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.

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.

A must do for fans of scare attraction. If you’re of a particularly nervous disposition then I’d stay well clear – the puzzle pay off isn’t worth the stress you’ll go through during the game. For those of us in between, I think it’s the sort of game that you’ll like appreciate more than enjoy – and as an enthusiast that was more than enough.

A search heavy room that I was on the verge of disliking when it took a turn and started to become much more puzzly. Another room where different people on the same team can have very different experiences so think carefully about who you want to take on which challenges.

A game full of contrasts. Great centrepiece technology that should have been awesome but was let down by some usability issues. A huge centrepiece puzzle that was plain tedious and resulted in people missing parts of the games and, finally, where their first game took pride in being “real”, this time round several of the puzzles felt contrived.

A short review for a short game. We crashed through this room in record time finding the exit after less than quarter of an hour. Along the way there were fun puzzles and good theming but in the end, it’s hard to overlook the brevity of the experience.

A reasonably well themed, not very scary carnival game. Good puzzles and a reasonable flow made this an enjoyable experience.

The harder half of the Wanted escape game at Breakout Liverpool. Very little by way of set, dubious puzzles and no story development left me underwhelmed.

A very solid escape room with a good number of decent puzzles but nothing that really stood out. A few rough edges along the way leaves it in that range of games where I’ll still recommend people play but won’t do so enthusiastically.

A rundown of some of the shows in the 2016 Vault Festival that appealed to me including Houdini’s Last Trick, >taur_, Decide-A-Quest, The MMORPG show and Werewolf Live.