London news and rumours – September 2017

news

Welcome to the September 2017 edition of the London-focused monthly escape rumours post. Note that there’s a little bit of a backlog at the moment, but 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 this month? Well, it was pretty quiet, with just three escape rooms, a treasure hunt and an immersive theatre production. Oh, and 37 games in Warsaw, but that seems an age ago – watch out for the write-ups appearing in the next week or so!

The September diary looks reasonably quiet for now, but that’s mainly because I’ve been focusing on summer holidays. Currently there’s just A Door in a Wall event and one escape room booked, but I’m in the middle of organising a couple of other days away plus a trip to Paris at the end of the month, so don’t feel too sorry for me ;-).

News and Rumours

First up, the reason that this post is being published later than usual and controversially it’s news that isn’t directly about a London venue! Those of you who’ve followed the blog will know that I rated Clockwork Dog’s the Loop highly when I played earlier this year. Sadly, it closed its doors in June with the chance that, like Enter the Oubliette and Langstroth’s Last Riddle, it would never be seen again. The great news is that it’s coming back and the even better news is that it’ll be at the Panic Room who I believe will do it justice both with the installation and the games mastering. Want to book? Tickets are already on sale for the 23rd October opening! (And if you want to know about some of the other games, you can read my reviews here).

This month sees the opening of The Battle For Britain, Escape Plan‘s new game. Testing is already well underway, and the experience opens to the public on 16th September.  I thoroughly enjoyed The Adventure Begins, so I have high hopes for their new experience. Brendan and the team know how to craft an all-round experience, so I’m confident we can expect good things.

Newcomer to the scene Popup Escapes launched its first game at the end of August. The Case of the Dynamo Diamonds, located down in Putney, sees you breaking into the home of a master jewel thief to recover five diamonds. The experience is only expected to be around for three months, so start making plans – I’ll be heading down there in mid-September to check it out. According to the website, the game is located in a private room at a pizza restaurant, so that’s my evening sorted…

City Mazes London opens this month in Islington with two games, Bamboozled and The Lost Cabin, both of which are for 3-8 players. If you’ve played or heard about their games outside the capital, then you may not be that excited, but it’s worth bearing in mind that their most recently installed game in Oxford looks to be from a Russian design house, so the London games may be a step up from most of their rooms.

Escape London are opening up a second branch on the other side of the city in Shadwell. Their new venue sees three of the Escape franchise’s games coming to the capital and, in a bit of good fortune, I’ve not played any of them in their other homes! Taken is a pretty widespread game available at seven of their venues, while Witchcraft and Wizardry and Anarchy of the Seas are relative newcomers.

Embarrassingly, I still haven’t been down to Operation Escape in Bromley. Sadly, their weekday opening times and distance from where I live don’t make it easy to organise a visit, and other reviewers haven’t made me feel like I desperately need to make the trip down. The good news is that I now have twice the incentive to head down to the venue, as they’ve opened up their second game, Scoop of the Century.

If you’ve got experience in Sales and Marketing and fancy getting involved in the escape room world, then Time Run are looking for someone to help with their new venture.

That may not be of interest to the majority of readers but, if you read carefully, it also leaks a little more information about their new experience. It’s a permanent attraction, twice the size of their current location, that will also involve a bar. They don’t specifically mention whether it’s an escape room or not, which I found interesting – they talk about “live gaming experiences”, so could this be moving even more towards the immersive theatre side of things?

No updates on Claustrophobia, and a quick peek when I was wandering past their venue recently suggested that no work was in progress. Fingers crossed that changes soon.

Discounts

As is pretty normal now, there are plenty of companies on discount sites at the moment – all these are on Groupon unless mentioned otherwise:

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

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!

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