January 2017

- Overall rating:
Timed Trap: The Great Escape

A game that could have been so much more. An interesting physical set up, a good attempt at theatre and some decent tech. Unfortunately totally broken immersion, poor puzzle design resulting in some players being sidelined from the game, a limit on clues and a lack of engaging puzzles undid all that good work and left us disappointed.

- Overall rating:
moviESCAPE: SAWtopsy

For haunt fans this might have rated higher but as an escape room it just didn’t work for me. A promising story progression was hurt by a shortage of puzzles and unpleasant searching that left me feeling disappointed by the overall experience.

- Overall rating:
moviESCAPE: The Haunted House

A game I never really got excited about. It was perfectly playable with some OK puzzles, an OK theme and a reasonably good story but there was very little about it to make it stand out.

- Overall rating:
Cryptology Nottingham: Cypherdyne

A game that started off with dull puzzles/theme and never really engaged me. Towards the end there’s a centrepiece puzzle that makes the finale to the game far better than the rest but, for me, it was tool little too late.

- Overall rating:
Extremescape: The Lost Tomb

The set is stunning, the puzzles are enjoyable, the theatrical moments are fantastic and, to top it off, the couple who run it are a great pair of hosts. If you’re ever in the area, and by that I mean the UK, you should head over here for 90 minutes of pure joy.

- Overall rating:
Escape Room Centre: the Bomb

Yet another great TRAP-designed room. Started off feeling quite weak but improved dramatically and by the end it had recovered and more.

- Overall rating:
Escape Room Centre: Secret Agent

Another good TRAP-designed room. Probably weakest of the four available in Blackpool but still plenty of fun particularly as a couple.

- Overall rating:
Room Escape MK: The Sphinx Chamber

A game that would have been the worst one I’d ever played had I not just come from playing their first room. It’s an incredibly sparse space with almost no puzzle content, no flow and very little of interest which I left feeling frustrated and disappointed.

- Overall rating:
Room Escape MK: Decipher the Voynich

This was a truly terrible game from start to finish in almost every way imaginable. From the moment we arrived to find ourselves being asked to wait in a kitchen through the totally bare room, the tedious, tenuous, terrible puzzles, the unhelpful host, the battered props and right through to the disappointing finale.

- Overall rating:
A Great Escape: The ENIGMA room

A fun game pitched at a good level of difficulty with plenty of puzzles but ultimately a temperamental puzzle, a set that was a bit drab and the unnecessary information overload at the beginning left me feeling that the game could have been so much better.