Timescape: Casino Heist (Belfast)

Not your average heist

Join Jack Turner, the brilliant and daring leader, to pull off the score of a lifetime. The target? The heavily guarded vault of the Venetian Casino, owned by the notorious Milligan brothers. The prize? A fortune in gold.

It’s the 4th of July, and while the rest of Vegas is dazzled by the fireworks, you and your team are navigating through state-of-the-art security, outwitting guards, and hacking into the casino’s impenetrable systems. Every step is crucial, every second counts, and every team member must play their part perfectly.

In this high-stakes game, the unexpected lurks around every corner. You’ll have to keep your cool and trust your team to avoid capture.

Can you outsmart the Milligans and make it out with the gold? Are you ready for the big gamble?

Whilst it was the games at Forbidden Quest that first tempted book a cheeky little overnight in Belfast, it felt like a long way to go just for one venue, so of course we were determined to add a few more games to our trip. Enter Timescape.

Timescape actually have five (soon to be six) games available to book, but being somewhat frugal, (and not wanting to push our luck booking a game too close to our scheduled landing time when we would be flying with RyanAir,) we had only decided to book two of the games there to get us started. Those two games were Casino Heist and Spellbound.

Fortunately, the Aviation Gods smiled upon us on the day of our trip, and we arrived in Belfast on time, giving us plenty of time to make our way into the city, and have a little bit of a wander and a snack, before meeting up with the rest of the team, dropping our bags at the hotel, and then making our way to Timescape.

Belfast isn’t a massive city, and Timescape have a very central location, making our walk from the hotel less than ten minutes. When we arrived, we pressed the intercom, our booking was confirmed, and the door buzzed open, and we made our way to the lift and up to the main reception of the venue.

Timescape is one of those venues that requests teams arrive 15 minutes early, giving us plenty of time to store our belongings in the lovers, and make use of the facilities, before settling into the comfortable sofas to have a lovely chat with our host, and GM, Sarah, and receive our health and safety briefing.

Finally, with the formalities out of the way, we followed Sarah down the corridor to the entrance to Casino Heist. Without further ado, the door opened and we found ourselves in the security office of the casino. Sarah closed the door, and a few moments later, the voice of Jack Turner (who sounded suspiciously similar to Danny Ocean) floated over the airwaves to tell us exactly what we were in store for.

IMMERSION/ROOM DESIGN

Casino Heist is pretty much exactly what you’d expect from the name, and is very much a classic escape room. That said, there were some moments that helped to immerse us just a little bit more. If you picture a stereotypical security office, with CCTV screens, a desk, and few other bits and pieces, you’ll have an idea of how the game starts. From there, it builds, and the set build becomes steadily more impressive.

The game itself was fast paced, with plenty of unexpected moments. While this is a classic example of a heist themed game, elements put it above others in the genre, making it fun, and just a little bit more real. No, I didn’t really feel like I was robbing an actual casino vault, but it wasn’t far off it.

Despite the lift, and the fact that Casino Heist is all on one level, it isn’t technically fully accessible for wheelchair users, due to a few elements of game play. Those elements require some degree of mobility, like crawling, so Timescape do not class this game as accessible since more than one member of the team will need to be agile enough to participate.

PUZZLES

Casino Heist plays on many classic escape room puzzle tropes, with communication, team work, logic, observation, and a little scavenging all coming into play. Although I wouldn’t say this a particularly narrative-heavy game, the puzzles fit snugly into the theme and back story, never feeling out of place.

Whilst I wouldn’t necessarily class the puzzles as ‘easy,’ they did feel logical, and fair, allowing our very experienced team to complete the game in a little over 24 minutes. This is in part due to the semi-open structure of the game, allowing the team to work independently at points, but also because they just clicked with us. Challenges felt more like problem solving, rather than a puzzle, and flowed easily from one to another.

GM/CLUE SYSTEM

Sarah was lovely: friendly, enthusiastic, and full of praise for our heisting performance. Not only that, but she was paying close attention to our game, and while I don’t remember ever having to ask outright for any help (see above), our chat after the game made it clear that we wouldn’t have had to wait long for assistance when needed.

If it was needed, clues came through on the screen within the game. Narrative moments from Jack on the tannoy helped to push the story along, and while they weren’t necessarily clues, they sometimes gave context to the situation.

ANYTHING ELSE

Timescape wasn’t the main focus of our trip to Belfast, but I was impressed with Casino Heist. Fun, engaging, fast paced, and with some pleasing puzzles, if you’re in Belfast and looking for something to do, you can’t really go wrong with this game.

Success/Failed

Final Rating:

Team: 4 Players

Address: 121-125 Royal Ave, Belfast BT1 1FF

Website: http://timescapegames.com/