Tag: on tour

The Escape Rooms Newport – Torture Corp

Summary
A room that left us disappointed and frustrated. Innovative and faithful to its theme, probably a fun experience for those new to escape rooms, but enervating, unexciting and frustrating to veterans.

Review
I don’t normally back Kickstarters, but something about Escape Rooms Newport made it look like it stood out from the crowd. I went in for the top-level package entitling me to play the game in a team of up to 6 and then act as the game master for another team. I gave the room a month and a half or so to get into gear before coming down from London for the day to try it all out.

I recruited eight members of Team Judge to come and play across two attempts – playing myself in the first round, and acting as the host second time around for my friends. The experience started the day before, somewhat intriguingly, but to say more would be a spoiler.
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TimeTrap Escape Rooms – Rebellion – 1136

Summary
TimeTrap have found themselves a new permanent venue in Reading and opened up quite a good room – a non-linear game good for beginners and with a pleasing mix of puzzle types.

Review
To celebrate a Team Judge moving-house party, we booked into TimeTrap’s new game soon after it opened. The theme of the room is, as the name suggests, acting as rebels after the death of King Henry I who was laid to rest in Reading Abbey – and the goal is to enter through a time portal and obtain the crown, which has been stolen, to restore it to the rightful monarch.
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Lucardo – Espionage

Summary
I’d heard a lot of good things about Lucardo and so when I knew I’d have a Saturday evening free in Manchester it was top of my to-do list. Espionage is a World War II themed room with very little linearity and mostly straightforward puzzles, great for beginners.

Review
Espionage is rated as the least difficult of Lucardo’s five rooms. A new subset of Team Judge was playing, with a total of two games’ worth of experience between everyone other than me, so it seemed a sensible choice. I had hoped to play The Dream on recommendation, but as we booked so late it wasn’t available.
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We Escape – Taken

Summary
A linear and very uncomplicated game which would serve as a good introduction to the genre for new players. Experienced players won’t get much out of it.

Review
Currently the only game in town – Cork’s We Escape is owned by a Hungarian, somewhat unsurprisingly. On a trip to my home town of Cork, a trip seemed indicated. I rounded up two cousins and my sister, who were joined by her two friends. On average the six of us had played just over 3 games each… formed of five zeroes and my 22 😀
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Escape Salisbury – Murder at the Museum

Summary
If you’re in Salisbury, you should have played this already. If not, you should book and go there. Quite soon. This room has just about all the things that make an escape room fun, none of the annoying things that wind players up, and it’s a well thought-out room which receives our Generally Awesome award.

Review
Salisbury is the smallest city in the UK, and many visitors come to visit a certain church and piece of paper. Not so for us: Emmy and Nintendomad joined me on this Team Ninty outing to visit temporary South Wiltshire resident Hipsterdashie and take on the challenge at Escape Salisbury.

This room is rather like your typical murder mystery but with additional twists in terms of collecting certain items, on your way through a set of challenges set by the “Wessex Police”, from whom a briefing document accompanied our email confirmation. We were met in character by our host who was very much up to speed with everything and gave us enough explanation of the room and process, and no more. The customary explanation of how to identify items not to be touched (police tape!) aside, it was time to begin.
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Escape Room Manchester – Slaughter House

Summary
Quite samey, this dark room depended a lot on searching for items. Not enough torches provided. Puzzles quite pedestrian. And did we say dark?

Review
This was the second room Team Judge played on the same day. Dropping from a difficulty rating of 5 to 4, we expected a bit of a step down in difficulty. In practice, it was similarly challenging but in a different way.

Our host Alice was very pleasant and practiced and she explained the room’s procedure in very brief for us. The room’s back story is the slightly hackneyed “you wake up in ____ with no real clue of why you’re here and you’d better get out in an hour”, and that was good for what it was. Alice was also obliging in turning down the background sound for a team member with a hearing issue.
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Escape Room Manchester – Secret Lab

Summary
A small number of tough puzzles rather than a large number of straightforward puzzles or a mixture in difficulty awaits you at Secret Lab. Can you rise to the challenge?

Review
A bit of bumbling at the start of this, with the hosts unable to open up the front door because it was a bank holiday and apparently someone from the nightclub that’s colocated with them had padlocked a door which was usually left open. We eventually crowded in through an emergency exit after a host came around to the main door to see us looking nonplussed.

As venues go, The Escape Room Manchester is well-equipped and very pleasant. The waiting area was one of the best I’ve found, and they were also happy to store several members’ large items of luggage whilst we went off to the city centre afterwards for a couple of hours.
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