A Dream of New York: ‘Great Gotham Challenge’ Sends Players Across the City (REVIEW)
The 2023 iteration of the extravagant scavenger hunt captures the fantasy of an NYC adventure
When I’m reviewing an escape room, the puzzles and the aesthetics are both secondary to me. What they’re both in service of is the fantasy. This marriage of all elements, puzzles, theming, and intangible qualities, all serve to create a mood, an adventure that the player is transported on. One of my favorite escape rooms I’ve played in the past few years, a rinky-dink Thomas Crown Affair room in Athens, lacked sorely in decor and featured some baffling puzzle choices. However, with a few key components, like the fact that you had to use actual lockpicks to break into the room, the fantasy of being an international art thief lands spectacularly.
This brings us to The Great Gotham Challenge. An annual puzzle hunt that uses the landscape of NYC as its playground, what struck me participating in this year’s GGC: MMXXIII was how expertly GGC captures the exact fantasy that they’re going for. A mixture of live actors, custom clues, and clues built around pre-existing and famous structures in New York lends the event a sort of glam DaVinci Code energy. For fans of cult classic Midnight Madness, this is the daytime version in everything but rollerskating twin cluemasters.
A few puzzles frustrated or underwhelmed, and one or two locations feel a little unspectacular (and in one notable case, we received a somewhat clunky puzzle in a somewhat nothing location). Generally, though, each location kept gameplay and vibes fresh enough to preserve momentum. A few setpieces were spectacular enough to elicit cackles and cheers from my puzzling party, even as we realized the difficulty of the task a puzzle was presenting us with.
(Moderate spoilers to follow: For those who have not participated in GGC: MMXXIII, the following will not include puzzle solutions, but details including general puzzle locations. It is recommended you do not read the following if you want to attend the June 24th iteration.)
Of course, part of the challenge of this iteration was that this was a newly written Midtown hunt. For non-New Yorkers, perhaps Midtown conjures Madison Avenue glamor, but for a lot of natives it tends more to conjure traffic and tourists. Still, the hunt balanced those and managed to find the charm in a sometimes charmless district, hitting both major landmarks and some hidden gems. Always a strong suit of GGC, each location tied into local history, highlighting subjects including architecture, publishing, and theatre.
Occasionally, the crowds of eager puzzle-solvers made solutions (or at least where to look for puzzles) a little bit obvious once you reached the location in question. One puzzle in particular, involving sending signals across a room between team members, became a bit redundant with a full crowd of people sending the same signals. For those hoping for a more challenging experience, try to book an earlier time slot before things get more crowded. However, the crowds also serve to build excitement, and make the race tenser and more palpable, which served to build up my Amazing Race dreams.
Custom materials were also spectacular. WIthout going into too much detail for those who ignored my warnings above, physical puzzles, audio-visual content, and published materials felt realistic and lent a satisfying tactility to the event.
(Spoilers End Here)
One last note for potential participants is that you definitely get as much as you put into GGC. While my friends questioned the insatiable competitive drive I bring to all my puzzle adventures, I see it as a way of bringing energy to the event. Some teams printed up matching tee shirts, others had extravagant team chants, and all that brought a little extra oomph elevated an already fun experience into one that would last as a group memory.
Overall, The Great Gotham Challenge offers a unique day out, if not reinventing the wheel. For those looking for a new view of New York, or puzzle lovers looking for a different approach to the puzzle adventure than a standard escape room, you’ll have an amazing time participating in The Great Gotham Challenge.
The Great Gotham Challenge runs again on June 24th, 2023; Tickets are $200 for a team of up to 4 players.
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