Deadlocked Escape Rooms Reading: The Time Machine

Time Machine is definitely the first game I’ve seen that claims a 60 second time limit - but of course there’s more to it than that. The time-warping plot actually has a 90 min limit in total; I won’t spoil details of the 60 second thing, but it’s a smart idea that provides the backbone of a game that is structured as a series of shorter vignettes.

For disclosure purposes I should make clear that the owners of Deadlocked are good friends of mine, and knowing that Time Machine is their pa...

We have just 60 seconds to fix a broken time machine before rifts in time change the world forever. Can we, and our robot helper, succeed?

We took to Escape the Review to find reviews to see which rooms in Reading got good reviews and The Time Machine at Deadlocked Escape Rooms had great reviews. We checked out the website to see what the room was about and it peaked our interest. Its a 90 minute room where you have 60 seconds to fix the time machine otherwise you would be spat out into a random time period each time. The concept sounded pretty original and so we booked as a group of three. We arrived at the building and the confirmation email told us what to do but I was just replying to some messages before our room begun as I didn't want to use my phone inside the building but our host appeared at the door. I'm going to be honest, he was completly different to any games master or host we've had for any escape room we've played before. It was almost as if he was new and unsure of what to do but he was left on his own and he just had to do it. He was quiet and distant and I couldn't quite work out if it was a character or not. We decended down the stair case and at the bottom we were told to put out belongings in a box. He then told us to go in this room and watch a video about the room we would be experiencing. We were told that we would have 60 seconds to fix the time machine but if we failed to fix it in that 60 seconds we would be kicked out into a different time period. The video finished and we were led into the room.