The Great Escape Game Sheffield

We played this with family relatively knew to escape rooms. It was okay for them but in general pretty straight forward and repetitive. 

This was fine. It has now changed to abducted 2. It was difficult to navigate. Doors would lock and we would need them to come in and open them for us. Few jump scares.

We did not want to do this but I have a sibling who has learning difficulties and is obsessed with Harry Potter and fantasy stuff. I think for very young kids this is okay. However the equipment is very flimsy. It didn't work the majority of the time.

It was okay. They are all pretty okay here. Nothing stand out

Run was okay. Pretty straight forward and easy. Fun but nothing special.

We escaped in barely 20-something minutes,  while carrying a set of keys that didn't seem to fit anywhere (we discovered afterwards that it belonged to the reset of another room).  There wasn't even a game master to welcome us when we escaped (and after waiting awkwardly at the end of the game in the room, we finally opened the door and left... completely alone and uncared for)

Some props were broken and some puzzles did need a "helping hand" to hold them together and complete. I even sent an email to the company in the hope they'd care enough to improve the experience they give to players, which they never replied to. I'd avoid the game and the company altogether. 

Bad

Worst escape room I’ve ever played. I’m not even going to take the time to formulate the negatives into a comprehensive review. 

Here’s the bullet points and if that doesn’t tell you to turn and run then good luck to you: 

Started late by 30 mins. 

Host not watching game.

Host running multiple games. 

Host also making drinks and food while running games. 

Door to main room was half open (just told not to look in until it’s fully open) 

Snapped key, clearly a broken puzzle just left in there. 

Gate to 3rd room was unlocked and wide open. 

The “secret” exit door was wide open.

Told us we’d find a 2nd torch, and if we didn’t we should just use phone torch. (There was no 2nd torch)

Props falling apart. 

Tatty puzzles with some missing pieces. 

Tatty Props stuck to wall with tape. 

Wires hanging down from ceiling. 

Awkward non-creepy screaming sounds effects. 

So much reading in the dark. 

Very confusing introduction. 

TV in lift not working. 

There was writing and puzzles on the wall half covered over by other props. 

(My friend played this game when it was an older version of this game and they said all the stuff which was half covered were leftover puzzles for the 1st version which they couldn’t be bothered to fully cover up) 

Certain puzzles just weren’t turned on. So when we solved them nothing happened. 

We were told by the GM there would be a live actor, there was not. 

Although someone did wander into the room and immediately leave (maybe someone looking for toilet) 

After 30 minutes they radioed to tell us our time was up and to leave the room. (Obviously forgot they started us 30 mins late.)

The flow didn’t make any sense but that could be because half the puzzles weren’t turned on or already open. 

The final puzzle apparently we did correctly but the item didn’t drop, so was told to put our arm up the tube (up to the shoulder) to try and reach the final item and pull it out ourselves.  

Cupboards that opened but didn’t have anything inside. 

We “finished” in under an hour and he had the audacity to tell us that he gave us extra time. 

Im sorry, I have played some bad games, this had the potential to be fantastic, great space, nice centrepiece. But oh dear.

We started out 30 minutes late, which we said was fine, it was super busy and we understand that things can happen. 15 minutes into the game, we received a walkie talkie message saying we had 15 minutes left. When said 15 minutes was up, he spoke to us saying our time was up. Obviously we explained why that was wrong, and we carried on.

I had played the original version of this room, and you can see where they have poorly covered old puzzles. The exit door was open, locks were open, cupboards were empty that should have something in them, and puzzles just didn't work. After explaining to the guy that we had done it correctly as per the instructions, he just gave us the reward.

We were told bot to touch the live actor, there was no live actor. Someone did mistakenly open our door and closed it. Items were falling off walls, and props were breaking or getting stuck.

Like I said, the potential is there, however this time, it has gone into the top 3 of worst rooms played.

The last puzzle of the game was broken, the rest of the game didn’t flow very well and was disjointed 

Beautiful set, the odd jump scare and creepy setting to keep you on edge.

A fun place to visit

More about the experience than actually escaping, this one. Nicely built, pay attention in the final room though. 

Not one for the chicken wusses amongst you (and I include myself in that!) luckily I had a big brave helper on hand! Some nice little touches and puzzles, very glad to have solved this one so I don't have to do it again! 

Tried this room twice now, and as someone else has perfectly summed up, you get a third of an escape room each. If you are not communicating effectively, you will not get out. One puzzle in particular was quite hard to see, and held us up for longer than it should have. 

Our main complaint was that this room was literally too dark - our torches weren’t great and we spent a lot of time peering at things 😅 there were some great touches, we enjoyed being given outfits at the start, and the use of the space. We were a little unsure of some of the logic for the puzzles and struggled with the lack of visibility (for example if something happened elsewhere in the room). It was fun but there was room for improvement. 

