Escape Reading: Blown Away

A very cool room, some really clever puzzles, lots of physical tasks, and not a single padlock to be found! Choice of a hard or easy version too (we played easy but were shown hard after hence the difficult rating!).

Only criticism is the last puzzle; the whole group thought it could do with a bit of a revamp as we easily spent 10 minutes on it.

This room has two levels, one designed for 3-4 players, and the other designed for 5-6 players. We played the room as a team of 4, but on the level for 5-6. I think this level of difficulty was spot on for 4 people and we completed the room with just 50 seconds to spare.

In terms of set design, the room is nice, but not exceptional. It’s also clearly seen better days and is scuffed throughout. No major issues, though.

The puzzles are fairly unique for an escape room. There’s lots of teamwork required to do almost all of them. I enjoyed this, but some might not. The puzzles are also largely physical rather than logical. Again, some will like that and others won’t.

Overall, I enjoyed this room and would happily recommend it to others. Probably someone who is less into escape rooms and more into teamwork activities - which, to be fair, is pretty much how they advertise the room by saying that the puzzles are inspired by Crystal Maze.

One good thing about Escape Reading is that most of their games have variable difficulty depending on team size/ability. We played the 5-6 version difficulty with 4 people and only just got out.

Overall, I was frustrated by this room. The puzzles don’t fit the theme, don’t follow logically and I found the clues to be ‘wishay washy’. Unfortunately, this is not helped by quite a plain set.

Quite hard, a lot of teamwork and communication required. Lots of yelling round corners and through walls. The music and effects ramped up as time ran out which was fun. Good hosting. 

This was our third room of the day at Escape Reading and we completed the room on the highest difficulty. There was definitely a fair few puzzles to complete and some fun ones we'd not seen before but the experience was really ruined by an overactive GM who was cluing us every few minutes without us asking. 

At one point we were working on quite a complex puzzle and suddenly a clue came up on the screen for a different puzzle so we left the one we were working on to focus on that. We completed it and got a part of a screwdriver. We couldn't figure out what we needed it for and spent ages searching before going back to the original puzzle we had been working on before we were disturbed. Turns out we didn't need this screwdriver part until right at the end! This wasn't the only time we received an out of order clue for this room either. 

We are definitely a team who only like to be clued if we desperately need it and normally only when we ask for a clue. This room didn't feel very satisfying as most of it felt handed to us on a plate.

Brilliant game with some fantastic puzzles. Theming on point with a real emphasis on teamwork. Excellently hosted and very much enjoyed