Escape Now: Sherlock’s Secret

First of all, nice GM, although very softly spoken so her clues were difficult to hear over the music. 

Well themed room, even just the entrance to the room from the corridor, there was no mistaking it was a Sherlock theme. 

In terms of difficulty, we were told that teams of 6 often fail to escape, so to do it as a 2 we had done well. The puzzles/riddles were mainly well thought out but a couple just made no sense whatsoever and we needed help. 

We did enjoy the room, but the couple of illogical puzzles kinda spoilt it for us.

Our only failed game and quite simply it's because everything you need is not provided in the room. Loads of it is broken and the clue system is a walkie talkie that barely works. At one point you're given a 'clue' over the walkie talkie that is nearly thirty seconds worth of monologue which is vital to you then continuing the game, but there isn't time to write it down and you can only hear it again by radioing the host. Awful.

After asking for a clue in the game, we enquired afterwards as to how we were supposed to have achieved that task alone, our Games Master explained that this is an "immersive" experience, so she is part of the game and would always have given us this clue. This to me suggests the game is ultimately unachievable without assistance. To add to the unfairness of this, the Games Master is not dedicated to your game, so she wasn't there to interject when we reached that point of this linear game, so we lost time waiting for necessary assistance.

Other issues we had included;

- our introduction, delivered by the GM. She mentioned red coloured padlocks were not part of the game, but that they might be attached to something you need later. This put us on a road disaster immediately, as we took it to mean we would know when this object became part of the story. This object in actual fact, was the very first puzzle piece in this linear game, so we couldn't achieve anything until she radioed to tell us the game started with that object.

- The introduction included handing you a note with information you'll need later in the game. And I don't mean in a prop-y "you'll need this to complete your mission" kind of way. I mean in a "part of the game is either broken or missing, so here's the answer because you'll need it" kind of way.

- As she left the room, we realised our clock was already ticking and was already at 54min. We reported it over the radio and she said she would keep count, rather than reset it, and she would warn us in 15 minutes intervals. Our first time reminder was 35 minutes in. Our next was with just 5 minutes to go.

- That first prop is broken and resulted in me pricking my finger on a nail. Ultimately, the GM had to provide the answer to this first task because the prop was broken.

As you can see, our first 15 minutes or so we're an absolute disaster. It didn't get much better and although we were close to winning, a victory would not have felt like a victory given the level of assistance needed to make up for the issues with the game.

Props were broken, (a message on a record player had to be recited over the walkie talkie), many aspects of the game are so warn down they are hard to read, the lighting in the room made it hard to read. The GM is not dedicated to your game, despite being vital to its completion. Ultimately, this game is unplayable without support, as attested to by our GM. Given the amount of downtime companies like this have experienced in 2020, there is no excuse to why holes in the game aren't fixed and props and sets have not been repaired.

On a topical note, it was off putting to see the previous team leave as we arrived were not wearing masks, and then the GM handling their phone to take a photo. The GM was wearing a face mask and disposable gloves though, and assured us the locker for our stuff had been sanitised.