Mission Breakout – Underground 2099

Variety of puzzles 3/5                                                        Originality of puzzles 3/5

Difficulty 3/5                                                                        Overall 2.5/5

Overview – If you’re looking for something a bit different to your average experience, then heading down into a disused tube station is about as unique as you can get! Top marks for theming and immersion here, though we found the puzzles a little bit lacking. A good chunk of time was spent either being very frustrated or waiting around, which made the game feel a bit more style over substance for us. But if it’s style that you’re looking for, then this game is definitely for you!

From https://www.missionbreakout.london

May 2027, the world was turned into a blazing hell. Nuclear weapons launched by our national leaders set all cities aflame in minutes.

There were no winners, only losers. Humanity was plunged into chaos in which morality, solidarity and dignity burned. 

London 2099, 72 years have passed since the Great Fire; among the radioactive debris of this once-great city, rats have survived and transformed, trying to take the lead in this new disfigured world.

Your mission is to thwart the plot of their leader, King Rat, hidden within the depths of the London Underground.

Team – Ster, Ni, Bobbie, Ros

Played – 10/04/2022

Mission Breakout

Full disclosure – We were invited to play this game free of charge, though we’ve tried not to let this influence our opinion of the experience. 

The waiting areas of Mission Breakout are themed in an old war style, presumably in keeping with their Codebreakers game, and the narrow, dark facility lent itself very well to this aesthetic! There was water available when we finished and plenty of storage lockers as well, though we did have to descend a flight of stairs to get inside so I’m not sure how accessible this place is. Our host was friendly enough, though I’m not sure why he complained about us being early when we arrived exactly when we were told to!

Underground 2099

The futuristic, time-traveller aspect of this room is set up very well at the beginning when you’re issued with charged power packs to wear and then file over to your mission looking like a very underprepared, budget ghostbusters team with your slimline proton packs strapped to your backs, or at least that’s the vibe I got from our motley crew!

The ‘going back in time’ was quite entertaining but also seemed unnecessarily long as we vibrated about for what felt like several full minutes with our heads encased in a ‘safety’ helmet from the future. Our briefing was delivered by video while in this room and it was well put together, though a little difficult to actually see due to the aforementioned plastic over our heads. I’m not really sure why the video isn’t shown before you get strapped in as we’d just been sitting in a nice spacious briefing room, though I suppose that wouldn’t have been quite as thematic!

The room has a really good ‘sewers of the ruined future’ aesthetic with walls of curved metal girders, dim lighting, and the occasional appearance of the furry nuisance King Rat himself, who lived up to his reputation as being about as large as the average human being though he was thankfully not in a murderous frame of mind when he came upon us.

While the experience looked great, for us the puzzles didn’t quite match up to the calibre of the theming. There was a sequencing puzzle which drove us right to the brink of frustration, a ‘shooting the rats’ element which included some type of laser weapon that took a good while to recharge, and the final section included a puzzle of timing which was so slow to reach the critical point that each time we were unsuccessful we were all left just standing around staring into space while the sequence cycled back round. All in all, the puzzles seemed to be geared towards slowing us down rather than actually being challenging to figure out, which left us all growing increasingly frustrated as we played.

There was also a section which required a single member of the team to be separated for no particular reason. I think we would have enjoyed it a lot more if we had been allowed to choose how to split our team, particularly as the related puzzles were designed to make communication incredibly difficult, with an intercom that only worked in one direction which only let the isolated team member know when it had been switched off. With 2 players, I’m sure this section works well as the puzzles require one person to communicate something to one other person. As a team of 4 though, this meant that 2 of us were stood around with nothing to do for a while!  

Overall, we were impressed by the design of this game and the location made it feel truly unique. We were less impressed by the actual puzzles though and found the barriers to communication incredibly frustrating!

Escape time – Not recorded.

