Escape City Buffalo: Over the Falls (Buffalo, NY)

Impressive Set Design

Canadian pirates have seized your old cargo ship on a voyage across the Mighty Niagara River.  After stealing the goods, the pirates abandon ship and send you barreling towards Niagara Falls. You have exactly 60 minutes to escape before you go OVER THE FALLS.

Having spent a wonderful week with a friend in Toronto, it was time to head over the border and back into America. Of course we couldn’t just drive through Buffalo without seeing what escape rooms were nearby, and one that seemed to keep on getting recommended was Over the Falls by Escape City Buffalo – it had to happen.

Technically this game should be played by teams of four or more, but there is a GM override that allows teams of three to play, this was useful for us as we were indeed playing as a team of three today.

Located at a strip mall type of location there was an abundance of parking, and the venue was very easy to locate thanks to all the signage. When we first opened the door to the venue we were greeted by the cool and welcome breeze of the air conditioning, and were taken aback by the epic design of the lobby. We’ve seen companies decorate their lobby before but Escape City Buffalo have taken this to the next level, wow.

Our GM for our game (yes, we only had time for one game unfortunately) was Alexis. Alexis greeted us and we had a little chat before it was time for us to go into the game. If I remember correctly, the health and safety briefing and the mission briefings took place in a side room of the venue. We were then escorted into the room, with two of us on one side and one on the other. Suitably prepped, briefed, and separated we were finally ready to go… Over the Falls!

IMMERSION/ROOM DESIGN

Ok, now I see what all the fuss is about. Set design in this game was pretty incredible and I’m not sure I can find any fault in the design at all. The way we progressed through the spaces added to the story and all made sense for what we were doing.

Probably not the most accessible of games as some spaces were very tight to move around, and definitely don’t show up wearing heels. I do love it when a game comes with a warning that you may get wet, and yes you may, but we didn’t so don’t let that put you off.

I’ve not been on many boats that have been attacked by Canadian pirates and then left stricken to potentially go over a waterfall. But if I had, I imagine it would have looked like this one. This was no first class luxury liner, it was a workhorse and that showed. Don’t be mistaken though, this game wasn’t worn down in the slightest, the rust was supposed to be there.

Ambient noises (think creaky, ‘oh no we’re in a boat that’s going over the falls’ type of noises) were being piped in throughout but it was only loud enough that it added to the atmosphere and didn’t really make communication too hard.

This game did had some restraints at the start, so if that bothers you, you may want to get off this ship.

PUZZLES

When we started our game in Over the Falls we felt like we were flying or rather sailing away with the game. But we soon hit an iceberg and seemingly slowed down and found ourselves struggling through the game and playing catch up on our time.

I don’t know what it was, perhaps jet lag from the crossing from Canada, but we just couldn’t get into a rhythm and didn’t gel with the puzzles. The puzzles didn’t feel overly intuitive to us and the signposting was lacking but there was; searching, observation, colour, logic, and generally just manipulating the spaces we were in.

There was one puzzle that should have required four players but Alexis overrode this perfectly so we didn’t even notice. It wasn’t until we finished the game and thought about it did we realise what it was.

GM/CLUE SYSTEM

Clues and the timer were displayed on the screen in the room. If we needed help we simply had to shout out and ask for it. Alexis would then quickly pop a message up on the screen to get us back on track.

With the level of immersion that this game has, I’m just forever thankful that clues weren’t delivered via morse code. I’m sure we’d still be in there now!

ANYTHING ELSE

This is a game to play if you want to see an amazing set. Over the Falls was a visually appealing game and the story, flow was good. We didn’t click with some of the puzzles so felt like we were playing catch up, but somehow we managed to make it out in time.

Success / Failure

Final Rating:

Team: 3 players – escaped in 52mins

Address: 750 Young St, Tonawanda, NY 14150, United States

Website: https://escapecitybuffalo.com