June 2017

- Overall rating:
Lucardo (Manchester): Contamination

A room with reasonable theming that went down the route of quantity rather than quality for its puzzles. If you’re looking for (individually) hard challenges then look elsewhere but if you’re looking for a mad dash race through a bunch of puzzles then this is the game for you.

A Door in a Wall (London): Horses for Corpses

Another evening of fun from a Door in a Wall. While still an amazing experience, the new format resulted in to a poorer experience on the immersive theatre side which wasn’t quite made up for with the impressive setting and reduced amount of queuing.

- Overall rating:
Breakin' Escape (London): Blackwing's Cave

A beautiful set, tough puzzles and a couple of innovations that make it stand out from the average game. The start and the end might frustrate a little but go in with your eyes open and I think you’ll have a good time.

- Overall rating:
Breakin' Escape (London): War on Horizon Alpha

A beautiful room that, ahem, pays tribute to the Star Wars universe. A tough opening puzzle, combined with plenty of red herrings, is likely to leave you frustrated but thereafter there’s a decent flow to the game and satisfyingly difficult puzzles for you to master.

- Overall rating:
Breakin' Escape (London): Butcher's Lair

A fairly standard escape room which in other venues would look fine but here felt like a poorer cousin in comparison to some of their other offerings. Solid, logical puzzles will keep you engaged but I worry that it’s a little bit on the easy side.

- Overall rating:
Breakin' Escape (London): Sherlock's Despair

A reasonably themed room with some tough puzzles that went totally wrong for us through a bad reset and a questionable GMing decision. Definitely a room where I’d recommend reading other people’s reviews though!

- Overall rating:
Breakin' Escape (London): The Flying Dutchman

A beautiful room with a very linear set of puzzles. Beginners will enjoy but as an enthusiast, I found that the strict linearity of it meant it was easy to get frustrated – as soon as you got stuck on one puzzle you were entirely blocked and there was nothing else to investigate.

- Overall rating:
Breakin' Escape (London): Heist Plan - The Garage

A surprisingly fun game given the car heist subject matter. Worth playing due to decent flow and solid puzzles with some physical and communication elements although it was let down a bit by faulty equipment.

- Overall rating:
Locked in a Room (London) - Invisibility Gene

Same old, same old. A very similar experience to their first room. Good enough for beginners but experienced players will likely feel it’s too expensive for a fairly basic experience.

- Overall rating:
Locked in a Room (London): Timelock

A mass-market escape room that’s very much geared towards large corporate groups. The puzzles were fairly basic, the room was good but not stunning and the finale didn’t excite. Enthusiasts are likely to be disappointed but if you’re organising a trip for beginners, they’ll have a good time.