Horror Escape – Escape from Wonderland

Difficulty 3/5                                                            Overall 3.5/5

Variety of puzzles 3.5/5                                           Originality of puzzles 3.5/5

Overview – The theme of this room lent itself brilliantly to fantastic decoration and a wide variety of different types of puzzles which we had a great time solving. Less of a focus on gory horror here and more of a psychological type thriller with a nightmarish dream world come to life and trapping us inside. Overall, another fantastic experience from Horror Escape and one which I will definitely be recommending to others!

From horrorescape.co.uk

Welcome to a nightmare where nothing is quite as it seems. Can you outsmart the horror that is hunting you and ultimately escape from wonderland or will you succumb to the darkness forever?

Team – Ster, Bobbie, Simon, Huw

Horror Escape

Full disclosure – We were invited to play this game free of charge, though we’ve tried not to let this influence our opinion of the experience. 

This was our second play of the day at Horror Escapes and, even after Cabin Fever, we were still really impressed by how well this place is themed. The massive Escape from Wonderland neon mural made a fantastic backdrop for our briefing video and climbing up staircase to enter this twisted world is a great way of immersing teams in the story.

Our game master was amazing, very friendly and enthusiastic and obviously taking great delight in scaring players! Horror Escape were also kind enough to show us the space for their next experience, currently just a white room but with great potential to house some interesting puzzles. Horror Escape’s use of space was seriously impressive in both Cabin Fever and Escape from Wonderland, so I’m very excited to see what they do with the space for the upcoming Murder Mansion!

Escape from Wonderland

The beginning of this room somehow manages to feature both a terrifying Hollow Man type creature and also a cute white rabbit with playing cards as an introduction to this nightmarish scenario. There was a wider variety of puzzles here, with more doors to open and less of the search and find type puzzles. There was one trial and error puzzle that we struggled with initially as we tried to force some logic onto it and also some riddles, sound and more physical type puzzles that kept the game interesting.

There was one puzzle that we somehow ended up solving after it had been completed as we hadn’t actually read the appropriate riddle all the way through before I asked if something on the wall moved and then proceeded to try, accidently moving the components to the correct position without even realising! I did then stop and solve the riddle to work out how that had happened, so we completed every puzzle just not quite as were expected to!

The decoration throughout was, again, absolutely top-quality. Especially in the potion area where there were hundreds of different ingredients to look through!  I really enjoyed the giant metal keys and the interesting doorway – possibly an issue to those with any accessibility issues so I’d recommend getting in touch before booking if getting through low/small spaces is difficult for anyone in your team.

Another aspect of this room that I really liked was how some of the doors were opened by finding a number of related items and then placing them correctly into the door itself. It helped to give us a good idea of our progress and also led to the ridiculous moment of a team member accidently knocking the pieces of out place just as we found the final item and then having no idea how they should have been arranged!

Overall, a really enjoyable experience which, despite the name of Horror Escapes, wasn’t actually all that terrifying – something that I was extremely grateful for!

Escape time – 37 minutes

Horror Escape – Cabin Fever

Scores

Difficulty 3/5                                                             Overall 3/5

Variety of puzzles 2.5/5                                          Originality of puzzles 3.5/5

Overview – This room really doesn’t hold back on the skulls and corpses! The creepy theme is brilliantly done here with a lot of effort put into the puzzles matching the story and by the end we were casually tossing corpses around as if they weren’t horrifically decorated to be the previous victims of this twisted cannibalistic family. The use of space was amazing and we crawled through some really interesting doorways as we played, with each area fantastically decorated to progress the story. Overall, while I’m not at all a fan of horror, I really enjoyed this game, and our horror-fan team member loved it too so there’s definitely something for everyone here!

From horrorescape.co.uk

After a series of unfortunate events, you’ve managed to find yourself trapped and at the mercy of a family of cannibals. If you don’t manage to find a way out of here soon, cabin fever is going to be the least of your worries…

Team – Ster, Bobbie, Simon, Huw

Horror Escape

Full disclosure – We were invited to play this game free of charge, though we’ve tried not to let this influence our opinion of the experience. 

