Reading, Jan 2025
Latest at Knockout is this game set in a launderette; you might correctly guess from the name that this is in fact a mafia-style theme, which mostly trades the usual smoky back room style setting for the suds and clothes of a dodgy laundrette. Your task is to investigate and find evidence sufficient to convict a certain mob boss before his trial starts.
I found it put me in a good mood as soon as we entered, through the bright colour scheme and the bouncy soundtrack, and also the many nice little details in how the fake laundrette is constructed. That was sustained through the high-tempo gameplay. This isn’t a collection game in the variable-score sense where you’re seeing how many puzzles you can crack in parallel before your time runs out. But it has some of that energy thanks to the proliferation of puzzles, with lots that you can get stuck into immediately and a steady flow of the satisfaction that comes from another lock popping open.
Much of the puzzle content here is classic escape room, ranging from physical interactions to colours and shapes and symbols, and other ideas that will be familiar but satisfying for enthusiast players.
The quantity of things to solve would make this a challenge for beginner teams, but in other respects it would be a very good introduction to escape rooms: well lit, busy and energetic, quick to reward players and give them a feeling of accomplishment. Those who’ve played lots of games may find it uses some ideas they’ve seen elsewhere, but it uses them well, and keeps them feeling fresh as – well, as a freshly laundered pile of banknotes. 
