Happy Christmas! Here’s a quick list of the new UK games that have opened in December.
You have seven hours left to escape 2023 – on your marks, go!
Greater London
From last month’s update:
🎄 Chronos One Escape Rooms (Eltham): The Secret Christmas Workshop
🎄 clueQuest (Central London): Plan52: Snow Way Out
South East England
🔒 Hounds in Crawley have launched their long-awaited Acid Bath Murderer Experience. This is not an escape room as such but is an immersive experience (hopefully not literally, given the theme! 😅) with challenges to complete.
🔒 Escape From The Room have expanded from the Sutton / Epsom / Wallington area to open a new branch in High Wycombe. The games open so far are Chambers of Champions and Enigma Express (which is actually a set of different games sharing the same physical space, as at their other branches).
🔒 The Donnington Hotel in Sevenoaks also operates games by Escape From The Room, and have now opened a copy of Crypt of the Cursed.
🔒 Escape Hunt has a new game called Excalibur. For now it’s only available in their Woking branch.
🎭 Not an escape room, but The Panic Room are now offering D&D tabletop gaming experiences along their many many other activities.
🔒 City Mazes Oxford opened a copy of Bunker Blowout (also available in Bristol).
🔒 I was very sad to hear that Maidstone’s Escape Hub is closing down, with the last dates for their games between now and the 28th. Well worth making a quick trip to them while you still can, and I’ll be hoping they re-open in a new location.
Also new, from last month’s update:
🎄 ClueCapers Limited (Winchester): Operation Jingle Bell
🎄 CTRL ALT ESC (Margate): Operation 12 Days, Operation Partridge in a Pear Tree
🎄 Time2Escape (Frittenden): Secret Santa
🎄 TimeQuest (Paddock Wood): Elf Magic 4: Claus For Concern
South West England
🔒 Enigma Escape Cornwall is not so much new as newly independent, having taken over the Truro branch of Eureka Escape with existing games Don’t Panic, Life After Death, The Bletchley Test and Operation: Mince Pie.
🎄 All Stars have a Christmas version of their room The Deep, with all new puzzles, which didn’t make it onto last month’s round-up.
🎄 Same with Trapped in Gloucester – their Xmas game is Save Christmas.
Also new, from last month’s update:
🎄 The Great Big Escape (Dorchester): Saving Santa’s Magic
Wales
🎄 Elves Home Alone is another one for the Christmas rooms list, at Rhondda Escape Rooms.
Also new, from last month’s update:
🔒 The Escape Game Carmarthen: [Redacted]
West Midlands
From last month’s update:
🔒 Houdini’s Worcester: Escape From Alcatraz, Escape From R.M.S. Titanic, Room 13
🔒 XscapeNow (Telford): The Traitor
East Midlands
From last month’s update:
🔒 Deadlock Escape Rooms (Mablethorpe): Candyland
East of England
🔒 I don’t normally include VR companies here, but Realms in Clacton not only have a range of VR escape rooms, but it looks like they’ll be opening physical escape rooms in the future.
🔒 Agent Brains opened a medieval castle room with the irresistible name of Escape The Knight.
🎄 Another late addition to the Xmas games list: Witham Escape Rooms opened Christmas Candy Chaos.
Also new, from last month’s update:
🎄 EO Escape Rooms (Sudbury): Joey’s Revenge
🎄 Ware Escape Rooms: Saint Nicholas 2023
North West England
🔒 Lucardo’s Manchester branch launched their newest room Derailed, a crime story set on a train.
Also new, from last month’s update:
🎄 Exit Strategy (Isle of Man): Christmas Unlocked
🎄 Lakes Escapes (Workington): Freezy The Snowman
🔒 Lockdown Ormskirk: Valhalla
🎄 moviESCAPE (Stockport): Santa’s Cabin 2023
North East England
🔒 The Riddle Room have ambitious plans for 2024. They’ve announced a three part zombie game, with each installment available for four months before being replaced by the next. Alongside that they also have a separate new room called The Witness, which will open soon and which will also run for four months before being replaced by the next.
🎄 EXIT Newcastle’s Xmas room missed last month update; it’s called Help Save Christmas.
Yorkshire & the Humber
🎄 One more Xmas room for the list: Beverley Escape Rooms have Santa’s Elite Squad (S.E.S) – The Final Interview, still open for one more week.
🍸 The rumour mill says that Enigma Rooms Doncaster have plans for a themed bar and restaurant to complement their games venue.
Also new, from last month’s update:
🎄 Escapable (Wakefield): Elf HQ, Santa’s Presents Got Stuck Up The Chimney
🎄 Escape Room Scarborough: Elf Made Christmas, Spirits of the Season
Houdini’s Sheffield: Creepy Carnival, Escape From Alcatraz, Escape From R.M.S. Titanic, Room 13
Scotland
🔒 I wasn’t sure whether their escape rooms were available yet, but the Shapeshifters bar in Aberdeen has in fact been running them since October – both The Resurrectionist and now Cluedo: Murder of a Millionaire, with two more planned.
🔒 Ayrshire Mobile Escape Rooms added a fourth game to their roster, Cluedo (unrelated to the above!).
Also new, from last month’s update:
🎄 In Time (Ayr): Reindeer’s Arms
Play from home
📹 Of the many innovative home games released during the pandemic, The Keeper and the Fungus Among Us was the puppet musical puzzling experience we never realised we needed. Headlock Games have now launched a prequel, Rise of the Fungi. It’s somehow already reached the top of the play from home rankings (!), so I’m pretty confident this will be a must-play treat.
🖥️ And if you prefer the unhosted play-anytime type of game, Elgin Escape have a new game called Killer Above The Clouds.
Also new, from last month’s update:
📦 Escape Hunt Play At Home: A Christmas Sabotage
And also
🎭 There’s a particular type of experience where teams play many small challenge rooms, such as Prison Island or Boda Borg. Chris Dickson, who started the first ever directory of UK escape rooms, has set up a site to list these and make them easy to find: https://www.challengearcades.com/.
🏆 The 2023 TERPECA winners are out, and a big congrats to Escape Quest for getting not one but two trophies! Also to the many other UK companies with finalists – with some incredibly tough competition from around the world, that’s already quite the achievement.
🏆 I’ll soon be posting the list of 100 highest ranked UK escape rooms for 2023; and this year for the first time there’ll be a vote for which should be crowned the very best. More news there to follow very soon indeed!
With the usual thanks to Pris for helping trawl through several hundred websites checking for updates!