From the outside, Horror Escape isn’t anything special to look at, but as soon as you open the door to their basement location it’s clear that they haven’t skimped on theming. The entrance is a dark staircase with moody lighting and at the bottom is a corridor with a giant mural of Escape from Wonderland and some old-fashioned style benches that wouldn’t look out of place in a haunted mansion. The overall effect is fantastic and the high-quality video briefings are great at introducing the stories, including a rules explanation that stuck to the horror theme fantastically featuring sinister looking clowns and an unexpected tarantula close-up.

Our game master was amazing, very friendly and enthusiastic and obviously taking great delight in scaring players! Horror Escape were also kind enough to show us the space for their next experience, currently just a white room but with great potential to house some interesting puzzles. Horror Escape’s use of space was seriously impressive in both Cabin Fever and Escape from Wonderland, so I’m very excited to see what they do with the space for the upcoming Murder Mansion!

Cabin Fever

The video briefing set us up for a super creepy experience and as we were blindfolded and led into the room one at a time it was very easy to get caught up in the spooky atmosphere – particularly when I removed my blindfold and realised that the prop I’d picked up from directly in front of me was actually a severed hand!

The story is led by commentary from the daughter of the cannibalistic family who have captured the team, some of which I think was automated but I forgot to actually ask. At any rate, our GM said that she hadn’t really given us any clues but we had definitely heard from the character quite a bit, so her voice was clearly part of the game rather than a hint system.

There were some original puzzles in here, from the bear trap that we were tasked with assembling to having to ‘trap’ a team member under a circular saw and trying to rescue them before the time ran out (thankfully, it didn’t move very fast!). The main bulk of the puzzles were the search and find type that left us scratching our heads when we repeatedly failed to see the obvious with a few padlocks and other observational elements thrown in too.

I have to say that searching through bones and ‘corpses’ added brilliantly to the story and their use of space was brilliant, with some interesting ‘doorways’ and a couple of small areas that the whole team had no hope of all entering together! (Possibly an accessibility issue here for some so I’d definitely recommend getting in touch beforehand if getting through small spaces is a challenge.) Overall, it was a brilliantly thought-out experience. We didn’t find the puzzles to be overly challenging but still really enjoyed ourselves, especially when we set a new record time – one which I’m sure will be broken as soon as word of this company spreads among enthusiasts!

We did mess up the ending slightly by hampering our GM’s attempt to cut us up for dinner by using the provided bear trap as an overly elaborate doorstop rather than for actually catching our pursuer! It still served it’s purpose in keeping us out of harm’s way so I guess we kind of did manage to achieve our objective!

Escape time – 39 minutes

Time Quest – ClueQuest

Format: PDF document and website

Overview – I really enjoyed this game! The comic style designs were fantastic and the stand-alone story was great. The difficulty level is perfectly suited to families of all ages – while the puzzles were clearly designed to be accessible to younger players, we played as a team of adults and still had a brilliant time. A slightly shorter experience than ClueQuest’s other Print+Cut+Escape offerings but just as enjoyable as all the rest!

Scores

Variety of Puzzles 4/5                                Quality of clues 5/5

Difficulty 3.5/5                                           Overall 5/5

Reusable – No                 

Technical issues – None

ClueQuest

This is not your average play at home escape experience! The puzzles that are created out of pieces of paper are absolutely brilliant and the online videos that carry the story are fantastically done. The puzzles were all great fun and really creative with a storyline that both fitted with the existing ClueQuest escapes and also worked well with no prior knowledge of the ClueQuest story arc.

Time Quest

Full disclosure – We were sent this game to play free of charge, though we’ve tried not to let this influence our opinion of the experience. 

