Apalachin Meeting Escape Room

Five Families escape room guide · Apalachin, New York · November 14, 1957

Sixty bosses, a country estate and one state trooper who noticed the Cadillacs. The Apalachin Estate is one of the Five Families escape rooms: a 3D recreation of a real scene from mob history that you walk around as your own mobster, searching for evidence and cracking a four-digit padlock before the clock runs out. This guide covers the real story behind the room, what you'll find inside, and how to get out.

The real story

Trooper Croswell's suspicion grew when he heard that Barbara's son was booking rooms at local motels, and that a huge order of meat was going up to the Barbara house.

Guests ran into the woods in their good suits. They slipped on wet leaves and tore their coats on barbed wire.

Up to 50 men escaped. Some ran through the fields and woods, and some were said to have hidden in Barbara's cellar.

One of the agenda items at Apalachin was reportedly a debate about whether the families should deal in narcotics. The raid meant no decision was reached.

Several attendees successfully fled through the woods and were never identified as being present at Apalachin.

58 of the attendees were stopped and identified by state troopers at roadblocks. Their names and photographs were distributed to law enforcement agencies nationwide.

Setting the scene

Over sixty of the most powerful mob bosses in America are gathered at Joseph Barbara's estate in upstate New York. New Cadillacs and Lincolns line the country lane outside. Someone should have noticed that.

State Trooper Edgar Croswell did notice. He's setting up a roadblock at the bottom of the drive right now.

Word has reached the house. Men are running through the woods in silk suits. Someone needs to get to the documents in Barbara's study before the troopers reach the house — and get out through the back field without being photographed.

Start out at the barbecue pit, get into the house through the kitchen door, search the den, then find Barbara's study. The only way out the back is the study window, and Barbara had an iron grille padlocked across it. Crack the padlock before the roadblock is closed.

Before you get inside, you make your own way there. Drive the country lane past bare November trees to Joseph Barbara's estate, where the bosses' cars are lined up on the drive. A green arrow shows you the door.

Three rooms in one

The Apalachin Estate isn't one room, it's three, and you only see the next one once you've earned it. Each has three things to search. Search everything in the room you're in and a door unlocks, a glowing arrow shows you the way through, and the next part of the scene opens up. The clock keeps running the whole time: 5 minutes for all three.

The padlock code is spread across all three, so you can't escape from the barbecue pit. Move fast in the first room: the last room is where people run out of time.

What you'll find in each room

There are 9 things to search in the Apalachin Estate, three in each room. 4 of them hide a digit of the padlock code, 2 are dead ends put there to waste your time, and the rest fill in the story. The agenda on the sideboard, the telephone and the whisky glass stay locked until you've found 3 clues. The filing cabinet (top drawer), the desk calendar and the back window stay locked until you've found 6 clues.

First room: The barbecue pit

Second room: The den

Third room: Barbara's study

The Apalachin Estate escape room walkthrough

1. Take in the room. Drag to look around and walk with the stick or arrow keys. Question marks show everything you can search.
2. Clear each room. Search all three things in the barbecue pit and the way through to the den unlocks. Clear that and you're into Barbara's study. Follow the glowing arrow to the next door.
3. Find the four digits. Each piece of evidence that matters gives you one digit, and tells you which position it goes in. Stuck? The hints below point you to the right room, not the answer.
4. Ignore the red herrings. Some items look important and aren't. Don't spend the clock on them.
5. Open the padlock with the four digits in order, before the 5 minutes run out.
6. Make the call. You'll choose how it ends: Take the documents and go through the window; Walk out the front — you're just a visitor; Burn the documents — then run. Each ending tells you what really happened.

Tips for escaping

• Read each piece of evidence to the end: the digit is usually in the last line.
• If the clock's getting away from you, a hint costs 25 Mob Coins and an extra minute costs 50.
• Holding a drink or a cigar from the Social Club gives you 20 extra seconds in every room.
• On a phone, turn it sideways for a wider view. Your evidence, digits and the padlock are in the pull-out case file.

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Questions

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