Escape from the Tower

Escape from the Tower, located in Casa Loma, created by Company & Co, is an interactive war-time story where YOU will determine the fate of whole nations! With two other escape games designed by Company & Co. operating in Toronto, Escape the Tower was by far the most anticipated. Tickets sold out in less than a week until December.

Pre-Room & Customer Service:

7.5/10

Our escape was scheduled for 9:30pm which added to the ambiance of the game even before entering the tower. Upon being greeted, we were escorted through empty corridors, creaky wooden staircases, and many of the other surroundings of Casa Loma in the still of the night.

If you’ve participated at other Company & Co and/or Real Escape Games in Toronto, you’ll soon notice that the introduction and preparation is identical which unfortunately takes a bit of the excitement away.

 

Room Quality:

8.5/10

Company & Co has always been recognized for their interesting set-ups and stories. Our group felt they not only matched, but exceeded our expectations with the background story for Escape from the Tower. The tower rooms were consistent with the theme and never felt cheap nor pasted on. All of the rooms also had ample lighting (thank God)! The only down side was that some of our props and puzzles were damaged and therefore a bit more difficult to figure out where they belonged.

 

Immersion:

7.5/10

The theme, objective and story were maintained throughout the entire experience. With WWII reminiscent machinery and actors in costume enclosed in a bare brick tower, it’s easy to see why this escape game has a higher price tag than most.

We were lucky to have an awesome team, each with different backgrounds, perspectives and strengths. This only added to the overall atmosphere and immersive experience….especially when celebrating our victory together! On the downside, the entrance into each level of the tower was delayed by slow moving gates. This created awkward pauses in the action where even the actors struggled with out of context dialogue to fill the silence with everyone standing around. Add to it the narrow staircases which restricted our twelve participants to a slow moving single file row creating a bottleneck that prevented those in the back from fully hearing the dialogue as we entered each new section.

 

Puzzle Design:

6.5/10

There were four floors to discover and three with actual puzzles. Each room focused on different skill sets. There were times some misleading aspects to some of the puzzles which focused our attention on pointless information costing us valuable time. As with most Company & Co (Real Escape Games) rooms/events, there is an advantage to having your team break into smaller groups of 3-4 people. The first being that obviously you can’t fit all 12 people around any single puzzle. The second being that you can better utilize skill sets of all your participants. And finally unless your team is able to divide tasks adequately, you’ll quickly find many who feel disengaged from the whole of what is happening.

 

Overall:

7.5/10

Overall the experience was good, which was mostly due to Escape From The Tower‘s location. For those who grew up in the GTA taking annual school trips to Casa Loma, who didn’t wish they could sneak off from the teacher and play a game of hide n’seek, tag, or in this case an interactive escape room event?!! The puzzles didn’t contain anything new or memorable, but were nonetheless engaging. With a classic Company & Co room escape formula, previous real escape game participants may have an advantage. The actors are helpful and the theme consistency kept well with the story.

The final 5 minutes for our team were filled with adrenaline, frantic brainstorming, and one of the best panic attacks many of us have ever experienced inside an escape room before. If the higher cost isn’t a determining factor, we highly recommend Escape From The Tower….the atmosphere itself is worth the try – especially at night!