Autor-Archive: escapethereview

Exit: The Sunken Treasure

Room-in-a-box, Aug 2018

Each year brings a new crop of titles from the EXIT line of boxed escape games, a reliably polished product that faithfully follows their established format while managing to feel fresh and free from recycled puzzle ideas. The latest batch of boxes i… (more)

Cryptic Escapes: The Treasure of Green Beard

Norwich, Aug 2018

Since this review is inevitably going to degenerate into a rant about ‚good‘ difficulty versus ‚bad‘ difficulty in escape rooms, let’s start on a more positive note. The Treasure of Green Beard is nicely presented, a traditionally structured escape r… (more)

Puzzlescape: Sleight of Hand

Norfolk, Aug 2018

On my last visit to Puzzlescape eighteen months earlier, Dereham in Norfolk seemed an exotically obscure location for an escape game; with the way the industry has expanded since then, it now seems entirely normal. In the meantime they’ve expanded fr… (more)

History Mystery: Body of Evidence

Norwich, Aug 2018

Where History Mystery’s first game is situated upstairs at the Norwich Guildhall, their second is in the basement of the same building, in what used to be gaol cells right up to the 1980s. The booking confirmation warns players that the cell graffiti… (more)

History Mystery: The Merchants‘ Vaults

Norwich, Aug 2018

Having located their previous games in Norwich’s Guildhall and in a historic church, History Mystery’s latest is set the medieval undercroft below Brideswell Museum. This is a ghostly grey space of elegant ancient arches and crumbling walls, simultan… (more)

HMS Belfast: Damage Control

London, Sep 2018

One sign of escape rooms being increasingly mainstream is the way they’re appearing as add-ons to other, more traditional tourist attractions. The latest example of that is Damage Control, a 30 minute pop-up escape room hosted on the HMS Belfast, the… (more)

AI Escape: Project Delta

London, Aug 2018

AIEscape’s previous game Kill M.A.D. has been the London escape room I recommend most often and enthusiastically for a little while now, so to say I’ve been eagerly awaiting their new sci-fi game would be an understatement. Project Delta casts you as… (more)

Escape Reading: Blown Away

Reading, Aug 2018

While there are a handful of hard-core enthusiasts who might attempt to play solo, for most players solving as a team is one of the joys of escape rooms. A disproportionate number of my most memorable moments in games have involved tasks that require… (more)

TimeTrap Escape Rooms: Imaginarium

Reading, Aug 2018

Quite a number of escape companies use a time travel premise for their games, and the first game I played at TimeTrap demonstrated a stronger than average grasp of historical detail. So it was a surprise to find that in Imaginarium, although it theor… (more)

Knockout Escape Rooms: Prison Break

Reading, Aug 2018

Prison Break was Knockout’s easiest game and their best-decorated. A prison setting often means cramped cells, usually with a split team start, but they’ve instead used a much larger space here, which combines prison bars with a more open layout. The… (more)