Breakout Greensboro – Island Escape (Review)

Location: Greensboro, NC (There are locations nationwide, however.)

Price: $25.99 per person

Players: 2-8 (We recommend 3-4)

Time to Escape: 60 Minutes

She’s gonna blow!

Theme:

You’re on the vacation of a lifetime on a beautiful tropical island when you start to feel a rumbling under your feet! You rush back to the beach to see what’s going on, and see that everyone has evacuated and the volcano in the distance is starting to put out ominous black smoke! You find a boat docked in the distance, but when you get to it, it’s covered in a series of locks. Figure out a way to get it unlocked and started so that you can get out of there before the volcano erupts!

First Impressions:

We’ve always had a good time at Breakout, and this was the place where most of my A-team met and started breaking out of rooms for the first time together! With a new regular member joining the fold, it seemed right to try out the two new rooms Breakout had on offer!

High Points:

There was a large variety of puzzles to solve throughout the room, which allowed for just enough non-linear puzzling to keep our group of 4 engaged with the flow. There were a couple original ideas sprinkled throughout that presented fun physical challenges and encouraged out of the box thinking. The theme itself was well presented and the set was fun to interact with. Our GM was also very attentive as we’ve come to expect from the Breakout brand. Though we had a very minor technical mishap, she handled it very well and kept us moving along expertly.

Low Points:

Even though Island Escape was new to Breakout Greensboro, it had been available at other Breakout chains for a while. It shows in the game design as this one is heavily reliant on black lights, tends to rely heavily on first generation design sensibilities, and packs several escape room cliches into the game flow. Not that this makes it a bad game by any stretch of the imagination, but it does end up feeling very dated, especially to a seasoned group of players. Air cannons were used during one point in the game, and were very loud in the enclosed space, which was unintentionally disorienting. The room was also very worn in places, with a few locks starting to have their letters wear off and the black light being fairly low on battery. Our group fit in the room comfortably, but I could not imagine a group of 8 being comfortable stuffed in there.

Verdict:

Though the experience is a more “classic” escape room game, it’s still a fun and challenging romp. I recommend trying out Island Escape when you have new players or just want to get back to basics with your escape adventuring! You can book your Island Escape at your local Breakout here!

7/10 (Good)

Full disclosure: Breakout Games provided discounted tickets to our group.