Welcome to the July 2017 edition of the London-focused monthly escape rumours post. I’m continuing to catch up on my backlog, but there’s still a long way to go and I’m playing games almost as fast! As always, I’ve got notes on all the games I’ve played, so don’t worry too much and, if you’re after an opinion, feel free to drop me an email and I’ll try to help.

Note that this update is about London (and surrounding area). If you want to know about games further afield, then follow exitgames.co.uk, where I publish a weekly update on the UK scene.

Plans

So, what have I been up to in June? Well, things finally calmed down, by which I mean I played less than one game per day on average… What I lacked in quantity (only 28 games…) I made up for in quality, with visits to The Panic Room in Gravesend, the Loop in London, medieval-themed rooms in Canterbury, the fantastic rooms at the Escapement in Margate, Norwich’s History Mystery, as well as various rooms in London, Milton Keynes, Derby, Leicester and East Anglia.

July is set to be a quiet month, with currently only a few games booked on a trip down to Bournemouth, Southampton and the Isle of Wight. I’m particularly looking forward to the MacGuffin Project and introducing Mrs Logic to MARVO.

News and Rumours

First off, I’ve realised that on July 20th I’ll be celebrating the second anniversary of starting this blog. Back then, I felt I was a pretty serious enthusiast because I’d played – wait for it – fourteen rooms!  By the time I get to the two-year mark, I’ll have posted more than 300 articles with well over 250 reviews, a bunch of news updates (including, for a while, the UK news update, which has since moved to exitgames.co.uk) and a few opinion pieces. A hobby has become an obsession, I’ve made a lot of new friends and had some experiences that I would never have imagined – speaking at Up the Game, playing in an Escape Room World Championship and being interviewed by journalists being just a few of the highlights. But enough self-indulgence and on to the proper news…

Do Stuff Escape Games are launching their second experience this week. The imaginatively titled Pie and Mash Shop opens its doors on 22 July. They produced an enjoyable experience first time round and I’m hopeful that, with a year of experience watching people trapped in a room, they’ll create something even better.

Trapped in a Room with a Zombie is one of London’s long-standing games. After a long, long wait, they’ve finally added a second experience to their booking page. Surprisingly, it’s not zombie-themed (at least, I don’t think it is, but don’t sue me). Instead, it’s a rather more mundane Prison Van game. A couple of these have popped up in the UK, so it will be interesting to see what they can do within such a confined space.

This month sees SCRAP Zelda’s visit to London. As I said before, while this is in theory an escape game event, in practice it’s different from anything we’ve seen over here before. Think of it more like a big puzzling event with a vague escape room style. Not sure if it will appeal? Take a read of some of the reviews from the States – here’s one from Room Escape Artist.

Clockwork Dog‘s run finished with universal top ratings from the London escape room bloggers – something that I’ve never seen before. I’m still hopeful that their game will be bought up by another company but, in case it’s not, I’ve done the unthinkable and released a review containing some spoiler content (hidden by default, obviously).

There’s been a stream of Enigma Quests articles in various publications, including Metro and Cosmopolitan. I’m not quite sure what triggered them, or how much of it was paid for, but the result is impressive – 500+ consecutive sold-out slots including daytime weekday games.  So, if you want to play their Harry Potter inspired game, you’ll need to wait till September…

Omescape are testing out the waters of VR escape games, with Mind Horror already open. Having played a VR escape room earlier in the year, my feeling was it was technically interesting but lacked most of the fun of an escape room. That was a totally different setup, though, so who knows what Omescape will deliver.

Another new VR escape game centre, Other Worlds: Escape or Die, is set to launch in London in October. No details yet on what games will be available or whether it will be a generic VR centre, but I’ll let you know the details as soon as I have them.

Last weekend, a popup escape room ran at the Big Summer Jewish Fete while Breakin’ Escape held a one-night Resident Evil-themed escape game to promote the upcoming film.

No updates on rumours about Fox in a Box, Claustrophobia or City Mazes. They all seem to have gone quiet for now. I do have rumours from three other London companies, including some pretty big news which I hope to be able to share with you in the next update or two. In the meantime, I’ll leave you guessing.

Discounts

Lots of companies are up on discount sites at the moment – all on Groupon unless noted otherwise:

• Adventox
• Breakin’
• Clue Adventures
• Clue Trace
• Do Stuff
• Escape Games London
• Escape London
• Inside Out (Wowcher)
• Modern Fables
• Omescape’s VR experience
• Operation Escape
• Room Lockdown

That’s all, folks

That’s all I’m aware of. If any of the above is incorrect, then let me know via email or in the comments below; or, equally, if you’re aware of other news, discounts or competitions, and I’ll include updates in the next edition.

Thanks for reading!