The Bank Heist Escape

What Happens

The Blue Heron diamond has gone missing from the city museum, and everybody knows who took it: Gideon Crane, the man who owns the bank across the street. He's hidden it in a safe deposit box in his own vault, and on Monday it leaves the country. Tonight your players are the crew the museum sends in to get it back.

Six deposit boxes are on the table from the first minute, and Crane made sure they look alike. The crew works through four rooms of the bank: a note written backwards on the lobby's glass door, a guard's coded message in the security office, a seating puzzle at the night desk, and the family photos on the wall of Crane's office. Every room they crack gives them one fact about the box he used, and only one box fits all four. Name it, and the vault opens.

They're the good guys. All the fun of a heist, and the thief is the banker.

You are the Escape Master. The rooms come in envelopes, and you hand over the next one when they crack the last. There are no padlocks you have to buy. But if your house already has a 3-digit combination lock, set it to the box number, lock a prize box with it, and at the end they dial it themselves.

Every clue matters, and that's checked. Take away any one of the four facts and two boxes are left standing, never one. So nobody wins by guessing, and the quiet player keeping the evidence sheet is as important as the fastest talker.

Sixteen pages to print on plain paper, and about fifteen minutes of setup, most of it cutting out six cards. Your pages give you the script, the answers, and what to say when a room stalls, gentlest nudge first.

For two to six players, ten and up. It makes a great birthday party for a small group, and it's a rainy afternoon with a treat in the vault at the end.