Breakout Chester

One of the more enjoyable rooms here at Breakout. Some good puzzles, very immersive and plenty to keep a team of two busy for the whole hour.

A room that's showing it's age. The first part being better than the second, with some rather clunky mechanics and longer more elaborate puzzles. Not a huge amount to do, but I imagine it'll be replaced soon to be brought up to the standard of the other rooms here.

A basic but enjoyable room.

Apparently the hardest here at breakout with the lowest escape rate, yet for us the easiest one, we struggled a lot more on others.

An enjoyable, if fairly plain room.

Probably our favourite room here at breakout. 

Great theming, enjoyable puzzles and great hosting.

Original theme and some good puzzles in this one, though we were finding it quite difficult as a novice group of 2.

We had a decent time with this one, but it didn’t quite wow us. The core puzzles were fine, if a little familiar, and while the concept had promise, it never fully took off. A few elements felt a bit disconnected, and some of the padlock-heavy design made things feel a bit dated. Fun in parts, but compared to others we’ve played, it didn’t quite stand out.

Main path was pretty easy, and slightly vanilla, optional side collection felt a little tacked on and the bonus puzzles somewhat dull. One very lengthy double locked box had largely unrelated puzzles which threw us off a smidge. Not particularly original, too many numbers locks for our taste... nothing really high tech here

This was our first train underground train room. Theme was really well done and hosted really well. Puzzles were ones that we had seen before but the room flowed really well.  One of our favourite rooms in Breakout.

Very nice small room, not your usual Breakout multiroom template. Nice theme puzzles fit well with the room plenty to keep you going despite the size and much better than some other Breakout rooms.

Nice room, good hosting, wild west theme a little un original but game itself was ok even if a little on the easier side.

Played in summer and was extremely hot, fans were available but didn't really help.

Good room otherwise with a few nice puzzles, family friendly and do believe there are better magic rooms around.  

Our host set the tone from the start, The puzzles fit the theme well. And a nice clue system

Nothing too out of the ordinary, we had a good time, and the puzzles were clear. 

Lovely host, very helpful! Overall enjoyable experience, great game!!!! ☺️

Really nice Christmassy room. Played as a team of three and escaped with ten minutes to spare. Lots to do in this room. Nice flow and a great games host. Definitely recommended. 

Terror on the Tube

Dead End was recommended to me- and what an impressive game it turned out to be!

Story

Venture down to and repair the generators that are keeping London’s ‘Safe Zones’ powered during a zombie apocalypse.

Puzzles

Absorbing and practical; the solution to one was unclear but they were otherwise enjoyable.

Mise en scene

The room boasted an immersive, apocalyptic Tube station layout in which there was a suitably eerie atmosphere. Action also took place on a train carriage with great attention to detail.

Final Comments

One of my party (who has played a fair few with me) said it’s the best escape room she’s done, so kudos to Breakout Chester.

Played this with a newbie and thoroughly enjoyed the atmosphere and puzzles. Kept us on our toes throughout and our own stupid mistakes made us take longer. 

Following our stressful Forsaken adventure we underestimated the level of difficulty for Vacancy. Not as well thought out as rooms like Excalibur and Forsaken but still enjoyable with plenty to do and plenty to make your brain work.

At the time we played this it was a 30 degree heatwave. We were hot and sweaty which added to the stress and pressure of this immersive cabin. Difficult puzzles a lot to do would definitely rate this a 5 star difficulty rather than 4 and we were lucky to escape by the skin of our teeth. Brilliant room otherwise

This room remains one of our very favourite rooms. Puzzles were great, the physical elements were fun so much so we chose to return and play this game with our 2 children.

Good game that really put us on edge. Theming was great and I enjoyed that the clues were hidden in the decoration itself. Some clever puzzles and one particularly tricky one that had me and my partner arguing. 

Really had my heart racing at the end as we completed the final puzzle and waited to see if we'd survived.

Enjoyed that there were multiple puzzles that can be completed at once meaning we could work on different things at the same time. Also loved that little bits of knowledge/tiny details that we each picked up along the way came together in the end.  

Was ok.. game looks very old now. 

Played this in Liverpool where they have 2 games one space, which is confusing at first but you get used to it. 2  Good games here. 

Better than BO's usual level of room, but nothing more special. 

Parts of this game were broken and very clunky, which meant repeated entries from staff members. 

