Inside Job

UPDATE 2/13/2025: Finally got around to playing it under Escape Room Cleveland's ownership. While I admittedly remember very little about the original game, I can safely say that I like this one, but it is fairly difficult. The game is very immersive and has a decent selection of puzzles, but there are lots to do across lots of rooms, and it strangely seems to increase in difficulty as my group started off doing very well before falling completely flat closer toward the end. I definitely recommend checking it out, but bring lots of people and expect a challenge. ORIGINAL REVIEW: I played this room back when it was still owned by Trapped, which is known for providing a terrible escape room experience. I hope to play it again under new ownership as I have heard they have made improvements to it. That said, this room wasn't my favorite bank then. Some of the puzzles were notably confusing or difficult, and in typical Trapped fashion, some things were not working like they should which shaved off a lot of unnecessary time.

Puzzle Quality: 6/20 Looks/Theme: 3.5/15 GameMaster Rating: 2.5/10 Operation Fluidity: 2.5/5 Combined Rating: 14.5/50 Overall Difficulty: 5/10 Quick Notes: - Multiple rooms, medium in size. - Multiple props where a little beaten up or worn down. - 3-5 minute delay on hints given when asked for a hint. CATEGORIES EXPLAINED IN MORE DETAIL BELOW: Puzzle Quality - How intuitive, logical, and unique the puzzles were. How well do the puzzles fit the theme?) Looks/Theme (How much effort, time, and money went into making an immersive and unique atmosphere GameMaster Rating - How attentive and helpful was the game master? Were the hints given in a timely manner and were they quality hints that helped but did not give you the solution too directly? Operation Fluidity - Was the game reset properly? Was it clean inside the room? Were the code entry and solution methods working properly? such as electronic responses when correct codes entered? Overall Difficulty - This is fairly subjective but is mostly correlated to how many total puzzles and how time consuming they each are compared against the 60 minute time limit that almost all rooms have. Combined Rating - Simply a total tally out of 50 of the four main categories. (Puzzle Quality and Looks/Theme are weighted a little more because they are the most important parts of having a good experience). The higher the number, the better the room! Just remember that a 5/10 or 7.5/15 or a 25/50 combined rating is an AVERAGE rating (for some reason in most people’s heads, a 5/10 is a below average or bad rating). So if a room has a combined rating of above 25, then it is a quality room and a good experience that I would recommend! It has to be a really well done room to score above a 35.