Review: Lakeland Escape Room

RATING: 2 Keys RESULT: Win REMAINING: 24:17

Lakeland’s first escape room has potential with its unique story, but fails to give an outstanding first impression.

Story

You’re an investigator closing in on notorious crime boss Wild Bill Gutierrez, the “Don of Ybor City’s Underworld”. There’s just one problem. While you were building your case against Wild Bill and following his every move, he was already on to YOU!

You’ve arrived at a speakeasy known to be owned by the crime lord. You’re hoping to find more clues to get you face to face with Wild Bill, but he’s right behind you. His plan? “Trap” you in the speakeasy. You find a neatly wrapped package among your investigation that is ticking suspiciously…

You’re stuck and you’ve got 60 minutes. Can you make it out alive?

It’s certainly not a plot we haven’t seen seen before, but the Speakeasy setting got me excited for what the room might offer. Unfortunately, by the end of the game I wasn’t even sure what our goal was. The story, if there really was one, is lost as The Speakeasy simply becomes another race against a bomb.

There’s nothing more disappointing than seeing a potentially great story come crashing down, and this room could be greatly improved simply by putting a little more focus on the underlying story.

Scenic

There are certainly some truly beautiful set pieces in the room, including a marble-topped bar and a barrel tap that enhance the ambiance and story, along with the dim lighting and background music. (Unfortunately, pulling the various levers on the barrel did not yield anything to drink. Pity.)

The Speakeasy, however, also feels strangely empty. For what his room aims to be, there was a noticeable lack of things one might expect to find in a bustling underworld tavern, such as ashtrays,
tables, chairs… and alcohol. Again, pity.

Unfortunately, knowing peoples’ destructive tendencies–and seeing it first hand–I can understand why glass in a room is rather risky, but I really hope to see more added to The Speakeasy to really give it the feel of a place where alcohol is illegally served. Gluing or nailing down some wine bottles into the shelves would be a vast improvement, as the bar itself feels uncharacteristically empty.

Emptiness is the true bane of this room. Use of space is very important to further the narrative of a game. In other words, the location should help tell the story of the room. When I go through a secret door, I’m expecting a wow factor for the room I’m about to enter. The Speakeasy, unfortunately, fell flat on its face in this regard as I left a tavern and entered an office. Doesn’t it seem like it would make more sense to hide the illegal den of debauchery instead of an office whose most distinguishing feature is a writing desk? It honestly felt like I played this game in reverse.

Puzzles

There’s a huge variety of puzzles in the room, but the bottom line is that this room was simply not designed to be difficult. While that is certainly not a bad thing, it does feel slightly insulting to open one box to find the code to the next with no thought or puzzle required. If you think I’m joking, I’m not. We ended up using a clue on that step because none of us even considered that they would actually put a piece of paper with another code in the box. I’ve overthought clues several times before, but this did not feel like a “got you!” moment, but more of a lack of effort or creativity in designing another puzzle for the room.

However, The Speakeasy’s biggest issue–and possibly easiest fix–comes from a wooden puzzle at the end of the game. I was ecstatic while finding the pieces (I tend to have a knack for putting those things together), but that excitement quickly turned to confusion after successfully solving it and only having a single half of the code revealed. Apparently, I found the “alternate” method of putting the puzzle together, which says a lot about how much testing or thought went into the design. Here’s hoping that someone will realize simply nailing down one of the pieces as a start point will both solve this flaw, and act as a guidepost for people that are less inclined when it comes to jigsaw puzzles.

Overall

The Speakeasy has the skeleton of a great theme, but falters in its execution of puzzles and story. While many of the challenges we found were great and required some thinking, there were several that could be eliminated altogether or reworked to better fit the idea behind the room: finding evidence against this elusive crime boss. There is no reason why The Speakeasy needs to be outright about finding a bomb. An M. Night-worthy plot twist at the end could be appropriate, if the bomb really has to stay, but the bottom line is that by the time I walked out the door I had no idea who Wild Bill was or what shady dealings he was involved in.

After seeing what this venue is capable of with The Asylum, The Speakeasy was, unfortunately, disappointing. There is so much more that can be done with the story, with the scenery, and even with the puzzles. This is certainly a room that could benefit from a complete overhaul, but that is certainly to be expected of a venue’s first room.

The bare bones are there, but The Speakeasy feels very lackluster compared to what enthusiasts can find back in Orlando or Tampa. It is an “ok” first room, but will require quite a few changes to its story and puzzles to really prove that Lakeland Escape Room can compete with all of the established venues already in Florida.