Operation Escape, Bromley – WWII – Scoop of the Century
As World War II themes go, this is one of the weirder ones. You’re not prisoners, soldiers or anything so fun. Instead you’re a journalist and you’re trying to be the first person to break the news that Britain is at war. Hurrah, we get to be war profiteers! Okay I guess it’s in the public interest but still, it’s a little odd.
More odd is the way you actually break the story: by completing a jigsaw of the newspaper front page. I mean, obviously we couldn’t write the story ourselves but… hang on wasn’t the war announced via a radio broadcast by Chamberlain? Exactly what scoop are we meant to be getting here? I wouldn’t normally pick apart something like this but Operation Escape’s entire thing is WWII themed games, this being their second. Even the briefing is delivered by a staff member in full military uniform, so it all just seems a bit weird.
Once in the room proper it does look like a period office, with appropriate props, but that’s not exactly ambitious. It’s also a rather small space. One of the smallest I’ve ever played in actually, at least outside of games made specifically for two players. There’s plenty in it though, and most of the puzzles are fine. There are some hiccups: confusion around what bits go with what puzzles, and a couple of puzzles that you can screw yourself over with if you move things, which is a big no-no for escape games. They’re at least planning to change the latter though. There’s also one puzzle where it does seem like there might be a small but significant chance of getting bruised or knocked out. Obviously this one I didn’t mention at the time so as not to appear to be a wuss.
There’s also a puzzle that’s clearly reliant on the game host just watching you and then making an assessment on if you’ve done the thing well enough, which I always hate. I’d even appreciate it if they put fake sensors up so it at least helped out a bit with our suspension of disbelief.
Other than that it’s a decent game. It’s nothing special, doesn’t do anything hugely impressive or impressively bad. I guess had I actually got hit in the head with a golf ball this would at least have been a more interesting review!
Result – we escaped in 36 minutes
Date played: 23 September 2017
Team: Dean, Sera, Sharon
Website: http://operation-escape.co.uk
Summary: A decent enough game, but if you can get to Bromley there are so many exception games a stones throw away in central London, it's hard to imagine why you'd bother.
3
Bland
About the Author
Dean Love Dean is a professional writer who has worked for The Mail On Sunday, The Digital Fix, MicroMart and others.
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