The Christmas Heist!

Puzzles were interactive and good for all ages. Puzzles were the right type of challenge for a family friendly room

As a temporary Christmas game, ‘The Christmas Heist!’ delivered some interesting and unique puzzles, particularly when considering its pop-up nature. It had the potential to be a great room, but some of the puzzles and the performance of their interactive elements hampered my overall enjoyment of the experience. Several puzzles have potential fail states that can only be resolved with staff intervention. We were able to narrowly avoid one such state, but we did inadvertently cause another when interacting with the required puzzle pieces. The idea that we could truly fail a puzzle didn’t leave us with the best feeling as players. One puzzle, in particular, doesn’t offer cluing on how to interpret, order and input the answer after identifying the correct prop. After the game, the GM confirmed the two puzzles could result in failure requiring the GM to intervene, and the latter puzzle didn’t have any cluing at all, it was just guesswork. If this were a permanent room, these puzzles could serve as a solid first draft for further iteration. By addressing these fail states and cluing opportunities, player immersion could be maintained without interruptions from staff intervention and would cement one of those puzzles as a particularly cute and memorable puzzle. Unfortunately, the mag lock for the final box broke and fell onto the floor midway through our experience. While this was disappointing, it’s somewhat understandable given the heavy use props and rooms endure during the holiday season. When handling both issues, the staff were kind and responsive. One standout puzzle involved a colourful prop, which was particularly enjoyable despite the cluing being delivered through dynamo labels on the prop. While functional, dynamo labels tend to break immersion, and this detail held The Christmas Heist! back from being an even better experience. After playing the game and hearing that a new experience will soon occupy the same space, I’m curious and excited to see how Padlock’d will iterate and rebuild based on the player interactions they observed during this festive game.

Cute pop up escape room. Pretty easy, family friendly and cute design.

The most awesome Christmas room I’ve ever played! So festive and fun!!