Escape Room Hull: The Bank Job review

We entered the room of the bank awaiting a VT message from our guy on the outside who explained that the mission of this game was to leave with the cash, it’s not just about escaping. The room was basically dressed, we were not in some fancy Swiss bank but more of a local high street one with banking paraphernalia on the walls, desks for the clerks etc. The games linked well to the theme too. There wasn’t multiple rooms to explore here, all of the gameplay happened in the same room with the addition of the safe room where we were able to start collecting our haul of cash.

This isn’t a Fort Knox type bank. It’s a less exciting low end local bank complete with desks, marketing materials and a small room full of safety deposit boxes containing money and diamonds. It’s a believable space that hides its escape room secrets well. The escape procedure is a bit different here. You aren’t so much trying to escape in the fastest time, but steal as much as you can within 60 minutes before the police arrive. It’s very difficult to pilfer the full £2m – only around 0.5% of teams have managed that according to our host. If you get too greedy and are still in the bank after 60 minutes, the old bill catch you and you lose everything you collected.

[score only]

It’s been so long since we’ve been inside a room that our normal weaknesses appeared. We only needed one clue, to help find an object that was in plain sight the whole time! The puzzles all used the dress design of the room with some needing a bit more thinking. The gameplay is linear. This room had a lot of locks which got a bit frustrating after a while. Whilst this was an escape room, the mission was to steal as much cash as possible.

We missed out on four boxes namely due to the penultimate game being the dreaded Morse code. With a team of six it’s not easy getting the silence needed to listen. To add to the pressure the time disappears from the screen in the last few minutes so you have to make a tough decision on whether to keep going or to leave the room with the cash you already have. As we stumbled on the Morse code challenge we chose to leave, gutted to know we had four minutes left so we may have got more cash if we’d stayed.

There’s an awful lot of locks here (key, number, colour, directional) but they mostly fit with the bank theme. This is a linear game but there’s two bonus tasks worth £0.5m each that can be completed at any time. The puzzles are pretty difficult and involve observation, maths, decoding, map reading and more. There’s also a lot of puzzles to solve – we left after around 57 minutes with 3 puzzles remaining. The logic made sense although a couple of solutions were less obvious. I didn’t particularly enjoy the Morse code task as it was very fast and hard to keep up with.

[score only]

Maybe it was the fact that we were playing rooms again so my excitement was already on a high, but I really enjoyed this game. The room is basic with not much to explore and a lot of locks, but the twist in the gameplay did add to the enjoyment. There was a nice mix of logic games which helped create teamwork throughout. We played with a group of six which felt like too many for the most part, four would be a better size.

This was my first physical escape room since lockdown began so it felt good to be back. They had hand sanitiser facilities and you needed to wear a face mask in the communal areas, but not the escape room itself. This was a fun room to play with some hands on tasks and a premise that suits the escape room genre perfectly. I liked the twist at the end that added to the pressure. We played as a group of 6 which was too many as some people were left standing around. 3-4 would have been ideal. Our host was great and showed his passion for escape rooms, having played many himself.

[score only]

As there were six of us, the room seemed fairly cheap at £15, however a big group does cause a few people to stand around in parts. The room was fun and the twist of having to guess the time left at the end added to the gameplay. This room may not be the best one to choose if you’re new to escape rooms but an experienced gamer will get everything they need.

The Bank Job allows you to bring out your bad side and pretend to be bank robbers without the fear of being incarcerated. I relished my 60 minute stint trying to clear out Paragon Private Bank of all its valuables. It’s probably the only time I’ve enjoyed being in a bank! The bank interior may not have been very exciting, but the gameplay and twists soon envelop you. The £15-22 asking price is very fair for all the puzzles on offer. Escape Room Hull also has a slightly easier family version of The Bank Job available with a 4 out of 5 difficulty level.

[score only]