Puppet Heist: The Hand Of Life

The whimsical nature of the story is what really makes this room. So many moments of this room will make you smile. Every detail counts in this room, and makes everything feel so real and even magical at times. This room asks you to break the rules of a typical escape room in a couple of fun ways, so you’ll definitely want to trust your gut on this one - don’t let your fear of breaking the game hold you back, because we certainly lost some time that way. This room has a healthy mix of practical and high tech effects that make it a truly unforgettable experience.

I love how the game didn’t involve keys and codes, but rather an immersive, story-driven experience that felt as though you were truly in the world of puppets.

Have you ever done an escape room and thought, this would have been so much more fun with a Muppet? This is the room for you! In this escape room, you get to physically help Melvin the muppet puppet steal the Hand of Life. I didn’t realize how much the room would involve Melvin until we completed our 1st few puzzles, which were legit hard for us to piece out the logic to at first. But then, I was wowed so much that I started flailing Kermit style! I love that Melvin is literally a member of your escape team for this heist. Trust in Melvin or else you’ll be Muppets most wanted!

Best escape room I’ve ever done. Puzzles were fun and fresh

This room was incredibly fun and unlike any room I have played before!!

This one is interesting, the theme is unique and cute however there's a bit of an issue with the order of gameplay which can be frustrating and sometimes it felt like we either knew what we were doing or kinda stalled not knowing what to do next.The story felt jumbled and was confusing at parts and as a common theme with this company it felt like there weren't a ton of puzzles in the room. That being said the whole melvin aspect of things was something I hadn't seen before and they did a pretty good job with that. Over fun room. Worth doing if you can get a discount.

Geez, this one’s rough. On paper it sounds like a really unique, inspired and entertaining escape room, but it very quickly devolves into a frustrating, unintuitive and poorly conceived gimmick. So much potential is completely unrealized, so much talent and work is squandered, and it’s really overdue for some TLC. There are some fun moments, but they are so few and far in-between all the frustration and poor design choices. We were left scratching our heads in disbelief by the time we escaped. Let’s briefly get through the good, and then deal with everything else. There are some funny moments and inspired design choices involving the set design, and the atmosphere is better than most escape rooms. It’s an ambitious concept that struggles to reign in a lot of creative decisions to make everything work, but what does work is quite good and funny. This all accounts for maybe 30% of the room. However, looking back on it, there’s actually very little to do in the way of puzzles for the entirety of the 60 minutes, and I wouldn’t really even call them puzzles. They’re more like fetch quests. And yet nothing really made sense as to why you’d do them to progress. So logically, you wouldn’t think to do most of these actions in the first place. The gameplay is just really uneven, weird (not in a good way) and feels like an experiment from another time that hasn’t been refined since. Other experiences I’ve had with “The Bureau” have been smooth, designed with puzzles that are thoughtful and well integrated into the theme. Puppet Heist seems to have gotten the short end of the stick. There’s one task in particular in the very beginning which actually breaks two golden rules that are pretty universal in escape rooms (throwing something, and throwing said object to/behind an unreachable area). While it is played for laughs, we found it baffling as a design choice, because it’s LITERALLY one of the first things you do, and then that logic never comes back into play again. But from the get go, it encourages destructive behavior, which brings me to my next point. The state of the room, namely the puppet. The room has many areas of clear abuse, with the previously discussed logic having been applied in many different manners across the room. A lot of things have been noticeably dinged, beaten up or treated poorly. Then there’s the puppet…my goodness has this thing seen better days. It clearly has not been maintained or serviced since this experience opened. You’re expected to carry this thing around, but it’s so filthy, grimy and is really gross to handle. It is disgusting, caked in who knows what. I only held it with my fingertips and away from my body when I was required to move it. Something that’s so integral and important to the experience shouldn’t be in such a state of disrepair that you’re inclined not to connect with it, especially because it’s a character in the story. Look, I really don’t like tearing rooms a new one, and I don’t go into any escape room with the intention of having a bad time, but sometimes there’s just too much wrong with an experience that it’s hard to overlook. At $42 a person, this should be a premium experience from top to bottom. I appreciate what The Bureau tries to do with their entire business theme, and world building that comes with it. They take a lot of risks, and that’s an admirable thing in a creative field, especially when most creative industries are risk averse these days. There’s some charm and inspired choices here, but it needs a major overhaul, refurbishment and a gameplay refresh that addresses all of the issues above. Puppet Heist is a mostly frustrating and unintuitive time that feels more like a slog instead of breezy fun.

I found this game hard to rate. The strongest part was the puppet gimmick, which was memorable and allowed them to hit story beats that might not otherwise have been possible. However, I thought some of their puzzle design choices were questionable (mostly needing better reinforcement that yes, you really do want to do ____). I'm a little put off that although the room had been open for a while, the owners apparently didn't think this was worth fixing, even though doing so would have been pretty simple and would have made our experience a lot better.