Typical BO room. Fairly easier, great for new players. 

Meh. Looked like someone had just spattered Christmas decorations in a room, there was no thought to an entire Christmas theme, including the puzzles...

Typical cabin in the woods-themed game - Enjoyed the vibe and atmosphere. 

Nothing special, but another great starter game from BOL.

The game is fairly small but the puzzles are good - Sometimes alittle ambiguous! 

Although a room that plays on that well-known wizard, I enjoyed this take!

My husband and I were left hugely disappointed by this room. The first time I've ever considered just walking out.

We wasted so much time waiting for clues and we even broke the final main prop/puzzle.

I emailed them to share my disappointment but I was told it was all down to a "miscommunication"

The last time we'd ever go there to be honest.

Some nice elements to the room, we managed to solve a puzzle whilst missing a key part 

Our host really set the scene on the walk up to the room. Great theming, though not many padlocks, which I don't think I personally am a fan of, but others are. It did make sense in a magic room though. Clue system was quite nice!

Good theming but not much on the puzzle front. The clue system was pretty cool for Breakout, but I am glad we only went as a 2 as the room was a little snug.

A little on the tricky side, and maybe we were just having a good day and only needed on hint throughout the game. I really enjoyed it, but the wife not so much. Theming is pretty good for a small use of space. Lad that ran our game was very theatrical and set the scene.

Anyone that has already played this game knows what the issue is in this game, hence me not giving it a higher score. There is something in that room that really needs some adjustment as it doesn't work the way it should. The puzzles are great, and the theming in immersive, but that "THING" just lets it down.

Everything was logical, some outside knowledge was needed at some point (Which I am not a fan of), and the theming was pretty generic. Ok game 

Great theming, especially after playing the original room that used to be in that space. They have done an incredible job! The puzzles, whilst all fit the theme, some were quite challenging, and could have perhaps done with some signposting as they were a little out there? Still enjoyable non the less!

Our game started with Beth giving us our intro and having a good chat about rooms we’ve done and loved before she set the scene well and got us into our room. 

A brilliantly themed room that I’ve come to expect from Breakout Chester, they really seem to be the best in the Breakout franchises. 

As others have said, a rare case of a room without padlocks and blimey we found it difficult because of this. All the puzzles made perfect sense and there were some really clever ones in there, but we started slow, made some silly mistakes and basically fell apart from there!

Beth was nice and cryptic with her clues, just giving us a nudge in the right direction. 

We did make it out with an ok amount of time on the clock but this is the first room in ages where I’ve actually thought we might not make it out!

Overall a fun room that kept us on our toes until the door finally opened. 

By far the best game we've played across the Breakout Franchise. Suitably difficult at parts, good story, nice rooms. Liked it.

We played this room when it first came out. The set for both sections of the game was fantastic. I was particuarly impressed with where you start out, with well themed puzzles. The second room has the impressive set piece that you want from the game. We had a few issues with this, mostly because we are not physical puzzle type people and it took us a little while to navigate what we were supposed to do. However, with some well given clues and help, we escaped with time left and had a good time overall.

The sheer amount of padlocks in this room is what makes it challenging, not necessarily the actual puzzles themselves. However as a 2, we loved being kept on our toes for the whole game and felt pretty tired once we had finished!

It has a nice balance of horror theming without being scary. We really enjoyed ourselves and as they listed it as 5* star difficulty, we were really chuffed when we finished.

This was our first cowboy themed room and we thoroughly enjoyed it.

The start of the game was slightly ruined by the fact that the door to the second room of the game had been accidentally left open, which meant our host had to come in and close it. This happened very early in the game and so didn't completely ruin the immersion, accidents happen!

We were offered two different styles of game, Cowboys or Indians, and we chose Cowboys. There were some puzzles that we didn't have to complete as they were for the other game. The main game was the same however.

The scenery and setting is strong with lots to look at and you could believe you are standing in a Western saloon. We enjoyed our time and happily worked our way through the puzzles without too much difficulty. 

This room has a great carnival theme, with a slighty creepy undertone (mostly having to carry a creepy doll around with you). 

The space seems big as you are constantly moving into new sections of the game. The puzzles aren't particuarly hard but are mostly themed well to the room. 

The room was enjoyable and had enough to do that it was satisfying to work through and complete. It is definitely suitable to beginner players.

