Review: Exit Escape Room NYC - Operation Dive

RATING: 4 Keys RESULT: Win REMAINING: 6:40

Missile incoming: everybody get down!

Story

The USS Growler submarine has been decommissioned since 1964, but with the the sudden rise of a new attack threat to New York City from a hostile enemy submarine carrying a destructive missile due to be deployed in one hour, the Pentagon has ordered an immediate counter-operation. You and your team were ordered to re-activate the Growler, submerge her and carry out “Operation Dive”. Can you stop the attack and save the city before time expires? Operation Dive is our newest high-tech filled escape room- an immersive and unforgettable experience!

This game has an extremely unique storyline and setting. It is nice to see an escape game straying from typical themes. After completing dozens of escape games, we have scene enough pirate ships, tombs, prisons, and serial killer hideouts. Setting the game on a submarine is a highly creative and refreshing idea. Although this storyworld was likely very difficult to execute, it certainly paid off.

The impact of the storyworld is felt throughout the game. Adventurers will never forget that they are submerged underwater due both to the excellent scenic design and the well-integrated puzzles.

Scenic

Scenic design is extremely strong in Operation Dive. Upon entering the space, it is very easy to forget that you are in a high rise office building in New York City, and to be fully immersed in the setting of a 1960s submarine. Every little detail in the game is spot on, and matches exactly what one would expect a submarine to look like.

Several props in Operation Dive stand out as especially impressive; chief among them is the massive periscope right in the middle of the room. This periscope is beautifully designed. The shape of the room, the small circular windows, and the ship’s steering control area are also exceedingly realistic.

Our one complaint about the scenic design of Operation Dive is its size. Although it is understood that a real submarine would likely be very small, the space for this escape game felt quite cramped. We only had a team of two people, and still found ourselves bumping into one another due to the layout of the space. We imagine this feeling would only be worse with a larger team of adventurers.

Puzzles

Puzzles in Operation Dive were all highly logical, and directly correlated to the game’s unique storyworld. Each step in the game made sense in conjunction to the theme.

Challenges were not included simply for challenge sake; rather, each step mimics a practical solution that would actually be taken in this scenario in order to avoid impending doom. From building missiles to plotting coordinates to aiming and firing at targets, adventurers are presented with unique problems that must be solved in the time allotted to reach their goal, or else suffer the consequences.

Nothing in Operation Dive felt forced, and the puzzles flowed logically from one to the next. One sign of a high-quality escape game is briefly forgetting that you are participating in one while playing. Operation Dive definitely elicits this, and its immersion factor is top notch.

Overall

On the whole, Exit Escape Room NYC’s Operation Dive is a welcome addition to a relatively dry New York escape game market. There are a few serious wow moments throughout the game that will likely leave even the most experienced enthusiasts in awe.

It is important to note that although this game was not marketed as scary, nor is the theme at all horror-related, it included one of the biggest jump scares we have ever seen in an escape game. The fact that it was so unexpected made it that much more startling. When it arrived, I quite literally jumped two feet in the air and screamed “HOLY ****!” at the top of my lungs. The game master took some real enjoyment in our reactions, which he understandably found quite hysterical.