win – Page 3 – London Escapists

Lock’d – Perpetuum Mobile

Summary
We loved the tech and theming of the room, which a lot of love and effort has clearly gone into. Pretty short though.

Review
Having played the venue’s other two games earlier that day, we found out that Perpetuum Mobile was free in the next slot and our host reeled us in with a discount, the room otherwise likely to go empty. It would have been rude not to.

We were invited to don lab coats to play; I must say I think this is becoming a bit of a trope. It’s the third or fourth time I’ve come across it and whilst it’s cute for newbies, it’s usually a combination of overheating and uncomfortable for the rest of us. Less, please.
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Lock’d – Museum Warehouse

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.
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Lock’d – Grandpa’s Last Will

Summary
Billed for new players, Grandpa’s Last Will is a pleasant room for new players. Not too linear and quite straightforward and manageable.

Review
My mission, having chosen to accept it, was to book 13 people of Team Judge into one, two, or three escape rooms over three sessions on a quiet Monday in October. This was similar in difficulty to the room: an initial call and email to investigate whether 25 person-games worth of sales might elicit a discount went unanswered, and when I went ahead to book online, to my horror the other two rooms were blocked out after I booked the first one at 11am. More calls and emails went nowhere, so when they randomly reopened for booking a few days later I snapped them up. Problem 1 out of the way.

Round 2 was on arrival. The address and postcode on the website are not well-liked by Google Maps, which directed me to a different street and around the corner. To be fair, Lock’d has a very clear map on its website of where you need to go in.
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Do Stuff Escape Games – Hostage Hideout

Summary
Wonderful hosts make this a memorable game. Innovative puzzles. Quite cramped inside. A couple of defects.

Review
Battersea is probably best known for the dogs and cats home, but a recent addition to the local businesses is Do Stuff Escape Games. Sharing space with the Grove, an amazing gaming pub with all sorts of cult memorabilia strewn around, it’s a recent addition to south London’s escape room stable. Team Judge was taking up the Groupon offer to try it out.

Tipped off by the various reviews, we arrived in good enough time to order from the bountiful menu of burgers (lamb, beef, horse, venison, chicken, and veggie all feature) and these were most enjoyable.
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Escape London – Da Vinci

Summary
Whilst Da Vinci is perhaps an overused theme, we warmed to this room quickly and found it the best of the three on the premises. Puzzles were just right for difficulty. Decent fun.

Review
Escape London is like a good wine — they improve with age. We’re not talking years or more, though: we first visited them two weeks prior and given they only opened at the start of August it was eminently clear they were learning fast.

Da Vinci, then, was our third and final outing for now. Rejoined by linkaneo and reb, Team Judge made good time to arrive for our visit. Linkaneo repeated her old joke about rugs, and we all know what that means…
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Escape London – Area 51

Summary
Highly linear, lots of different and new kinds of puzzles to enjoy in a sci-fi themed adventure. Accessible for beginners.

Review
A week later and a player shorter, Team Judge (linkaneo, reb, and I) returned for our second visit to Escape London, on this occasion full of Nando’s. The staff were as pleasant as ever and made small talk until the appointed time.

The story here is investigating an alien invasion incident in a restricted area. I’m not sure why we only had an hour to do it, although it might have been because we’d get nicked, or abducted, or something. It didn’t really matter, as you will see.
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Escape London – Casino

Summary
A twist on the normal “you need to get out” model, this game has an extra way to separate the best teams. Challenging game with a great many padlocks. Extremely friendly and attentive staff.

Review
Off to West London this time and after a very filling Five Guys (is there any other kind?) in Westfield White City, Team Judge (reb, linkaneo, emmy and myself) were excited to visit new-to-the-market Escape London. We took up their 50% off discount for booking before they opened (it’d have been rude not to) and this was the first of three rooms to play.

We were very warmly welcomed on arrival and after a few rather Spartan experiences at other venues it was nice to see jugs of water and the like on reception. Paperwork signed and all other formalities dealt with, it was time to get going.

The goal in this room is to escape, but also to “get rich” by filling a chip case with as many casino chips as possible.
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Omescape – Biohazard Laboratory

Summary
A strongly linear adventure with impeccable theming. Limited light means a need to concentrate carefully. Despite being Omescape’s lowest-difficulty room, it’s not one for new players. Puzzles, technology, and build quality are excellent with virtually no reliance on padlocks and not a key in sight. Five players is probably too many.

Review
Team Amaze booked both copies of Biohazard Laboratory for a total of ten players. On the day we lost Bubbles who had to drop out at short notice, so after asking around the rest of Team Amaze and drawing a blank, we picked up Emmy from Team Ninty to fill out the second team. She had transport issues on her way up and therefore it was 8 minutes into our slot before everyone was on site. Mig and Vicky led team Alpha featuring Emmy and Will whilst Agent P and I were on Team Omega. [Both teams were 5 players, we just haven’t got alter-ego names for everyone else yet =p]

Our host gave us the short version of the welcome so as not to delay things further. He kindly did not deduct this from our time clock, and we got underway with the explanation of our mission – poisonous agents have been introduced into the water network and we needed to go into the sewers to add the antidote and get back out again, collecting some MacGuffins on the way.
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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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