by Breakin' Escape Rooms (website)
89 Holloway Road, N7 8LT
3-6 players
60 minutes
Overall rating
based on ratings from 14 users
combined with 9 pro reviews
Your review
Player reviews
The puzzles in this room were pretty simple overall and Iād recommend a group of 2-3 max, in order to get the most out of it. We had 6 people and it was too many as there wasnāt enough for us to do, without at least half of us standing around at any given time.
Some of puzzles in this room are a bit more physical, with a chain related puzzle being the highlight. Without giving away any spoilers, one other puzzle - easily the worst part of the room - had us controlling something which was absolutely NOT fun. Three different people tried it in our group, and at certain points we had to improvise in order to āfixā the puzzle so we could continue playing it. It was a good idea on paper, but very poorly executed. Seemingly the main functioning item of the puzzle wasnāt operating properly, and needs to be replaced. Fortunately, after completing this puzzle the final challenge is at least a little more fun, if not the most taxing thing to work out. It did allow our younger group member to get involved though, which he enjoyed.
One other big complaint - the 60 minute timer wasnāt set in our room, so we had ZERO idea of how long we had left, or how long it took us to get our. Weāre guessing 45 mins, but nobody came to tell us (assuming they were timing it) and the clock in our room just sat at 60:00 the whole time. Weirdly it eliminated any urgency we had, and made the whole thing a fairly leisurely experienceā¦
However, outside of all that, arguably one of the things I think we liked least about this room was our host. They were the opposite of welcoming, were cold and just too officious. We heard the host for The Flying Dutchman was much better (and seemingly did a great job of adding to the experience), but our own host seriously effected the enthusiasm we had as a group. My son is autistic, and the host was fairly curt with him a few times, over the radio, when he touched things he shouldn't have done. A simple reminder, would've been far more appropriate.
Fairly easy, minimal story, and the focus was more on the 'plan' than on the 'heist' itself. There were lots of objects to interact with so it was entertaining š
Not a bad attempt to immerse players into the world of Fast & Furious. The theme and design of the garag are good and brings you in to the storyline. The clue system I wasn't a fan of and we had technical problems with some elements of the room. The remote control car puzzle is original but feels more of a gimmick. A good room but lacking in substance
Reviews by escape room review sites
'Escape the garage' might not sound like the most thrilling of themes, though this actually has a Fast & Furious style plot of fast cars and bank heists. But once it gets going it's an engagingly physical and just plain fun escape game that left me with a big grin on my face.
In contrast to the first Breakin' room we'd done (Blackwing's Cave), this room was brightly lit. It's also less high tech, though only relative to that very high bar - while there are plenty of keys and locks and physical ...
Break-inā Escape London- Heist Plan
March 2024
Overview
With a cheeky weekend away in London planned for one of teamās birthday, we decided to try our hand at a couple of games in the nations capital. After a lot of research, we decided to try Breakinā escapes and the first room was to be Heist. After further research, Heist was based on a famous car heist film franchise and it certainly a bit different than what are used to trying in game themes. The reception was large and spacious, however, no where to get any refreshments and unlike the friendliness of local businesses, the hosts were very abrupt and to the point. Typical London!
Room impression
The scene was set as a car mechanic garage and they had done a good job on allowing you to become immersed into the theme of trying to fix your car up and completing the heist. The design of the room was very good on the surface but the more of the game we played, we started to see that it was a bit tired and some of the puzzles didnāt work as they should have.
Puzzles
As mentioned above, the game itself was actually quite enjoyable with some hands on games that none of us had seen before and we did enjoy. However, a couple of them didnāt work as planned and on one of the main puzzles towards the end, when we thought we had done it all, the host started probing us over the radio asking how we had completed it and what we had done wrong. In actual fact, we had done it correctly but the system didnāt pick it up and it was clear that the host wasnāt watching us properly or they would have seen that we done it. After a few more reviews of this room, it doesnāt look like we are the only ones to have this happened too, so be aware.
Game Master Clues
There was a digital clock in the corner of the room to keep an eye on the clock and there was also a radio for the host to communicate to us. We didnāt ask for any clues ourselves and we got into the grove relatively easily with this room but as mentioned above, the host clearly wasnāt watching us closely or they would have seen we were on track.
Round Up
It was a culture shock for us in the Big Smoke to not have the warmth and friendliness that we are used to back home in the Westcounty with local businesses actually caring if you enjoyed your visit. Here at Breakinā, they genuinely made zero attempt to interact with us and started clearing the room up before we had even walked out of the room. When we walked into the building, there was no pleasantries and we were just told to sit and wait. If we hadnāt of booked a second room straight after Heist, we probably wouldnāt have stayed just because of how we were made to feel but the room was actually pretty decent and if you donāt care about customer service and just want to play a game, Heist is worthy of a visit.
