August 2017

- Overall rating:
The MacGuffin Project (Bournemouth): The Fortune Teller

Another beautiful game which was a joy to spend time in. If you love searching, then it’s a great game to play but, if you’re looking for something more to challenge you in the room, you’ll probably leave a little disappointed.

- Overall rating:
Enigma Quests (London): Million Pound Heist

A pretty game with an outstanding clue system that managed to avoid breaking the immersion. The puzzles were the weak link in the chain – a couple felt a bit tenuous and the final challenge left me disappointed.

- Overall rating:
Escape Rooms (Angel, London): Project D.I.V.A.

Another high tech room from the Escape Rooms stable. As with their other Angel room, they’ve traded some of the more difficult puzzles for a more arcade game style play which will likely appeal to some players while turning others off.

- Overall rating:
TimeTrap Escape Rooms (Reading): Rebellion 1136

A thoroughly enjoyable, feel good experience that managed to transport us from the streets of Reading to the Dark Ages. The GMs/owners are friendly, the room is pretty, the puzzles are fun and there’s a subtlety to the puzzle structure that shows experience beyond the time they’ve been in the business.  

- Overall rating:
Escape Rooms (Angel, London): Dark Side of the Moon

Is this where escape rooms are heading? I hope not in their entirety but I enjoyed this style of experience as something different from your typical escape room. Less emphasis on the puzzles and more on the adventure.

Parabolic Theatre (London): Morningstar

An intriguing backstory that failed to deliver on the night. The pre-show immersion, the introduction and the sense of exploration worked well but it lost its way in the main performance and then petered out.

- Overall rating:
ClueCapers (Winchester): Mission to Winchintzy

I’m not entirely sure how you can get away with a room that’s decorated in such a chintzy style but somehow they did. A decent mission, a fun background story and good original puzzles, not to mention an awesome ending, helped making this a game I encourage people to visit.

- Overall rating:
SCRAP: Defender of the Triforce (London)

An escape room that doesn’t involving escaping or really being in a room. With low expectations going in, I was pleasantly surprised by the experience and by the end I have to admit that I was really enjoying things. Sure, the puzzles were, all too often, just pieces of paper but they’d thrown in enough of interest to keep me hooked till the end.