Happy Easter! Like fluffy chicks or a shower of chocolate coins, here’s a clutch of freshly hatched escape rooms for your enjoyment. And I haven’t even made any ‚eggcelent‘ style puns.
Greater London
🔒 Pushed For Time, the new room at Escape Plan Ltd, is open from the 11th. Given the company’s track record I’m expecting this one to quickly take its place in the list of standard replies to ‚what should I play in London?‘.
🔒 Seems London is all about the escape-room-adjacent experiences these days. Bridge Command is an starship simulator immersive experience that puts you in charge of Star Trek style space missions. Note that you may be playing with strangers unless you bring a large team.
🔒 The Wallington branch of Escape From The Room is about to open an experience called The Cat and the Canary. It’s set in their Enigma Express railway carriage, but is not an escape room; rather it’s a role-playing murder mystery experience, which sounds like it has something in common with the jubensha games that have been creating buzz recently.
🔒 Room Lockdown is one of the few London companies that regularly create new rooms, and their latest is Poseidon’s Fury, at their Romford branch.
South East England
🔒 The fourth of Darkmaster’s games is now open; Station 108 is set in the Arctic and, like Shamley’s, is a bumper length 90 min game.
🔒 The Panic Room in Gravesend now offer their mobile game CSI – The Mafia Murders as a physical on-premises room.
🔒 Escape From The Room High Wycombe opened Cabin in the Woods, a copy of one of the company’s original rooms.
🔒 The Attic Romsey opened Panic In The Attic; this is a new game distinct from their previous Escape The Attic, though set in the same space.
South West England
🔒 Next week Trowbridge in Wiltshire gets its first escape room company. Creative Minds is an arts and crafts location, and their room Spellbound is designed by 11th Hour Escape Rooms.
🔒 Wake The Tiger in Bristol is not an escape room but a „self-guided, walk-through labyrinth of exploration“, open since the start of Feb and recently expanded.
🔒 Locked In (Camborne) yesterday opened new room The Smoke House Curse, a witchy game with a PG rating.
Wales
🔒 In Cardiff, Adventure Rooms opened Sabotage; note that this game was previously available at their Bridgend branch.
West Midlands
🔒 Top Escape Rooms have reopened their room The Magic Box, described as their most difficult game.
🔒 Vampire’s Lair is a new game at Black Hawk Laser in Oswestry.
🔒 The Puzzle Room Cannock swapped out Operation Nuke for Operation Nuke 2.
🔒 Escape Time Lichfield now also offer a set of seven VR escape rooms that you may have also seen at other venues: Depths of Osiris, Dragon Tower, etc.
East Midlands
🔒 The National Justice Museum are about to launch an escape room called Guilty?, which is set in the historic gaol and has multiple possible endings.
🔒 Escapologic opened their awaited 11th room, named Violet, a paranormal story that I imagine will have some scares to cheer up those who are in mourning for the loss of Butcher.
🔒 Also in Nottingham, Break Escape opened Chocolate Factory, bringing them up to three games in the city with more still to follow.
🔒 Over in Lincoln, Tension Twisted Realities are updating their line-up; pirate room Shipwreck is now open, with another new game under construction.
East of England
🔒 EO Escape Rooms have an Easter game, The Great Eggscape, which is currently showing ongoing availability not just for this weekend. It’s a „dual objective, split start room“ for teams of 4-6.
🔒 Cryptx in Knapwell open their latest room tomorrow; Tarot seems to have a characteristically inventive premise. (At present it’s not listed in the main part of their website, but you’ll find it in the booking system.)
🔒 Oliver Cromwell’s House announces new productions with impressive regularity, and their latest is The Tomb of the Templars, open from this Saturday.
🔒 Escape Hunt Norwich added Our Finest Hour to their roster of rooms.
🔒 The latest at Ware Escape Rooms is Toyland Terrors, about a possessed doll in a creepy toy shop.
North West England
🔒 Chester is the latest town to gain a branch of Houdini’s. This one has usual rooms Alcatraz, Room 13 and Creepy Carnival, plus a new design for the chain, pirate game Captain Blackheart’s Curse.
🔒 Lucardo Rawtenstall opened new room Inspector, which is not explicitly a Sherlock theme but sounds very Sherlock-y in style. Note that this is a 45 minute game.
Yorkshire & the Humber
🔒 A new room at Escapable, and the first permanent one for their centre town location; Marv The Monkey Presents: The Golden Banana sounds like a wild ride.
🔒 It’s been pointed out before that there are few sports-themed escape rooms. Project Escape Middlebrough have opened an exception to that with Roary’s Cup Conundrum, a football theme that’ll run for the next month with a charity donation for each player.
🔒 New at Escape Rooms Beverley is alien investigation room 10 Minutes To Midnight.
🔒 Escape Rooms Scarborough now list Wizards‘ Quest 2, which looks like a refresh/reboot of their previous Wizards‘ Quest game.
Scotland
🔒 One of the most acclaimed companies to open in the last couple of years, Case Closed are now launching their second game Radio Nowhere. (Their first game, originally self-titled, is now called The Murder of Max Sinclair.)
Award winners
In case you missed it, the winners of the regional awards have now been announced – you chose them, check out the results here: https://escapethereview.co.uk/etr-players-choice-2024-award-winners/.
(The Lock & Key winners are still to follow!)