The set for this escape room was impressive, with a cabin theming.

There were a variety of puzzles to complete and going between different sections of the cabin to complete them (although it's not a very big space).

Our main issue with the game was that we had completed 99% of the puzzles and were stuck on the last element for the last 10 minutes of our time. We were so close to the end but were not given clues to help us finish. We think this is because of the building that Breakout Chester is in, where the games master has to climb multiple floors/steps between the game and where they are observing. Out host was standing outside the door at 60 minutes whilst we stood like lemons not knowing what to do next for a long time. It was a rather frustrating end when we had one element left of the whole game. 

Looking back, we left feeling very bitter as it was our first ever loss and felt unjustified but we have since recovered from the saltiness (just about...).

This is a traditional escape room but with a slightly more unique concept of solving the different elements of the crime. With multiple rooms and integrating Chester's setting into the game, this was a fun, sleuthy game which was enjoyable but not particularly challenging.

Really enjoyed this magical twist on a game and would recommend it higher than liverpool's spellbound, this view room felt it was catered towards escape room players and not just families.

If you enjoy the magic theme and enjoy some good head scratching puzzles would highly recommend

Some physical puzzles in this game, and some moments of fun.  Unfortunately the clunky wooden table lets this entire game down. 

Forsaken was one of my first ever breakout rooms and left me with a really good memory of breakout, it's definitely a theme that's been done before but really enjoyed this interpretation as well as a few good puzzles.

Really great theming - The puzzles are very breakout, but still fun.

This is a very easy room for those who played before, so would definitely recommend for first time players

Overall this game was OK it did feel like there was a few puzzles that are a bit out of place, apart from those things we enjoy the game.

We played forgotten to not long after it opened to the public, and the room itself looks really great. However it felt like there was a few clunky puzzles in here that left us scratching our heads and needed explaining.

After playing liverpool's we play chester's version and enjoyed chester's version more. There are quite a few different puzzles and the games seem to flow better here.

#52

Breakout Chester’s newest room, this was a lot of fun, if a little stressful! We were pleasantly surprised to see that the theming is really on point, and the soundtrack makes for a really creepy vibe. The puzzles are pretty typical for Breakout but still a lot of fun,  there’s a few things you can get on with at once so not too linear to start with. Lots of fun, up there with Forsaken as our favourite Breakout rooms.

Played all of the Breakout's "Wanted" Games. Not the best of the centres, but not the worst either. Great theming, good puzzles that all fit the theme. Hosting great for our game.

Best theming in any of the breakout rooms! Some really creative puzzles, and all on theme. Fairly open game with the odd linear path.

#38

Typical franchise room. Enjoyable at times, and the fact there are few padlocks is a positive, but the flow of the room sometimes seemed illogical and un-intuitive - some of the puzzles didn’t match the theme at all. It was a little hard to see inside the room too.  I’d recommend if you haven’t experienced different to Breakout, although I’d say in the area there are better companies.

We had a great time in this room. The theming and lighting was great and the puzzles all fit the theme of the room with not a single padlock. Its not a large room so may get a bit busy with larger groups but found our group of 3 worked well with enough to keep each of us busy.

Fun room which will probably be great for beginners. Its quite linier in its flow without much walking backwards and forwards so always feels like you're progressing. The carnival theme is kept well throughout and it has a nice mix of puzzles that everyone can get involved in. The name "cursed" carnival and the description make it sound quite scary but it's not at all and would be suitable for families to enjoy. We had fun in this room and would recommend it.

Another fun room from Breakout. Thought it was going to be very dark and creepy based on the website description but it was actually quite well lit (has a window looking outside). Nice mix of puzzle styles so it gave everyone something to be able to excel at and a couple of tricker parts to slow down the group.

Really enjoyed this room. Like another reviewer said this game is one of two halves. There's lots of puzzles rammed into the first half that are great fun to work through and keeps up the pace. However the second half the game feels like it slows right down and the main puzzle in this room doesn't seem very clear without needing some prodding in the right direction from the game master.  We really enjoyed ourselves and the difficulty was enough to tax our brains without being too easy or too hard.

Loved this room. The theming was great and the room had a great creepy atmosphere. The story and puzzles flowed well and all fit the theme of the room. Only thing I would say is to up the creepiness further but that's down to personal taste. Great fun room!

#32

A fun room, one of the better ones at Breakout Chester. The aesthetic was good, although a little plastic-y.

