Pier Pressure: A Christmas Carol

I very luckily got to play-test the game in an almost finished state. It was perfect.

You won't find better sets than an Edwardian Manor house, full of authentic furniture and smells, and augmented by a bit of high-tech wizardry here and there.

The team get to play roles (Scrooge, Tiny Tim, etc) and interact with some exceptional actors.

The puzzles are appropriate to the theming, not too easy (and harder than I expected for a family thing) but I can't see anyone other than a real Scrooge not liking the entire experience.

We really enjoyed this. OK, it's not the hardest or most complex escape activity we've done, but it had a quirky charm that won us all over and left us with a smile on our faces. The acting of the characters/hosts was excellent and some real thought had been put into the story and puzzles to connect them to Dickens' A Christmas Carol. 

The host mentioned that they might introduce a new game next year. If so, we'll definitely check it out.

We played the Christmas Carol Escape Room yesterday and had a really good time! It was a fun mix of escape room and immersive theatre – the puzzles were interesting and a good mix of challenging puzzles and easier ones.

The ‘games masters’ were great with hints and nudges in the right direction but only when we actually needed them, so we never felt stuck. They also really brought the experience to life – fully in costume and character throughout. Speaking of being in costume – we were also given characters to play, which I thought would be naff but instead was fun and made us feel properly part of the story rather than observers, without intruding on the puzzle solving experience.

It was a great venue for an escape room experience as it felt authentic being in and around a working mill. Must give special mention to the effort put into a number of the props and set pieces – they were excellent. Highly recommend visiting as a family or group of friends, you’ll have a great time!