The Alley: Bankinbrottet

We walk into the lobby and it looks so nice. There are lockers for your stuff, free snacks and coffee. The toilets are super clean and offer free sanitary pads and tampons, which is a first for me. How lovely!

The room looked great and the puzzles were good and immersive. One fun physical puzzle, the rest more logic based. Some traditional locks as you would expect from a bank. It's multi linear after the first few minutes so your team can work on different puzzles simultaneously, until it bottlenecks towards the end. 

We were two people, which seemed like an appropriate number. 3 or four could have been okay too. We did enjoy the room but there are some downsides to the experience that made me give it only 3 1/2 stars. 

For one, the room is dark. If you are a fan of using flashlights for the entire experience, you won't mind this. Secondly, your pen is tied down - a feature I found annoying, because it seemed to puposefully slow you down. 

I will definitely mention the automated clue system as a con. This means that there is no gamemaster to guide you, the clues are fully automated. While it worked okay for us in this room, it caused us problems in the other room because it is not geared to help you with unexpected occurances. If you have none if those, this clue system can work, it's just in no way as well managed as a good GM. The system gives generic clues at specific points in the game. Sometimes you will get a clue to something you already have figured out, but to move on, you have to wait for the timer to give you the clue you actually need. Also; you risk getting the solution to a puzzle rather than a nudge in the right direction. 

Missing a gamemaster for appropriate and personalised hints and nudges was one thing, but we were also a bit thrown off when nobody greeted us after the end of the game. We had to just walk out by ourselves and wait in the lobby for the host, to whom we could then tell how we did - he had no idea if we made it or not and he did not mention our time. It felt quite anti climatic. 

It might have helped the whole experience if we had been told about the clue system before playing, but we were not. This meant that I was quite frustrated with the GM (the mechanics). I asked why they opted for this solution and the host mentioned that it gives all teams the same possibilities and therefore getting on the record board is fair game for all, plus it rules out personal errors. 

The problem with this, for me, is that I don't play to compete with teams I don't even know and I don't care about score boards. I play to have fun. Also, I didn't even see a scoreboard in the lobby. I realise that good GMs are hard and expensive to train, but they are so much better than mechanics AND they will be able to help with unexpected occurances. 

I suspect that they chose this solution to be able to run all their rooms at the same time with a minimum of employees. 

Knowing this in advance, you might enjoy playing at The Alley more than I did.