Quite a padlock-heavy room which sometimes doesn’t bother us, and a couple of the puzzles were either frustrating or not keeping with the theme, but we still had a good time. We have completed a couple of similarly themed rooms which were better so pretty average here.

#8

Like someone else has said here, it’s a game of two halves. The first half was really fun with some cool puzzles, exactly what you’d want in an escape room. The second half however felt a little slower and unclear what we were meant to do. We escaped but felt like we were almost dragged through by the accommodating GM. Would recommend as a team of two as too many players might get a bit cramped early on.

#7

A fun experience here, they went all out with the decoration and it looks great, wasn’t too difficult so I would recommend this before tackling something like Forsaken or Excalibur. Don’t be fooled by the ‘Cursed’ moniker though,  this is family friendly.  Would recommend if you’re heading to Breakout.

#6 / #56

One of the best rooms Breakout Chester has to offer in my opinion. We were so close to escaping but spend the last two minutes with the final clue scratching our heads - our fault, not theirs! A creepy vibe to this room really sets the atmosphere, was a lot of fun if a little difficult for novices. Definitely recommend this!

- After a return visit a few years later, we managed to escape! Still holds up, worth a visit.

#3

Again, a fun enough room from Breakout, but slightly dated set design and puzzles (like Vacancy). The story was a bog-standard murder mystery,  not bad just not great. 

#2

Fun enough, but the set is a bit tired and low budget.  Typical of a Breakout room, I would suggest Forsaken or Forgotten Tomb instead if you’re heading to Breakout.

Good room! The décor is immersive but the room feels short. We realised we had escaped when we were expecting a new room to open.

The immersion was broken when the host told us about safety rules and specifics by entering the room with us.

We went to escape Excalibur in 53:55 minutes in June 2017 and absolutely loved it, there was a lot of "Wow" moments and very cleverly built puzzles. There was a big difference of quality between the Breakout Liverpool rooms and this one. We really want to go back in order to do their other rooms. We were really proud of our escape and really recommend it to anyone heading to Chester!

Now where to start...

Entering the room was refreshing as you enter through a magic painting rather than through a standard doorway so the theming was on point right from the very start. 

Spoiler Alert

This room does not contain any form of padlocks and as you can imagine, everything happens as if by magic. That being said, we did find that some of the puzzles are actually actioned by the game master so some actions may be delayed after you think you've completed the right thing. 

This game isn't open and it isn't linear, its very hard to describe. We found that we got our starting point, completed a series of linear puzzles and then had to stop and find another starting point again and this seemed to be the case throughout. A lot of hints were needed here as there was no room feedback or signposting to guide us in the right direction and a lot of it was game master driven. 

A Great room in terms of theming and puzzles (when you got into it) and i would certainly recommend it 

Do not be fooled. This room is rated 3/5 difficulty and posed as one of the easiest games on their website, however it was not easy by any stretch of the imagine. This room has LOADS to do.

Some rooms have a great mixture of math puzzles log puzzles, obvservation, physical puzzles etc. Cursed Carnival is very VERY padlock heavy (which we dont actually mind) and involves a lot of searching, (something else we dont actually mind)

Its greatly on theme throughout and the puzzles are perfectly logical. This actually turned out to be our favourite room of 4 that we played in one day (disturbed, dark magic and excalibur being the others)

Some people may be put off by the theme, however its purely there for theming and storyline, and not scary at all so perfectly suitable for all

A game of 2 halves, both with very different concepts. 

The start of this game begins when you start ascending the tower, even the entrance and staircase were all greatly on theme

The first half of this game will see you flying through a variety of quick wins and working with each other whereas the second larger part of the game threw some very clunky puzzles our way with not much signposting. 

One of my biggest bug bears if games are when one particular clue happens to be nowhere near the area you're currently playing and sadly this is one of them games.

Its a beautiful set design with so much potential, it jut feels the designers got bored as they start progressing throughout the game. Certainly worth playing

A fun yet challenging game.

The first part of this game has some very bland decor, expanding into something a lot better as the game progresses. 

This is one of them games that had a few complex puzzles that you know how to solve, but simply struggle with with executing them. If you are not very good at this type of puzzle, you're stuck and cannot progress

Some good puzzles and some to trip you up but with a go

Our first escape room - got us hooked so says it all. Brill!