Escape Reality Leeds: Nosferatu

Nosferatu (What a Guy)

As part of a birthday weekend, I came to play Nosferatu with a few friends. Our host was okay- our interaction with them was minimal because of Escape Reality’s infamous hint system (more on that later). Their briefing- which included a “If you break anything, you have to pay for it”- wasn’t the friendliest I’ve ever experienced. Did we look heavy-handed, or something? Who knows.

Story

Discover the reason behind your fellow villagers’ mysterious deaths, or fall victim to Nosferatu.

Puzzles

The first puzzle was impossibly difficult without a clue. There were multiple aspects you had to link together: rather than easing us in, the vampire folk clearly wanted to throw their hardest task at us first. Others were manageable and did an acceptable job of tying in to the theme. As ever with Escape Reality, tablets were used for accessing hints by scanning images next to puzzles. Lazy, impractical (it was a dark room) and lame. We needed a couple of pointers, but these “clues” simply tell you what to do.

Mise-en-scene

There were one or two surprises, but Nosferatu maintained an eerie vibe as a pose to a terrifying one…so don’t worry about getting too spooked (I say this as one of my friends is a scaredy-cat). The surroundings were correspondingly gloomy/macabre.

Final Comments

Something was up with the final puzzle, as the action we were meant to perform did not bring about the outcome it should have. After many (many) attempts, though, it worked and we got out with about thirty seconds to spare!