Break Free Leicester: Spy Mission

First off I played this game at Clue HQ in Birmingham and that was a decent experience.  I played this renamed game as we were mean't to play Quarantine (now called "Ostracize") but it wasn't working correctly (this was our second attempt to play) so we were offered this room and the two people I was with hadn't played it before.  It didn't go well.  This branch of Clue HQ has recently been taken over by Break Free and it feels like we're still in a changeover period.  Two puzzles were broken and taken out of the game, one was quite broken but in play (I spotted how it was broken and was able to solve it but apparently I was the first person).  A year ago we played the "Vault" and I think I said then the room felt quite tired and in desperate need of a refresh.  This room is worse than that and is desperately in need of some TLC, it's a shame as there are some clever puzzles here (as I saw when I played the Birmingham version).  I never like writing bad reviews, the GM did her very best and was great throughout and nothing was her fault but it's hard to recommend this room in this state at this time.

Was fun theming, but for sure had more people than needed, especially for a relatively small room - often had 2 people just waiting, or feeling in the way during certain tasks. 

Also one of the puzzles involved a computer with a wireless mouse that massively lagged, meaning the wrong things were clicked, and certain buttons were off the screen that the host had to let us know there was an issue. That one puzzle took about half our time, which was a bit of a pain.

My first escape room. It was awesome. We did however manage to accidentally circumvent a puzzle. We didn't know, as it was our first Escape Room, but I don't feel like that should have been possible. Hopefully that will have been fixed by now, but because of it, I can't give a 5 star rating. 

Honestly, we played this with too many of us.  Do it either with a small team, or inexperienced players.  We're relatively experienced, and there are lots of parallel puzzles.  I don't remember how long we took but our host appeared breathless at the door 30 seconds after we escaped as he hadn't quite paid attention and didn't expect us to finish so fast!

As a guide, we turned up exactly on the dot of when we should have but somehow still missed the communal briefing with all the other teams.  Then after we got out, we had our victory photo, a nice chat with out host, a bit of a wait while they worked out if there were any free slots for other puzzles later in the week (they try to sell you a reduced rate voucher for another game afterwards, but as we were only around for a week there was no point if we couldn't use it), chatted some more, and still didn't see a single other person (we could hear them!) before leaving.

As we have learned is to be expected of Clue HQ this was a fun, solid game. Enough of a challenge to keep us busy (we split up immediately on the advice of GM) but not enough content to fill out the time. Good quality props and screens - just nothing particularly special. An ideal game for a less experienced team of two. Not all puzzle were very well linked to the narrative (but this is often the case with many rooms). Our main complaint was the lack of clarity on one of the clues, which we basically had to be told the answer to simply because the UV markers used were no longer visible. It's a shame as this is such an easy fix but requires care and attention from staff in order to prevent it from happening.

A small room - either do this with 2-3 people max. Lots of locks. Teamwork required but sad there wasn't a second room. Good intense ending.