Summary
This room has a good premise and a few clever flashes of tech, but is let down by too little to do, unexciting puzzles, and loads of red herrings.
Review
This was our second of what was planned to be two (but ended up as three) rooms in one day at Lock’d. Having polished off Grandpa’s Last Will we were expecting a step up in difficulty. Our excellent host gave us the initial briefing – the premise was needing to break into the museum and recover three statuettes which would also (for some reason) release the exit door.
We had a bit of a false start at first before recovering just before I thought we’d need a hint on only the second puzzle. There wasn’t a lot to do for the four of us to start with, but that improved later on. We found some impressive technology and clever props, and it was almost always clear what we needed to do.
Clues and instructions made sense for the most part and there was one larger puzzle which combined skills well. They balanced difficulty against frustration reasonably and it was always immediately clear when you’d done what you’d needed to do.
Hints were by walkie-talkie and needed to be requested rather than being provided proactively — probably a consequence of one host covering up to three games — and teams requesting more than three hints would cause their scores to be considered “unofficial”.
A cause of some frustration was that several of the puzzles didn’t make any thematic sense and a couple of the solutions didn’t either. Why would X be in position Y? Why all the searching? It meant, sadly, that getting out was a relief rather than an achievement.
Outcome
We got through this one in super quick time; despite having locked out a safe by entering too many wrong codes, we were out in 33 minutes and took just a single hint.
In numbers
Overall: 5/10
Difficulty: 6/10
Theming: 8/10
Host: 8/10
Wow: 6/10
This was pretty sparse as rooms go; there was very little parallelization available. The aforementioned safe should have carried a warning as to how many wrong codes would lock it out and for how long, and there should have been a more visible clock throughout.
Also had a minor annoyance at finding dates in American format 🙁
Other details
Accessibility: Pretty good. There’s a lift and whilst there were a couple of steps on the way in, it looked like they could accommodate wheelchair users by a different route.
Alerts: None
Capacity: They have three different rooms with plans for an additional five. Each room takes 2-5 players, so maximum 15 at a time.
Cost: Our booking for 5 cost £99. Peak pricing (£125) applies on Friday evenings and all day Saturdays and Sundays.
Photo: None.
Getting there: Somewhat of an ordeal; using the address or postcode is not advisable as it sends you to the wrong place. The map on their website is good – you need to enter the business park through Drummond Road (not Clements Road) near City Hope Church, then spot block B (which is pretty obvious) and find the door (which is less obvious, or at least was to us due to building work) and dial a code, B108 if I remember right, on the intercom to get left in.
Website: http://www.lockd.co.uk/