Mission Brief

If you’re looking for a fun-filled experience for the whole family, then look no further! timeQuest is an intriguing and exciting adventure into the world of time travel and the origins of time for agents of all ages. It combines striking comic book style designs, stylish animated videos and puzzles that agents both young and old can get stuck into – a perfect pick for a kid’s birthday party! A full colour version of this mission is also available, so those visuals can really pop! It’s said that you don’t grow up, you just forget how to play; this mission will help you remember and bring young agents into the world of escape experiences.

Story

Your mission in timeQuest is to help Mr & Mrs Q stop the troublesome twosome known as the Earlybirds from altering the fabric of time. With the help of specialist Dr Imani Chronos, you will have to follow them on a journey through time, putting right their meddling before time as we know it is history!

One of my favourite aspects of this game was definitely the design, the graphics are completely different to the other Print + Cut + Escapes by ClueQuest, using fun comic style characters that really brought the story to life and that I’m sure will appeal to younger players.

There was a lot less cutting in this game than other ClueQuest home escapes which I’m sure was a deliberate decision to ensure that the game is more accessible to players of all ages. It meant that the set up and time between puzzles preparing the relevant pages was significantly reduced and we whizzed through the experience, moving from puzzle to puzzle without any pauses.

The puzzles themselves were great fun, with a massive ice cream tower complete with a gourmet restaurant inside the cherry on top and some brilliant graphics of nefarious villains The Early Birds leaping through time in their attempt to get rid of bedtime forever. There was a good variety of different puzzles, with jigsaw style elements, matching and observational aspects as well as traditional decoder style challenges which we really enjoyed completing.

Overall, this experience is the perfect family escape experience. The difficulty level makes the game really accessible and the theme and design will definitely appeal to younger players. It’s slightly shorter than the other Print + Cut + Escapes but by no means reduced on quality. The fun, light-hearted story was really entertaining and we had a great time completing this game, even without any younger players with us!

Locked City – Camden Unlocked

Scores

Variety of puzzles 1.5/5                                           Originality of puzzles 1/5

Pre-game atmosphere 1/5                                      Difficulty 2/5

Overall 1/5

Overview – To be honest, this is more of a guided walk with confusing directions than a treasure hunt. If you’re looking for a slightly different walking route then I’d recommend it, but as an activity by itself it could really do with a bit more to it.

From https://www.locked.city/

From the bustling market to the quaint streets of Primrose Hill, discover a hidden side to Camden. Explore vibrant street art, elaborate North London architecture and the industrial Camden Lock. Uncover a Banksy and street art from prominent street artists.

This 18 clue hunt will challenge the sharpest of minds with a varied and diverse series of cryptic challenges sent via SMS messages. Recharge at a local handpicked pub midway for a refreshing beverage.

Team – Ster, Bobbie

Locked City

Full disclosure – We were invited to play this game free of charge, though we’ve tried not to let this influence our opinion of the experience. 

The game is all played via text message, which allows for a lot of flexibility when playing. Once you’ve received the instructions, you can start whenever you are ready, be that the same day or several weeks later.

The format is a little impersonal as the only contact that you receive is a series automated messages but you do get a final message that includes your time and the amount of penalties that the team incurred.

Camden Unlocked

The experience starts off quite simply with some observational questions and directions that lead down a nearby street and we had fun searching the surrounding buildings for the answers and looking for the next step of the game while weaving amongst the crowds of shoppers. Unfortunately, that was everything that this game consisted of, a lot of counting things and looking at what was beside something else, and by clue 18 we really weren’t invested anymore.

An incorrect answer earns an automatic 10 minute penalty, which felt pretty steep considering that any typo also counted as an incorrect answer. The main issue that we had though, was the directions. The clues are all cryptic, which would have been fine if there was any way of clarifying directions, but there wasn’t. A clue request only gave advice for the observational puzzle, not how to get there! This meant that if one part of the directions wasn’t understood, there was absolutely no way to get back on track.

