Review: Breakout KC - The River Quay Casino

RATING: 5 Keys RESULT: Win REMAINING: 5:45

The one Kansas City venue that came highly recommended enough that it made me take a chance and challenge a game ALONE for the first time – and boy did I hit the jackpot!

Story

The River Quay Casino is a crooked gambling den staffed by some equally corrupt employees. One in particular has been laundering money from the owner.

It’s up to me and my team of investig… wait, no, just me today – to search the casino and identify the culprit before he gets away.

That is, of course, assuming I can keep from being distracted by dreams of winning it big on the slots, roulette or craps table – though unlike Vegas, this casino actually has a clock to show me just how much time I’ve spent playing.

Scenic

The scenic quality here is moderate, but feels right. It’s not over the top lavish like one would expect to find in Las Vegas, for example – but that’s not a bad thing.

In fact, the modest approach does a great job of painting a visual picture that this Casino really isn’t on the up-and-up; perhaps a place we’ve stumbled upon, in the basement of an old building at the end of a seedy alley.

Clearly this is a casino where corruption is king – and that nails the presentation by connecting to the story perfectly.

The room is decked out all the games of chance you might hope to lose your money on – slot machines, a roulette wheel, a craps table, poker and even a spot to watch the local horse races.

Puzzles

Casinos – like Escape rooms – are all about gaming. Granted, it’s a very different kind – until now.

The River Quay Casino does a great job of ensuring each and every one of its puzzle steps connects in a logical, believable way to the story world, and in doing so, they greatly further the casino storyline.

Perhaps more importantly, each step was intuitive, and lead to some fun surprises along the way.

Breakout KC does something big here; the final puzzle steps of this game actually resolve the storyline. I realize that may seem like an odd thing to stress, because “why wouldn’t it?” – but the honest truth is very few Escape Games out there manage to have story continuity, and even fewer have a puzzle-driven story resolution.

If you succeed in your mission, you’ll narrow down the thief from a long list of suspects and ultimately nab the culprit to save the day.

Overall

I have to say – making the choice to tackle a room completely alone – party of one – was a daunting and almost nerve-racking task at the start. I’ve played a lot of games across the US, and many times when taking new friends I tend to take a natural lead role to help them understand the concept – but even in those scenarios, just having a person to bounce ideas off of can make a huge difference in figuring things out for yourself.

I walked in to Breakout KC with a lot of questions swirling in my mind.

Will I still enjoy an Escape Room – by its very nature a team based activity, if I’m by myself?

Can I some how manage to get through this game without anyone to work with?

Will my opinion of the game be tarnished by the pressure of tackling it solo?

The point I kept coming back to was a simple answer – Breakout KC came very highly recommended to me. In fact, it was talked up as “the one venue really worth seeing in KC.”

I had to do it. And I’m glad I did.

The staff here was wonderful, and clearly shared in the excitement of my solo adventure. In fact they mentioned no one had attempted The River Quay Casino alone, so even they weren’t sure how it would pan out. One of the owners, Luke, even called in to speak with me personally prior to my clock starting.

What followed from there was a wild mix of fun, stress, excitement and panic, until, somehow with 5:45 remaining, I managed to successfully solve the mystery and escape The River Quay Casino!

Would I play another game alone? Well, never say never – but I don’t have any immediate plans to do so.

Am I glad I did it here? Absolutely. Breakout KC was a hidden gem on my Midwest road trip journey – and I absolutely look forward to visiting them again the next time I’m near Kansas City…. maybe this time with some help!