IN AN ESCAPE ROOM!

It’s become quite clear that Breakout is not in this business for their players. This is not a labor of love for the owners. There is no passion for escape rooms present here. This feels like making minimal effort for the maximum gain.

We can put it no more plainly: Breakout is a detriment to the Escape Game genre, and anyone looking for an escape room will find a much better experience at nearly any other location in Orlando.

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Venue:  Breakout Escape Rooms

Location: Orlando, FL

Number of Games: 3

GAME SPECIFIC INFORMATION:

Duration: 60 minutes

Capacity: 10 people

Group Type: Public / You may be paired with strangers.

Cost: $32 per person

We thank Breakout Escape Rooms for inviting us to play this game. Although complimentary admission was generously provided, that in no way impacts the opinion included within this review.