We walked in and out of Camden Market repeatedly trying to make sense of one particular set of instructions just racking up penalties because we weren’t sure where we were supposed to be. While this was a case of the team not working out the clue, the fact that there was no way to ask for help was incredibly frustrating. The only way that we found to solve the issue was to request a clue an then use the extra information to work out where we should have ended up based on what we should have been able to see.

Overall, it was a long walk rather than a treasure hunt and the puzzles just weren’t engaging enough to make the experience very interesting. A nice idea but it needs a bit more depth to it really.

AIM Escape – Mindfall

Scores

Variety of puzzles 4/5                                                 Originality of puzzles 5/5

Pre-game atmosphere 4/5                                         Difficulty 2.5/5

Overall 5/5

Overview – This experience was so well executed, we were really impressed with it! The augmented reality aspects worked brilliantly and the story was great, with all of the puzzles well themed and great fun to solve. The difficulty level wasn’t too high but the variety of different puzzles was fantastic, with a big bag of tricks to keep things interesting. The technology worked perfectly throughout and while there was a fair amount of walking involved, everywhere was completely accessible and the game allowed plenty of time so there was no need to rush between locations. Overall, I absolutely loved the experience and had so much fun creeping around the city as a spy for a couple of hours!

From https://aimescape.com/

Using the latest Augmented Reality and GPS technology, this adrenaline spiked outdoor escape game combines the best elements of our high-concept escape rooms with a thrilling treasure hunt, as you and your team embark on an action-packed adventure through the city.

We are W.I.S.E.: an independent, international intelligence organization, operating at the highest level of secrecy to protect the world from danger. Our sources report that the secret research company, Spider Technologies, has developed a virus for mind control and has already infected 20% of the world population. Whether it be shopping behaviour, political attitudes, or even assassinations – people can be influenced against their will. Needless to say, this is an incredible power. To stop Spider Tech, we created Operation Mindfall and chose you as our agents. Your task: Obtain the antidote to stop Spider Tech! You only have a limited amount of time – can you do it?

Team – Ster, Bobbie

AIM Escape

Full disclosure – We were invited to play this game free of charge, though we’ve tried not to let this influence our opinion of the experience. 

This augmented reality game isn’t your traditional escape room so we didn’t start at the AIM Escape building but instead met our ‘contact’ at an outdoor location with a codeword to get things started. Our contact gave us a short explanation and handed us the tablet that we would use to both navigate and solve puzzles and a backpack filled with everything else that we would need for the experience. She also subtly hung around a short distance away while we solved the first puzzle, I’m assuming just to make sure that we had understood what we were doing as she had disappeared when we looked up from entering the solution. She also met us when we finished to congratulates us, collect our spy gear and answer any questions that we had about the game.

Mindfall

The quality of this experience was just superb! The puzzle locations showed up clearly on the tablet so it was very simple to work out where we needed to go and the backpack that we were given with our spy gear was very well organised, making it easy to find what we needed for each puzzle, and the puzzles were great! The difficultly level didn’t get too high but the variety of challenges was brilliant and they were all really enjoyable.

Some involved an augmented reality element which had us looking at a safe or a panel of switches and wires beside the Thames while others had us mixing a chemical formula and using a microscope attached to a smartphone, it was just so much fun! The amount of puzzles packed into the escape was fantastic, especially considering that we were carrying everything we needed with us and the bag wasn’t heavy. The only extra thing that we used was a smartphone and we were told in advance that we would need to have at least one with us, the rest of the experience was fully contained within the tablet and spy bag.

There were some low tech puzzles along the way as well, observational type challenges which was the only time we asked for a hint, we just weren’t looking in the right place! The experience used the environment that we were walking around really well, including things that you might not usually pay attention to and making you look at the city a little more closely.

There was a fair amount of walking involved but we didn’t rush and finished in plenty of time, we even stopped for a short sit down on the South Bank along the way! Overall, Mindfall was a very enjoyable way to spend a couple of hours, including a good story with brilliantly themed puzzles which were great fun to complete. It was far more than a thrilling treasure hunt and I can’t wait to see what AIM Escape comes up with next!

