SDCC 2018 First Look – Jack Ryan Escape Room

As this was my first more complicated escape room I didn’t quite know what to expect. One thing I did know right from the start, all the people working and playing roles were excellent. They took care of everyone in line bringing water and ice cream. And those who had acting parts stayed in character and made the entire experience more real and stressful.

The basics of the mission were simple, form a team, solve the puzzles to get out of each room and help Jack Ryan in his mission. The complex parts were the added incentive of cold hard cash and the rooms themselves. Like most of the other participants my team of analysts was made up of a group of strangers who just spent a couple hours waiting for the same experience. We formed a team name “Tom Clancy & Heartbreakers” inspired by one of our team member’s shirts who will be referred to as Agent Petty.

After two leaders were chosen and given mic’d up one of which was me, we were given our mission brief, how to call our control agent Cersei Lannister, and told everything we will be doing will mimic the pilot episode of Jack Ryan.

So if you are reading this here is your POTENTIAL SPOILER WARNING!!!

The first room had us having to solve two puzzles to get out, for the first our team strategy held and we worked well together to figure it out. However then the money fell from the sky and all alliances were gone. Agent Petty used his size to his advantage to grab as much of the cash as possible. After that distraction we got a bit lost and then realized we should look at the money where we found the code to escape the room.

Teamwork came back into play to an extent in the second room after we got a call from control who yelled at us to stop looking for the money and focus on the mission. We searched the whole rooms finding what was necessary to solve our current task, getting coordinates for a drone strike. After we found a walkie-talkie we were given the coordinates and chastised for no one actually talking on it. But because of some vocal teammates we did miss a call from Jack Ryan. After control told us the operative escaped were taken into the third room.

Once in the room one of us, our other leader, was separated and taken somewhere else. We were then locked in a room with laser trip wires. After some hesitation I moved through the lasers and found a switch on the opposite wall that illuminated the next room where our other teammate was interrogating someone. My other teammates followed my lead and found other switches which turned on the lights and the lasers off. They also found half a code to the door while we were given the other half by our teammate being interrogated.

Once in the interrogation room is where things broke down and though he inspired out team name Agent Petty’s loud voice and military background made our interrogated friend very hostile and hard to get the information out of. Eventually we got an answer and we cut a wire which let us out. Our team did fairly well with a time of 15min 10 secs.

I look forward to watching the pilot episode which premieres August 31, 2018 on Amazon Prime. And If there is ever a chance to participate in another experience like this I will jump at the chance and recommend that everyone else does too.