Mad Machines: Birth Machine

It’s always an encouraging sign when a venue creates games based on something a bit more unusual, instead of doing a prison break, lab or spaceship; and Mad Machines have build a game around a premise that I’ve not seen anywhere else in the world. ‘Escape the womb’ is a concept that could so easily be done horrendously badly – but fortunately they’ve created something quite glorious instead.

Which is not to say that it’s in careful good taste. Rather, it’s in delightfully poor taste. Humour is subjective, but I found it one of the most genuinely amusing escape rooms I’ve come across – which on its own would be sufficient to make it a winner.

It was the second game we played at the venue, and once again there was an initial pre-game section before the game itself started. I was expecting it to be a repeat of what we’d done a short time earlier, but was pleasantly surprised. As before, this was a great way to get players into the swing of things before they start, as well as being an extra bonus bit of game.

The room itself is a game of two halves. I thought the puzzles were outstanding in the first half and a little more standard in the second half; but the second half makes up for that with how cool the set is. All parts of it play with the theme brilliantly, and often hilariously.

In the rarefied world of the very best escape rooms, there are games that are bigger, longer, more technologically sophisticated or higher tech. What Birth Machine does better than almost any is sheer silly fun, underpinned with puzzles that range from very well designed to inspired. It’s fun and it’s funny, and even on its own it’s worth making a trip to Milan to play it.