Escape time – 1 hour 40 minutes (approx.)

Breakin’ Escape – Wizarding School: Fang of the Serpent

Scores

Variety of puzzles 3.5/5                                              Originality of puzzles 3/5

Pre-game atmosphere 2/5                                         Difficulty 3/5

Overall 4/5

Overview – There was a great atmosphere in this room, a proper creeping through a castle in the middle of the night feel that really brought the theme to life. There was a great variety of puzzles to get on with too, probably my favourite room at Breakin’ so far!

From https://breakinescaperooms.co.uk/

Another year at the Wizarding School brings with it new challenges. You have bee summoned by the headmaster to find a most precious artefact which has been lost for many decades. Its whereabouts unknown, your search leads you to a mysterious part of the castle where no one has ventures in years. You feel danger lurking around every dark corner…

You and your friends must face a great evil in order t complete your mission. The monster guarding the chamber will be like nothing you’ve faced before.

Pick up your wands, remember your spells and find your courage, you will need all of them for the challenges that lie ahead!

Team- Ster, Ni, Ellie

Breakin’ Escape

Breakin’ has a really nice area to wait in, plenty of seating and large enough that several teams can wait at once. There isn’t a lot of build up to the rooms here but the hosts are always friendly and enthusiastic about the games.

Fang of the Serpent

The use of space in this room is fantastic! The layout really added to the experience, with quite a bit of moving back and forth between the different sections. It’s worth noting that parts of this room are pretty dark and there is a bit of clambering around which some might find it difficult to access.

The variety of puzzles in this escape was really great. It was a fairly linear story but with a bit of wiggle room for exploring and the theming was just fantastic. The puzzles weren’t overly intuitive, but we got through them with only one hint along the way. Of the three games I’ve played at Breakin’, this one really stands out.

The set up of the room, the decoration and the level of immersion made it a brilliant experience, particularly for a group of Harry Potter fans!  I loved the running back and forth, it added a lot to the theme and the sense of urgency and while the puzzles weren’t overly difficult, they did require a bit of brainpower and deeper thinking that tripped us up a couple of times.

Escape time – 43:57

The Riddle Within – Flight 338

Scores

Variety of puzzles 2/5                                                 Originality of puzzles 2.5/5

Pre-game atmosphere 5/5                                         Difficulty 3/5

Overall 3.5/5

Overview – The world’s first escape room on a plane! The theming of this game was obviously fantastic and our host was amazing in his role of over the top security, creating a great buzz as we started. The concept of having to open different areas of the plane to find and solve puzzles really made this game enjoyable and I can’t wait to find out what the team come up with next – they’ve promised a more challenging game in the future and I’ll definitely be signing up as soon as it’s available!

From https://www.riddlewithin.com/

After years on the straight and narrow, your past has finally come back to haunt you.

Once one of the most feared gangs in the USA, responsible for some of the most audacious and daring robberies in the country’s history, time has mellowed your crew and retirement has been pretty uneventful.

That is until a shadowy figure from your ‘less law abiding days’ reappears to take revenge.

You have been framed, found guilty, sentenced and, given your shady past, that sentence is a tough one. Life to be exact. Life in one of the world’s highest security prisons.

So now you find yourselves thrust back together with the old faces. Faces you last saw obscured by balaclavas and in the midst of a high speed pursuit many years ago… faces that bring back memories of the old ways. Old ways you will need more than ever if you are to escape into the sunset and finally disappear.
You are being readied for transportation on board prisoner shipping plane: Flight 338, but there is one member of the gang they didn’t find. He has caused disruption at the airstrip and left some things on board which you might just find useful, but is everything quite as it seems?

