Mindworks Escape Rooms: Smuggler’s Ruin

We absolutely loved the hosting here at Mindworks. We did Trapped for Cash first, and the this one, and both hosts were absolutely fantastic! Fogg was a great judge of team character and his introduction really had us immersed and ready for an adventure. 

The theming was beautiful and very immersive, and the puzzles were varied enough to keep us interested the whole time. Due to a great run through Trapped for Cash, we were warned that we would likely breeze through this room so we took our time with it and enjoyed the theming and story. However, even with our leisurely pace and me often just wandering around looking at the decorations, we reached the end in under half an hour and were left thinking "oh, are we done?".  Don't get me wrong, we absolutely loved this room, but we wanted more. Highly recommend for families or as a great introduction for newbies, but for experienced escapers, be warned, it will be a short game. Regardless, it was fun from start to finish!

What an introduction to Mindworks! Fogg was a brilliant host/GM and was perfect in his analysis of our team, and thus pitched his briefing just right (this is the first room I've taken over the briefing at one point (as a GM myself) and Fogg took a seat as if he was part of the team. It's the small touches 😉 ).

Room wise all the puzzles flowed nicely with good signposting. We overcomplicated a couple of things but some.... tactical clueing from Fogg (or perhaps a rouge gust of wind.. inside) came at just the right time to keep us moving along, on something we would have otherwise spent a wee bit of time on... .

Would have been good to have some sort of note-taking device for this room, though for the theme of the room perhaps harder to fit in. 

Well worth a trip down to the coast!

The Mindworks escape rooms have great decoration and theming, and this one had some unique physical and logic challenges, which we loved.  The host was engaging, both before and after the room.  STRONG recommend.  Room 5 for us!

This is a family friendly excursion into the dubious world of Gin smuggling.  None of the puzzles will surprise you but they are presented well and the overall theming is adequate for the story being conveyed.  Our GM was Jamie who was great throughout but I don't think we troubled him too much.  The overall layout is well utilised and features a great start as well.

A solid game presented well.

Great room, great hosting. Some unusual quirks with the hosting at the start that we weren't sure of at first but the hosting was done in a very immersive way without being too annoying, so it worked out well and we loved it. 

The room itself was full of surprises, some good unique puzzles and a fun ending. 

Immersive from the moment we stepped in, this game flowed flawlessly. A delightful combination of physicality and padlocks, it was a clever use of space that really demonstrated the skill of the design; a hybrid of introduction and gameplay blurred where the startline was, which was both novel and effective.

Pleasantly surprised by this game, as it delivers a very solid experience with a lovely set and elegant puzzles throughout. The hosting elevates it to another level - Fogg was brilliant and we can't see anyone else playing the role as well. Really liked the unique start to the game and just had a great time. Can't recommend this venue enough! 

We had a great time in this room - it was wonderfully hosted, they really involved the kids in the story (8 and 11) and we enjoyed the puzzles. Will look forward to seeing what this venue come up with next! 

Really enjoyed this room - I like that the reception room also formed part of the game. Some unique puzzles here although one maths based puzzle frustrated me but the reasoning behind it was sound. We made some of this more complicated than it needed to be and flew through other parts. The host was great and loved how they integrated themselves into game to provide hints. 

original start to the room and nice how involved our GM was. 6 and 9 year olds had plenty to help with and there were some really original puzzles. 

Lovely game and lovely hosting. Our host was very funny and had lots of little quips that made us laugh throughout. Also some really nice puzzles. Very much looking forward to more games from this company!