This was my first ever escape room so it has a special place in my memory just because of that. There were some ups and downs to this room, looking back. The first puzzle had a technical problem for us so we were stood around for quite a while! I enjoyed searching for clues and going from very tentative to bravely exploring the space. There were some clues from a previous puzzle still in the room, but they had simplified the puzzle so we got a little distracted trying to use clues we didn’t need for a while. With some small adjustments this room could have been better. This room was really fun and I immediately came out and booked another room so definitely a good start. 

This game started with a big fear factor, which was also fun, and for us a little doggy came in the room (a highlight!). There was a good use of space and some puzzles that we had to think quite hard about. There was a fun fear factor where we tried to stay together as much as possible because we weren’t sure what the space would hold. Overall good fun. 

Fairly average 

Loved the chain mechanic as was first room we'd had that in. Frustrating that the last lockbox was stuck and cost us 10mins whilst staff weren't helpful on it.

Some of the elements in this were good - loved the escape method and the lasers and mirror usage.

Have played this one twice - once in 2018 and then again after it was altered and redone. Honestly preferred it prior to it's remake - the puzzles were better (if more difficult).

It's got some nice story elements to it but there's also quite a bit that's repetitive. The tech is everywhere and doesn't always perform exactly. Had lots of promise but I don't think delivers. Would have been better as an escape room and a bit more low tech. Quite a lengthy adventure though and loads of space so has a lot of potential.

Quite a dark room and loved the lack of padlocks. Theme was strong and it did actually scare one of our players enough that he left in the first part of the room!

We did this a few years ago now - the hosting was great if different to anything else we've done. We loved the jump scare within too. It's still one that we remember and talk about a long time after - more for the immersion, the feeling in the room and the interactivity.

We went into this knowing it was supposed to be an "adventure experience" rather than an escape room. Got off to a bad start as the venue asked us to arrive 20 minutes before our booked time slot, which we did, and in that time they tried to sell us drinks and then left us waiting around. While we were waiting the bar staff were offering help to people already in their rooms via a walkie-talkie and de-briefing a team which had just completed the room we were about to enter. We had to try to avoid listening so as to avoid any potential spoilers.

Eventually got into the room 10 minutes later than our booked time. Tech broke constantly. Host was uncommunicative when help was needed to get past the broken parts. Host entered the room on multiple occasions to fix things and provide items that should have been in the room for us already. The story made no sense and the acting was awful. The whole experience was boring and dragged on way too long for what it was.

Afterwards we were "de-briefed" by a completely different member of staff who had not been involved during our time in the room. We were given a score of "B+" but not told what this means or how we could have done better. They offered us a discount code and told us we would really like a couple of their horror-themed rooms without asking if we like horror themes (we don't).

Interesting Idea, but room for improvement in terms of execution. It was very dark in there which was fun and creepy at first but became irritating later on as we couldn’t really see and tripped over the middle props several times. Also with there had been some form of warning about dexterity. I couldn’t access one clue as it was too high up and I couldn’t reach and my friend was too tall to crawl into a tunnel. 

However, the theme is a fun idea and the puzzles were creative and related to the theme of the devil and hell. I am looking forward to play the updated version of this room

It looks fantastic but as far as puzzles go, it was just okay, there were some interesting puzzles however, as we were split into 3 disparate areas in the room, we only got 1/3 of an escape room (save some finale puzzles, which were okay)

I consider myself good at escape rooms and I was paired up with a big-brain so we solved all the puzzles in our own room within 5 minutes and the far end of the room had a pair of smooth-brains (don't worry, they would say the same :P) who took ages solving their puzzles and needed loads of clues.

As a result, there was a 15 minute period where we were sat in our own area solving zero puzzles, just talking about what our plans were for the rest of the week. This wasn't why we paid £20.

Some of the puzzles required the consolidation of information as a group effort, but it should have been all the puzzles if you're going to split people up.

There was also a competitive aspect involving a copy of the room next door, but it was still turned on and we weren't told it till afterwards and that all the time spent with the device was wasted because it wasn't even a puzzle. Its stuff like this that put me off the corporate escape rooms because they tend to just have a "F it, that'll do" when it comes to the tech in the room not really contributing to the experience. Bad form.

The puzzles were a little illogical but pretty much made sense once we were given needed clues, the problem was we couldn't actually see the puzzles and they came with incredibly small text to try and read.

Some of the tech was a bit janky and didn't work first time.

They commited a bit of a pet peeve of mine where there are multiple puzzles that are presented inside the room and are on show, but you havent' been given an order in which to input the solution. Imagine you see three different versions of "A = 3, B = 6, C = 1", the solution is BCA (613) but the "BCA" is locked away, so you're trying to solve puzzles with incomplete information. Very frustrating.