Team – Ster, Ni, Simon, Stu, Tim

The Riddle Within

The Riddle Within team were really friendly and clearly very passionate, a member of staff had experienced some travel issues on the morning that we played and so we were greeted by one of the mangers who had rushed over to be there and it was great to chat to him about The Riddle Within’s future plans and some of the changes that Flight 338 had been through as it was developed. The concept of this escape is great, the plane looks brilliant and was bigger than we expected with loads of seats and space inside.

Flight 338

The game begins with a prison guard leading the team into the plane and he played his role absolutely brilliantly. We were simultaneously trying not to laugh while also doing everything that we could to do what he said and not get into trouble! We all decided to start the game in handcuffs, though this is optional for all players, but we enjoyed the extra challenge that it added.

The game was pretty linear, with the whole group solving a puzzle before moving on to another, though we were finding props that linked with various puzzles all the time as we went along. Getting out of the handcuffs was a fun challenge as we could only move so far while attached to our seats and we also had to open a surprising amount of doors during the game considering that we were confined to a plane!

The guard’s return visit halfway through playing was a big highlight as we all scrambled to be back in our seats and looking innocent before he opened the door, even with suitcases strewn all over the floor, a challenge made a little more difficult by the fact that one member of the team couldn’t find her handcuffs and was then hilariously chastised while trying to locate them.

The final two puzzles were completed almost simultaneously as the cockpit puzzle isn’t really designed for everyone to do at once and we really wanted to find the evidence that proved our innocence! Overall, it was a great experience, not overly challenging and so suitable for beginners as well as experienced players and we’re really looking forward to The Riddle Within’s next offering, especially their next plane game as it sounds like they’re really going to up the difficulty level for that one!

Escape time – 30:29

ClueQuest – Escape the Lost Pyramid

Scores

Variety of puzzles 3.5/5                                              Originality of puzzles 4/5

Pre-game atmosphere 3/5                                         Difficulty 2/5

Overall 4/5

Overview – This was a really fun experience! The puzzles weren’t challenging in the usual sense but they were definitely different and very enjoyable. I loved the way that our actions linked together and we all left feeling very excited and looking forward to the next VR game that ClueQuest has to offer!

From cluequest.co.uk

Welcome to the Animus. February 1928.

An expedition led by Sir Beldon Frye disappears somewhere in the Sinai Peninsula. A team of four and a dozen local porters were looking for the Lost Pyramid of Nebka… Or more precisely, “something” that should have been there. They were never seen again. Using the simulation reconstructed from their DNA memory, your team will put themselves in the shoes of the explorers. Find out what happened to the expedition. And more importantly, locate what they were looking for.

Team – Ster, Ni, Simon, Stu

Played 4/5/19

ClueQuest

The ClueQuest team were as friendly and welcoming as always and we had a great chat about our most and least favourite escapes on our way out. ClueQuest has a great premises with a really roomy waiting area and so many other rooms that the place looks a bit like a maze!

Escape the Lost Pyramid

This obviously wasn’t an escape room in the classic sense.  For a start it took place in an empty room. The headsets are suspended from the ceiling and everyone has their own square of carpet to stand on which makes it very easy to tell if you’ve stepped a little too far in one direction even though you can’t see your actual surroundings.

The game is set inside an ancient pyramid and it was great fun to see everyone’s characters in different areas of the game. Everyone starts in the same room and we messed about trying on different hats and headdresses while we waited for one headset to be reset.

The puzzles were pretty linear, it’s about the journey up through the pyramid rather than exploring, so nothing can be completed out of order.  It was, above everything else, just really good fun. We shot sharp arrows from virtual bows, scaled great heights, hanging on with just our fingertips and rotated massive cogs into place without actually needing the physical strength to do so!

We had a couple of minor technical issues as we began and we were probably half way through before we realised that one issue hadn’t been fully resolved and someone’s headphones weren’t working properly. This made it very difficult for them to communicate with the rest of us and led to a bit of frustration, so I’d recommend doing thorough checks before starting out! We also had a slight glitch when one team member ‘fell’ from a great height to an earlier puzzle and then had no way of getting back as that section had already been completing, causing our host to have to step in and rescue him!

