Bishop’s Stortford Escape Rooms: The Governor

Some great use of space within this room and puzzles with brilliant aha moments. The locks were in need of TLC as many were stiff even with the right code and the ending wasn’t great (but I believe this was because something was broken). 

We preferred the first half to the second half, but overall still a very good game with really inventive use of space and an appropriately grimy vibe

Theatrical, fun, flows really well. We just clicked with this room and flew through it, but didn't feel bored at any point.

We got to the last puzzle with a good amount of time left, but couldn't figure it out and thus failed.

For our group, we didn't click with this room at all - especially the second half felt very illogical. We struggled with broken tech (flashlight didn't work, two puzzles didn't trigger the needed outcome) and our GM seemed bored, disengaged, didn't notice when we finished puzzles and at some points it felt like they were just laughing at us.

Our main issue with the room is that there's often only one puzzles to solve, leaving little to do for the entire group other than stand in front of that one puzzle. 

We didn't find it scary, probably because we were mostly annoyed.

I was really scared throughout this! Loved the attention to detail, but it seemed to go on forever. Our games host was great! One of the puzzles I found a litttle inaccessible but our GH worked around it. Just escaped! 

We felt that some puzzles didn't really fit the theme super well (or at all) and there were a few things in one of the areas that felt like unnecessary red herrings - one thing in particular absolutely seemed like it was part of the game (any experienced player would assume it was) and one of the clues even related to it which was extremely misleading/confusing. Lights weren't switched on in one part of the game (found out afterwards from the GM that they were supposed to be) so we were in complete darkness which obviously made the game more difficult and somewhat dangerous due to the flooring in this area. Whiteboard pen also wasn't working, GM came into the room and gave us 6 more, none of which worked either which was fairly frustrating and made us lose time. 

Aside from this, The Governor was a good, immersive room and it's a shame there were just a few little issues that added up to detract from the experience.

Fun and quite scary. Lots of puzzles that were on the trickier side. Very enjoyable!

Much of the Governor was reviewed at another Franchise in Chelmsford by Toby (which you can find elsewhere on this site).

On the plus side then was a strong theme (Prison break/haunted/psycho combination), with a nice variety of puzzles (albeit that at times it felt a little bit disjointed). There was a nice series of spaces that took you on a journey through the Prison.

There are however a number of flaws in the game, which detracted from our experience, and many of which could be reasonably easily addressed to improve the experience. There were some puzzles where you needed to search a dimly lit room with one UV torch to know where to start – never a fun experience. Another puzzle had accessibility issues, where we knew exactly what the puzzle was asking to do, and came to a solution, but couldn’t work out what needed changing due to poor lighting. Whilst the venue has a habit of leaving redundant information as deliberate red herrings, there was a feature in one of the spaces which I was genuinely astonished was not labelled “not part of the game”. 

For larger groups, redundant information is unlikely to be as big an issue, since by dividing and conquering these can be relatively quickly eliminated. For smaller groups, it can be frustrating, particularly in a game with so many padlocks.

Of note is that whilst we failed this room as a pair, apparently no group of 2 had succeeded at the room (at least at that venue) beforehand, and the pass rate was averaging around 10% for a larger group. We failed to reach a certain part of the game, and yet apparently had done “incredibly well” for a group of 2, which felt rather jarring.

This is a game that with minor modifications could be brought up to a much closer level to their “Rob the bank” game.

Not suitable for young families, and those who scare easily should request adjustments from the Game Manager first.

I liked this game and it seemed to flow well.  Its a bit creepy so not one for small children or those easily frightened!  The puzzle all seemed to work well and it was a lot to do in 60mins so it definitely filled the time.  I don't feel we struggled on anything really and didnt have much time left at all.  Good solid game, nothing ground breaking but still a good one to play and I liked the set/theming.