This led to us not solving a puzzle for 20 mins, then solving 5 puzzles in 5 minutes because we got into a chain of unlocking the final 10% of the puzzle content to actually reach a solution. Pacing was terrible in this room.

But, it looked and sounded great. So there's that

Even though Visually this is very pleasing, i felt that the game for me need to be played 3 times to be able to experience everything that went on.  I felt that there was a lot of standing around waiting for other members of the team to be able to do there part first before I was able to complete my section which at times became frustrating. 

The set design is quite cool and there were a few fun puzzles but I didn't enjoy this room overall. Way too dark, one of the mechanical puzzles didn't work even though we were doing the correct thing, and there was no timer which is always a problem for me as it causes a lack of tension and I like to know how long we have left/how urgent we need to be! (This was 2018 so might have been updated since then). 

We also had some issues with the GM. One of the puzzles was audio related and we missed it twice because the GM was talking to us over the walkie talkie at the same time. After asking if we could hear it again, the GM essentially berated us over the walkie talkie saying 'Come on guys!!! How are you not getting it!!!' which obviously didn't make us feel too great. Aside from the fact that he was talking over the clue so of course we couldn't solve it, English was not my teammate's first language and so it was just taking us a little longer to solve some of the wordy puzzles. I really didn't think it was necessary to behave that way with us and we left feeling pretty patronised and deflated.

This being branded as an escape room experience is very, very misleading. May be suitable for young children who are into spells and magic but ultimately very tedious, story is boring and no real challenge or escape room elements that we know and love.

Sadly multiple pieces of broken equipment and tech dampened this experience - also not as fun at all if there is no other team playing in the other head-to-head room!

One of the worst rooms I’ve played in my life. Ridiculously repetitive, and dull puzzles (do they have one piece of tech?). The same puzzle was repeated 6 times in one room. Then again in the next! Illogical and rather meaningless story, made substantially more painful by a 2 hour runtime and a substantial overhyping of the experience as 

‘more than an escape room’, while this would be unplayable even if it was ‘just’ an escape room. First escape room I’ve ever walked out of (in the final room) before finishing. 

Don’t waste your money. The other escape rooms at the Great Escape Sheffield are great fun. Play those. 

I opened one puzzle in this room. I was so bored. There really isn’t much to do

Both great hosting and poor hosting

 Started off amazing. So in character, the slap I got when I said they can't touch you really shut me up (pre covid) but then the running of the room was so flawed. Not many puzzles in the room either

I’d asked for the scare factor to be toned down in advance and was reassured it was just a standard escape room I’d be entering, it wasn’t! I found it terrifying, the noise and dark was too much for me and the middle part of the room I tripped over several times. 

Overall a poor experience for me as it was overshadowed by the scare effects. 

Interesting room this. Essentially we went for a friends birthday, and played as two teams of 5. Both teams played the same room, but were competing against each other for time (naturally) and there was a bonus part of this game where you could knock out the power of the other teams room for 10 seconds or so. I should state, that you dont have to play this room as a large group, and the minimum is 3 I believe.

Really fun, different ideas that I havent seen before. Requires good communication and strong team work. Unfortunately, I can't remember the games master because with such a large party, we were a bit of a handful (sorry) but I dont remember anything negative, so thats a positive in my eyes.

I do want to return to this company in the future.

Played this with a team of 4 and we fould it fun with some interesting puzzles that made use of some nice technology. I do generally prefer older style escapes rooms that use more conventional locks than technology, but this is what you get with a gen2 room. The only downside for us was it was pretty dark and, at times, hard to see, but overall we had fun

Absolutely fantastic room in terms of theming, technology and immersiveness. Overall enjoyed it and the venue is spot on. A few issues with the room itself - it was high tech which is good, but a few things didn’t quite work without a hint from the games master (I.e. how to get it exactly right rather than actually solve the clue which we had done - frustrating and took away the immersiveness). Personally found the end very difficult to the point I don’t think I’d have got it without a lot of clues. Yes we escaped but would’ve been there all day if there wasn’t a time limit! Perhaps best for experts - would be interested to see if that’s the case.

Well built, very immersive room for thrill seekers. Genuinely scary at times and the set is great for it's purpose. There's an interesting array of puzzles that tie in with the set nicely too. Some of the puzzles were quite difficult and we had to ask for a few clues. Only minor gripe was that it was difficult to communicate with the gamesmaster as the music/atmospheric sounds in the room were quite loud, but the staff (particularly Issy) were very friendly before/after the room and were keen to know what we thought they could improve on. 

We got the buzz after playing Alcatraz so decided to use a voucher immediately and jump into another game! The beginning of the game again has an extra challenge so only one person can work at a time haha! Super creepy with some jump scares too. The theme was great!

Very cool escape! Bags over the head and locked up to start! Gives it extra atmosphere and an extra challenge! Quite a few red herrings here which makes it seem like there is a lot to do for two people. Some tricky puzzles too