ClueQuest – Plan 52 (Kings Cross)

Scores

Variety of puzzles 3/5                                                   Originality of puzzles 3/5

Pre-game atmosphere 3/5                                           Difficulty 3/5

Overall 4/5

Overview – I’m really glad that we played this room again! Enough time had passed since our original play that we couldn’t remember anything about the solutions to the puzzles and the room definitely looked a lot different. The aesthetics of the room have really been improved and while it’s not the most innovative of games, it’s very enjoyable to play and a great starting point for the ClueQuest story. Having recently played their newest room, OriGENES, it’s clear to see how their rooms have evolved since the beginning and Plan 52 really is just a lot of fun!

https://cluequest.co.uk/

PLAN52 is one of our top secret locations and a fortress for highly classified archives and data. However, something terrible has happened: four of our agents who were stationed there have vanished without a trace. We now have proof that this was the work of Professor BlackSheep who had help from a clueQuest insider.

It is up to you and your team to investigate this risky matter and learn the identity of the double agent. But be careful, Mr Q has confirmed that the traitor has managed to reset the security device of the facility! From the moment you set foot inside PLAN52 you will have just 60 Minutes to learn who the double agent was and deactivate the device before the entire facility detonates.

Team- Ster, Ni, Simon, Stu, Ros

Played – 13/1/19

ClueQuest

This was our 5^th visit to ClueQuest and it’s always a pleasure to play here. The entrance is spacious with plenty of seating areas and the hosts are always welcoming and enthusiastic. Plan 52 was actually the very first escape room we ever played, albeit separately and back in ClueQuest’s previous premises and it was so long ago that none of us could remember much about it! Bearing that in mind, when we were given a voucher code due to technical difficulties during a different play, we decided to give the room another go to see how it had changed.

The Room

The first thing that struck us all when we walked inside the room was how different it looked from 2014. While the basic premise is the same, the look of the room is much sleeker than it started out. Between the 4 of us that had played the room before, the only thing that we could all remember was that somewhere in the room was a red box. I knew that I’d found a laptop at some point but couldn’t remember what I’d done with it and Ni remembered no one listening to her during the final puzzle. So, armed with that wealth of information,  we ploughed straight in.

This is a bit of a traditional codes and padlocks kind of game, though there is a good variety of puzzles to keep the game interesting. There are some potential red herrings in here, but not enough to completely derail your play, just enough to distract you from something more important for a little while! One of my main memories from my first play was how much we managed to split up to do different things and that was much less of the case on this play. I’m sure not if that’s because the props have been streamlined or because we just worked more efficiently as a team, but I enjoyed the fact that I didn’t miss any of the big puzzles this time around.

Due to the variety of different codes and padlocks, the room doesn’t have a linear structure, but there is a natural order to things that I don’t think we followed exactly! Overall, the game flowed really well and there was an intuitiveness to the solutions which I really enjoyed. We struggled a bit on 2 different puzzles due to our own observational skills, at one point completely overlooking a key that we needed to move forwards, but on the whole we found our journey through the game really smooth.

There are a couple of puzzles in here which really stood out from the rest. The first being the infamous Red Box puzzle, which requires a bit of teamwork and is a really fun idea. The final exit puzzle was also great fun, with a bit of frantic running around the gather all of the information that we needed. It was a fantastic puzzle to end on, creating a bit of excitement for the final escape and easily involving all members of the team.

Stuart – ClueQuest never fail to deliver a good game. They always get it spot on and it’s the reason that whenever anyone asks us for recommendations their name is always top of that list. I was worried we may remember too much doing it again but the updates that had been done plus the time that had passed meant I didn’t have anything to worry about. The game itself is very good with some interesting and stand out puzzles. Highly recommend this room to anyone.

Escape time – 40:49