Epsom, Jan 2023
You might notice that Epsom Escape Rooms at Horton golf course used to have a game called The Challenge Chambers, and wonder if this game is a renamed version of that, or a sequel. Neither is the case, but this room shares a similar game concept with that one: you have a grid of puzzles, each with a padlock, and you have to solve enough of them to allow you to pass a key from the left side of the grid to the release point on the right hand side.
Also common to both is the fact that this is a race room, with two copies of everything so that a pair of teams can play competitively with the pressure of being able to see how the others are doing. All of the puzzles are original to this room though, with nothing carried across, so if you’ve played the other one there’s no reason not to play this one too (and if you liked the other, you should certainly enjoy this).
If you book the normal 60 minute version, as a race game or otherwise, you are exceedingly unlikely to solve all the puzzles and achieve the full victory; the aim is instead to complete enough to be able to escape, and then perhaps as many extra as you can get through in the remaining time. Alternatively you can book 90 minutes, in which case your goal is to get everything. We played the 60 minute version, due to scheduling constraints rather than by preference.
If Escape From The Room has an in-house design style, it involves lots of puzzles, often available in parallel. Several of their games are score-based and don’t expect you to complete everything. I played Mr Crabheal immediately beforehand and didn’t entirely gel with its format, but got on with Chambers of Champions rather better – at least once I got past the initial overwhelm and started tackling things methodically. That was mainly because it felt more clearly signposted, for what items and clues went with which puzzles – which shouldn’t have been the case, because in Crabheal the content is divided into sections whereas in Chambers everything’s in the same place.
It might also be the grid structure. I very much like the way it means you have a goal that involves finishing a subset of the mass of puzzles, where the goal is flexible but clear and meaningful. That somehow removes a lot of the sting of not solving everything, though I still grit my teeth at the thought of the locks we didn’t open.
Whatever the reason, for me Chambers was my favourite at the venue, and I’d have liked it significantly more if we’d booked the extended version (which, yes, everyone advised us to do, and which I in turn encourage you to do). 